U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

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THE FUTURE OF HOUSING IN AMERICA: 

OVERSIGHT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF 

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 12, 2017 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services 

Serial No. 115–47 

( 

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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas, Chairman 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina, 

Vice Chairman 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri 

BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan 

SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin 

STEVE STIVERS, Ohio 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida 

ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina 

ANN WAGNER, Missouri 

ANDY BARR, Kentucky 

KEITH J. ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

SCOTT TIPTON, Colorado 

ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas 

BRUCE POLIQUIN, Maine 

MIA LOVE, Utah 

FRENCH HILL, Arkansas 

TOM EMMER, Minnesota 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia 

THOMAS MacARTHUR, New Jersey 

WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio 

TED BUDD, North Carolina 

DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee 

CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York 

TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana 

MAXINE WATERS, California, Ranking 

Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

AL GREEN, Texas 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

JAMES A. HIMES, Connecticut 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan 

JOHN K. DELANEY, Maryland 

KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona 

JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio 

DENNY HECK, Washington 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey 

VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas 

CHARLIE CRIST, Florida 

RUBEN KIHUEN, Nevada 

KIRSTEN SUTTON MORK, Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

October 12, 2017 ............................................................................................... 1 

Appendix: 

October 12, 2017 ............................................................................................... 58 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017 

Carson, Hon. Ben, Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development .................................................................................................................. 5 

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Carson, Hon. Ben .............................................................................................. 58 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Beatty, Hon. Joyce: 

Letter to Hon. Ben Carson ............................................................................... 63 

Response letter from Seth Appleton on behalf of Hon. Ben Carson ............ 66 

Duffy, Hon. Sean: 

Work Requirements Study from the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, dated September 2015 ......................................... 67 

Waters, Hon. Maxine: 

Written Statement of the National Housing Law Project ............................. 94 

Carson, Hon. Ben: 

Written responses to questions for the record submitted by Representative Hultgren ................................................................................................. 103 

Written responses to questions for the record submitted by Representative Sherman ................................................................................................. 106 

Written responses to questions for the record submitted by Representative Stivers .................................................................................................... 108 

Written responses to questions for the record submitted by Representative Waters .................................................................................................... 111 

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THE FUTURE OF HOUSING IN AMERICA: 

OVERSIGHT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF 

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT 

Thursday, October 12, 2017 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, 

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:33 a.m., in room 

2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jeb Hensarling [chairman of the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Hensarling, Royce, Pearce, Posey, 

Luetkemeyer, Huizenga, Duffy, Stivers, Hultgren, Ross, Pittenger, 

Wagner, Barr, Rothfus, Tipton, Williams, Poliquin, Love, Hill, 

Emmer, Zeldin, Trott, Loudermilk, Mooney, MacArthur, Davidson, 

Budd, Kustoff, Tenney, Hollingsworth, Waters, Maloney, Velazquez, Sherman, Meeks, Capuano, Clay, Scott, Green, Cleaver, 

Perlmutter, Himes, Foster, Kildee, Sinema, Beatty, Heck, Vargas, 

Gottheimer, Gonzalez, Crist, and Kihuen. 

Chairman HENSARLING. The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time, and all members will have 5 legislative days 

within which to submit extraneous materials to the chair for inclusion in the record. 

This hearing is entitled ‘‘The Future of Housing in America: 

Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.’’ 

I now recognize myself for 3–1/2 minutes to give an opening 

statement. 

Today, we welcome the 17th secretary of the Department of 

Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, for his first appearance before our committee. Welcome, sir. 

At least in one respect, he may be among the most qualified individuals to ever serve as HUD secretary. Why? Because Secretary 

Carson was raised by a single mother who had a third-grade education. He grew up in poor communities in Detroit and Boston, 

lived in multi-family housing with boarded up windows and doors, 

surrounded by sirens, gangs, and murders. 

Not only does he understand poverty personally and viscerally, 

he understands what it takes to escape it, and he is passionate 

about helping others escape, as well. He also understands that 

HUD’s approach to eliminating poverty and urban decay too often 

fails, and thankfully, he is committed to changing it. 

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When it was created 52 years ago, HUD was intended to be the main weapon in the war on poverty. Now, 52 years later and $1.6 

trillion later, the poverty rate remains basically unchanged. Sadly, 

despite all this spending, HUD has failed to live up to the noble 

aspirations of its birth. 

I do not wish to diminish the valuable work that HUD does. It 

is an invaluable part of our Nation’s social safety net, especially 

tenant-based Section 8 housing for the elderly and disabled. But I 

remind all that, for the able-bodied, there is no better affordable 

housing program than a growing economy that creates better jobs, 

bigger paychecks and brighter tomorrows. 

After suffering from 8 years of bad public policy, leading to a 

sluggish economy that has been growing at barely half of the historic norm, working Americans deserve better. They deserve fundamental tax reform as proposed by the President and Republicans, 

a fairer, flatter, simpler, more competitive tax system. 

There hasn’t been any significant tax reform in a century that 

hasn’t grown the economy and grown tax revenues. I remind all, 

in the first 5 years after the Kennedy tax relief plan was passed, 

the economy grew by 48 percent and Federal revenues increased by 

66 percent. This growth erased a $5 billion point deficit and turned 

it into a $3.2 billion surplus. 

When Congress enacted the Reagan tax relief package, the economy grew by 42 percent over the next 5 years, and Federal revenues surged by 28 percent. Even going back to the Coolidge era, 

a series of tax relief measures passed during that administration 

resulted in annual average economic growth of 4.7 percent. 

So we have it time and time again: When we remove the burdens 

of excessive taxation and allow the American people to keep more 

of what they earn, we unleash the potential to create prosperity 

and opportunity for everyone. That is not economic theory; it is economic history, and it is the very embodiment of affordable housing. 

I also wonder, how can we be for affordable housing, yet oppose 

allowing working Americans to keep more of their paychecks? And 

that is exactly what the Republican tax reform framework does: allows working Americans to keep more of their paychecks. 

So I look forward to hearing more of the secretary’s new vision 

for HUD and the programs that he and his team are beginning to 

reform. I now yield to the ranking member for an opening statement. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

America is currently in the midst of the worst rental housing crisis that we have ever experienced. It is hitting our lowest income 

families the hardest. According to the National Low Income Coalition, the United States has a shortage of 7.2 million affordable 

rental units for extremely low-income households. 

Our country is also at a virtual standstill when it comes to reducing homelessness, and in some parts of the country, homelessness 

has reached crisis proportions. We also face homeownership challenges, with minority homeownership rates continuing to lag, even 

as the housing market recovers. 

In the face of the immense housing needs in our country, President Trump chose Dr. Ben Carson to serve as the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The secretary of 

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HUD is supposed to be at the forefront of our efforts to create 

strong communities; expand access to safe, decent and affordable 

housing; and enforce fair housing rights. 

Housing is the foundation on which our entire society is built. It 

is a platform for economic mobility and well-being. It is a crucial 

part of our national economy. It is a necessary human right. We 

need strong leadership and a bold vision for HUD in order to expand access to affordable housing in this country. 

Unfortunately, I have seen nothing to indicate that Secretary 

Carson is up to the challenge. Secretary Carson has expressed 

views that are deeply alarming and antithetical to his role as HUD 

secretary, such as describing poverty as, quote ‘‘more of a choice 

than anything else’’. And saying he doesn’t think public housing 

should be too, quote ‘‘comfortable’’. 

His few actions so far as HUD secretary are deeply troubling, as 

well. Secretary Carson has supported a budget that slashes funding 

for critical housing programs and proposes humble rent increases 

on some of the most vulnerable American families. He has also 

moved to roll back important Obama Administration policies and 

initiatives with little or no explanation. 

So I am very much looking forward to hearing from Secretary 

Carson today about his actions so far and his plans for serving our 

Nation’s most vulnerable families. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my 

time. 

Chairman HENSARLING. The chair now recognizes the gentleman 

from Wisconsin, Mr. Duffy, the chairman of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee, for 1–1/2 minutes. 

Mr. DUFFY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome—I don’t know if it is Secretary or Doctor or Dr. Secretary. Welcome either way, whatever the proper title is. 

I think you can tell you are going to be in for an interesting hearing today based on the opening statement of the ranking member. 

I would note that poor people have been worse off over the last 

8 years, and minorities have fared worse than the rest of the population. And I would argue that, with a growing bureaucracy, a bigger government, a collectivist mentality, you gut the middle class. 

Poor people get poorer, rich people get richer. It happens whenever 

you implement these policies. 

And to go back to a system that gives people a hand up, that 

helps move them from poverty—like yourself—into the middle 

class, one of the greatest brain surgeons the country has seen, is 

the American dream, is the American story. So I am looking forward to your testimony today. 

I know you have a lot of reforms that you want to discuss with 

us. I am looking forward to hearing that. I would also like to hear 

your vision on—because the prior secretary—when they would look 

at success of HUD, success was viewed in the realm of ‘‘How many 

people do we get into the system, how many people do we help 

through HUD,’’ versus the mentality of ‘‘How many people not just 

do I get in, but how many people can I move out of the system? 

How many people can I get to stand on their own two feet?’’ 

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What is the measure of success in HUD? Look forward to your 

views on housing finance reform, on rural poverty. And my time is 

up, so I yield back. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. The 

chair now recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver, 

the ranking member of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee, 

for 1 minute. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The future of housing in America—it strikes me as significant. 

Thank you for being here, Mr. Secretary. 

I have all the comments, but I may be of greater value if I just 

tell you that I sat down with Shaq, Shaquille O’Neal, to tell him 

how his father-in-law and I grew up. We grew up two blocks apart. 

I lived at 405B Bailey, he lived at 512, in the projects. I ended up 

getting the opportunity to move out faster than they did. 

We—my father saved money, bought a lot, bought a house, 

moved the house to the lot—I mentioned to you. And I always 

think, ‘‘Well, what would have happened if nobody had helped my 

mother and father as they were struggling to make a living for four 

children?’’ 

I will end the story, because I—my time is out—just to say that 

I have three sisters, all with degrees, one with a Ph.D. What would 

have happened if they had ignored us? Housing is important to me. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. The 

chair now recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Kildee, the 

vice ranking member, for 1 minute. 

Mr. KILDEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking 

Member Waters. And I am glad we are having this hearing, Mr. 

Secretary. I am glad you are here. The condition of America’s cities 

and towns is a subject that is the jurisdiction of this committee and 

your department. And I think, in neither case—for some time, to 

be fair to you, preceding your entry into this position—that subject 

has not had nearly the attention that it should. 

Unfortunately, for decades, important investment in cities and 

towns—CDBG, the HOME program—have faced really deep cuts. 

I grew up in Flint just around the same time you were growing up 

in Detroit. We had a similar childhood experience. And a lot of people know Flint now because of this terrible crisis that it is facing, 

coming out of this poisoning of its water. 

But the truth behind Flint’s story is that it was on the brink of 

insolvency, largely because the State of Michigan and the Federal 

Government had eliminated essential support for the development 

and redevelopment of those places. 

I am anxious to hear how you can square your suggestions to cut 

further those programs with the sworn oath you took to uphold the 

mission of the department. Thank you. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

Today, we welcome the testimony of the Honorable Ben Carson. 

This is the first time Secretary Carson has appeared before this 

committee. Dr. Ben Carson, M.D., was sworn in as the 17th secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 

on March 2nd, 2017. 

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Secretary Carson earned a Bachelor’s degree from Yale University, and received his M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School. Previously, Secretary Carson served as Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. 

Without objection, the witness’s written statement will be made 

part of the record. 

Secretary Carson, you are now recognized to give an oral presentation of your testimony. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BEN CARSON, SECRETARY, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT 

Secretary CARSON. Chairman Hensarling, Ranking Member Waters, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to discuss the work that we do at the Department of Housing and Urban 

Development and my plans for fulfilling our mission with fidelity 

to our congressional mandate and the best interest of the American 

people. 

First, please know that, right now, HUD is involved in the Federal response to multiple hurricanes that devastated areas of 

Texas, Florida, Georgia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. 

HUD’s team is coordinating with our Federal, State, territorial, 

and local agency partners in the field, providing housing solutions 

for survivors, and helping HUD-assisted clients and FHA-insured 

borrowers. In the long term, HUD will play a key role in recovery 

efforts in these disaster-impacted regions as they rebuild. Helping 

these communities is and will remain a priority for me and this administration. 

America has changed greatly since HUD was established as part 

of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs half a century ago. 

And we must learn to evolve with the country. Many Americans 

still struggle to find affordable housing. Chronic homelessness continues to plague tens of thousands of our countrymen. And many 

millions remain mired in poverty, rather than being guided on a 

path out of it. 

History has made clear that spending more taxpayer dollars does 

not necessarily create better outcomes. We must constantly evaluate our programs to ensure that we are delivering services effectively and efficiently to HUD’s constituents and responding to today’s challenges with the best practices and technologies. 

Since I arrived at HUD in March, it has been my mission to employ the wealth of knowledge held by career staff to improve our 

services, reform our programs and remain careful stewards of taxpayer dollars. 

After several months of hard work, our team has outlined a bold 

plan for institutional reform and improvement that will better 

serve all Americans. It is called the Forward Initiative. The policy 

elements of the Forward Initiative each fall under what we have 

named the 3 Rs: reimagine how HUD works, restore the American 

dream and rethink American communities. 

First, reimagining how HUD works refers to our internal processes, working conditions and training. The goal of every improvement made at HUD is to provide better service to those in need. 

Second, our job is to restore the American dream, getting Americans back on their feet and permanently improving their lives. Of 

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course, HUD is committed to continuing to serve those families 

that might always need someone to lean on. 

Additionally, we have an opportunity to eliminate veterans’ 

homelessness in America. They sacrificed for our country and deserve all the support we can give. 

And finally, we need to rethink American communities and how 

we can make them thrive. Expanding community investment 

through public-private partnerships produces better results than 

heavy-handed government intervention. 

It is also our special priority to help more American families live 

in healthy homes, free of lead hazards and other poisonous substances. As a doctor, I have seen firsthand the tragic consequences 

of childhood exposure to dangerous building materials. Ridding our 

homes of these hazards is a worthy cause with great benefits to future generations. 

While pursuing its mission to provide safe, decent, and affordable 

housing for the American people, the HUD team is also cognizant 

of its vital duty to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars. 

The President has directed Federal agencies to take special care 

against burdening American families and their businesses with unnecessary and expensive regulations. HUD is reviewing its existing 

regulations to assess their compliance costs, reduce regulatory burden and build a more efficient and effective agency. 

Let me close by reiterating the interest of our administration and 

my personal interest in working with this committee on housing finance reform. HUD will be an active participant in this critical dialog because of our fundamental housing mission, and because our 

FHA mortgage insurance program and our Ginnie Mae mortgagebacked security guarantee are large and vital components of the 

Nation’s housing finance system. 

Housing finance reform should be built on shared goals of ensuring a well-functioning housing finance system that provides access 

for credit-worthy borrowers that are ready to own a home, expands 

the role of the private sector and reduces overall taxpayer exposure. 

Thank you again for inviting me to testify today, and I welcome 

any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Secretary Carson can be found on 

page 58 of the appendix.] 

Chairman HENSARLING. The chair now recognizes himself for 5 

minutes for questions. 

Secretary Carson, my colleague, the gentleman from Wisconsin, 

Mr. Duffy, alluded in his opening statement to, really, kind of 

metrics of success. And there are some who view the success of 

HUD to be tied to the size of its budget or the number of people 

who have Section 8 vouchers. 

But I am curious—does HUD have, or is HUD developing any 

different metric? How many people actually get to escape poverty? 

How many able-bodied individuals are able to escape poverty, to 

move beyond Section 8 housing, and maybe at one point enjoy the 

dream of homeownership? 

Does HUD have any way to measure this? Are we looking at this 

wrong? Should there be a different metric of success for what you 

are doing? 

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Secretary CARSON. There have been a number of studies over the 

course of decades, and, as was mentioned in your opening statement, there hasn’t been a tremendous amount of progress there. 

Now, this is not because the people who have been there have 

had bad intentions. I think they had very good intentions. But we 

do have to look at the fact that we are not making a great deal 

of progress with poverty. 

And that is why we looking to reform this whole thing and—really looking more at the person than at the housing complex. Housing is a component of developing people, and we have to recognize 

that we only have 330 million people in this country. 

We have to compete, in the future, with China and India, who 

have four times that many people. That means, if we don’t develop 

all of our people, we are not going to be able to keep up in the future. It is as simple as that. 

So we have to start thinking in terms of holistic development of 

people, holistic development of communities. How do we enable 

people to climb that ladder of opportunity? How do we incentivize 

them to climb that ladder of opportunity so that they become part 

of the strength of this country? 

Chairman HENSARLING. Part of affordable housing is obviously 

tied to our housing finance system. Recently, Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell said, quote ‘‘If Congress does not enact reforms over the next few years, we are at risk of settling for the status quo: a government-dominated mortgage market with insufficient private capital to protect taxpayers and insufficient competition to drive innovation.’’ Do you agree or disagree with Governor 

Powell’s assessment? 

Secretary CARSON. There is no question that we need to engage 

in a serious discussion about finance reform. There—a lot of 

progress has been made, by the way. 10 years ago—we were talking about how important it was to get everybody into homeownership. 

And, again, I am not criticizing the people who did that. But I 

don’t think they realize that to put somebody in a home that they 

can’t afford is not really doing them a favor. They lose the home. 

They lose their credit. They lose their future opportunities. 

We have to learn from those kinds of situations. And innovation 

is the hallmark of America. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Mr. Secretary, can we reform our housing finance system without reforming FHA, which is obviously 

under HUD? 

Secretary CARSON. FHA, as you probably know, is the largest 

guarantor of mortgages in the world. So it is a central part of it 

and needs to be reformed as well. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Historically, the mission of FHA was to 

support first-time and low-income—low to moderate-income families, and it had a small footprint in the market. Now, it has a very 

large footprint in the market and, in many areas of the U.S., the 

FHA loan limits are the same as the conventional market— 

$636,150 in so-called high-cost areas. 

At least where I come from, only the top wage earners can afford a mortgage of $636,000. Do you agree that establishing a home 

price or loan limit more in line, say, with the median home price 

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in the area will better serve the target customer for FHA and get 

it refocused on low to moderate-income and first-time home buyers? 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you for that question. If one looks at 

the actual statistics and looks at the bell curve 95 percent of the 

mortgages fall in the $200,000 range. 

On the very tips, there are going to be very low ones and very 

high ones. So I tend to want to focus on the large group, and not 

on the outliers. It is very, very rare that we deal with a $636,000 

mortgage. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

I now recognize the ranking member for 5 minutes. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much. 

I had intended to start to talk about the housing crisis that we 

have. But, since the President was busy tweeting this morning and 

you referred to HUD’s role in dealing with the hurricane disasters 

and what you and the administration are doing, this morning, 

Trump threatened to abandon Puerto Rico recovery efforts. 

President Trump served notice Thursday that he may pull back 

Federal relief workers from Puerto Rico, effectively threatening to 

abandon the U.S. territory amid a staggering humanitarian crisis 

in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. 

In a trio of tweets, he wrote, ‘‘We cannot keep FEMA, the military and the first responders, who have been amazing, in Puerto 

Rico forever.’’ On Thursday, he sought to shame the territory for 

its own plight. He tweeted, ‘‘Electric and all infrastructure was a 

disaster before hurricanes.’’ 

So you talked about what you, HUD, is doing in cooperation 

with, I guess, the administration. Do you agree with the President? 

Secretary CARSON. I certainly agree that Puerto Rico is a very 

important territory. The people from Puerto Rico have contributed 

greatly to the culture of America. 

Ms. WATERS. I am not talking about that. What I am talking 

about is these tweets where the President threatened to abandon 

Puerto Rico recovery efforts. Do you agree that they should be 

abandoned, that Puerto Rico should be abandoned? 

Secretary CARSON. First of all, as I was saying, Puerto Rico is a 

very important— 

Ms. WATERS. No, I know it is important. But I want to know— 

Secretary CARSON. —Part of our culture, and as a result of that, 

we are not going to abandon them. 

Ms. WATERS. —Whether or not you agree with the President, 

who is threatening to abandon Puerto Rico recovery efforts. 

Secretary CARSON. I think I just said I have no intention of abandoning Puerto Rico. They are a very important part of who we are. 

Ms. WATERS. So, you don’t agree with the President. He tweeted, 

‘‘Electric and all infrastructure was a disaster before the hurricanes,’’ and sought to shame the territory for its own plight. Do you 

share that opinion? 

Secretary CARSON. I think that our job is to make sure that we 

take care of the disaster that has occurred. 

Ms. WATERS. So you don’t agree that it should be abandoned. Is 

that right? 

Secretary CARSON. Of course it should not be abandoned. 

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Ms. WATERS. And you don’t think that they should be shamed for 

its own plight, is that right? 

Secretary CARSON. There is no question that there have been a lot of difficulties in Puerto Rico. They ended up $80 billion— 

Ms. WATERS. Should they be shamed for its own plight? 

Secretary CARSON. —In debt. 

Ms. WATERS. Talked about— 

Secretary CARSON. I don’t think—I don’t think it is beneficial to 

go around shaming people in general. 

Ms. WATERS. OK. So I am glad to hear you don’t agree with the 

President. 

Let me go on with my housing question. I want to talk about 

someone who I recently met by the name of Larry, who resides in 

a Section 202 housing for the elderly property in south Los Angeles. 

Larry shared with me the meticulous monthly budget he manages for himself. I have the budget right here. He lives on a fixed 

income of $1,015 per month. After paying for rent, utilities, groceries, medical expenses, personal hygiene, he has exactly $110 left 

at the end of the month. He told me he looks forward to using some 

of that $110 to take his granddaughter out for ice cream. 

The rent increases proposed in your recent HUD budget would mean an $80 monthly increase for Larry. Larry said to me in my 

office, ‘‘Congresswoman, I don’t know which other corner I could 

cut if I had to pay an additional $80 per month in rent.’’ 

In fact, I have data that shows that seniors would have to pay an additional $83 a month, on average, in rent under your rent reform proposal, which is a whopping 28 percent increase over what 

they are currently paying. 

There are low-income seniors in HUD assisted housing all over this country, like Larry, with average incomes just over $13,000 a 

year. Do you mean to tell me it is the vision of this administration 

to raise rents on low-income seniors like Larry? Tell me, what do 

you expect Larry to do if your proposal to raise rent is enacted? 

Secretary CARSON. If Larry does not see a way out, he can apply 

for an exemption, which will be available to him. 

Having said that, we are changing programs in such a way as 

to create sustainability. We don’t want to reach a point 5 years 

down the road, where we have no ability to take care of anyone. 

Ms. WATERS. Let me just say that I have heard you mention before that hardship exemptions will be available, but I do not accept 

that as an adequate solution, because hardship exemptions have 

historically failed to actually help people who are eligible for an exemption, and you have never even acknowledged this. 

So I ask you again, what do you expect Larry and the tens of 

thousands of other seniors like Larry to do in the face of such a 

dramatic rent increase? 

Secretary CARSON. First of all, I think the situation that you just 

described is not a typical situation. I don’t believe that elderly and 

disabled people will see that large of an increase. Those are not the 

numbers that I have received. 

Ms. WATERS. Based on your cuts, they will. 

Secretary CARSON. We will be— 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time. 

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Secretary CARSON. —We will be very happy to have our people 

go over the numbers with you. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. 

Duffy, chairman of our Housing and Insurance Subcommittee. 

Mr. DUFFY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to just deviate from my original questions and note that 

the President was somewhat accurate, in that the electrical grid in 

Puerto Rico was not up to what it should have been. They are highly in debt. There are a lot of problems in Puerto Rico that they 

were dealing with before Maria hit them. 

And I love the island. I am part of the Puerto Rican caucus, was 

part of PROMESA. But to now try to say that President Trump is 

shaming people on the island—if I am not mistaken, it was President Trump who sent over a request for supplemental package to 

the tune of $36 billion. That came from the White House. 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. And I can tell you from being in many 

conversations with the President and other members of the Cabinet, he is in no way thinking about abandoning them. He has put 

a lot of effort into that. 

Mr. DUFFY. And, speaking to that point, I think it was President 

Obama who did just a fly by stop in, in Puerto Rico, but then went 

and spent days in Cuba, hanging out with a ruthless dictator, going 

to see baseball games, hands in the air. 

Open up—open up tourism in Cuba, to the exclusion of tourism 

in Puerto Rico. We should first go—let’s promote American citizens 

in Puerto Rico and dollars flowing there, instead of to the dictatorship of Cuba. 

I am off my questions, but I had to respond to the ranking member’s, I think, inaccurate characterization of what President Trump 

has done on behalf of the good people of Puerto Rico. 

I want to pivot, and I don’t have a lot of time. Can you talk 

about—when you look at HUD, when you look at the tax dollars 

that flow through your agency, what are you doing to be more efficient, to stretch those dollars further and help more people, but 

also be responsive to the taxpayers who send you money? What are 

you doing on those ends? 

Secretary CARSON. I take responsibility to taxpayers very seriously, and we have put in place a team that understands that seriousness. We are—we have hired a COO, a CIO and a CFO—hopefully we will get through very soon, it has been named—so that we 

can begin to look at things from the 30,000 point of view—30,000- 

foot point of view, rather than just patching little things that don’t 

seem to work, which has sort of been the way that things have 

been done in the past; running it, really, more like a business; assigning responsibilities to people in all of the different areas so that 

you don’t pass the buck to someone else. 

Mr. DUFFY. Refreshing. I think I heard the ranking member 

mention this—that people shouldn’t be too comfortable in public 

housing—I think she was quoting you. 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. 

Mr. DUFFY. What did you mean by that? 

Secretary CARSON. I thank you for giving me an opportunity to 

clarify that. We were in a transitional housing setting, and they 

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11 

were getting people out three times to four times faster than other 

transitional housing. And I wanted to know how they were doing 

that. It was because they were concentrating their efforts and their 

resources on getting people into permanent housing, and I said, 

‘‘That is a very good idea.’’ 

There was a New York Times reporter there who sort of misinterpreted that—or, actually, she did a better job, but her editors 

reinterpreted that—to say that Carson thinks that they shouldn’t 

be comfortable. What a bunch of crap that is. 

Mr. DUFFY. Thank you for that. Listen, I don’t—I know that poverty is not comfortable. I know that you know that, as well, as 

someone who lived that firsthand, especially growing up. 

But when we talk about being—trying to make people comfortable in poverty, as opposed to trying to incent people to get out 

of poverty and get into the middle class—if you look at your life 

experience, would you be better off if you and your mother and 

your family had been made comfortable to stay where you were in 

public housing and in poverty, or to incentivize you to become the 

great doctor and now secretary that you are? 

Secretary CARSON. I can tell you that, at the time when my 

mother was pushing us, I would have preferred to—somebody, 

make me comfortable there. I didn’t want her to make me read 

these reports and give her all these reports. 

But in retrospect by reading, particularly about successful people 

in all endeavors, I began to realize what is necessary, and to realize the person who has the most to do with what happens to you 

is you. 

And what we have to do is help more people to not only recognize 

that, but to give them the means whereby they can take advantage 

of the opportunities that exist in our society. 

Mr. DUFFY. I don’t have much time, and I—we talked about this 

in the past, but I just want to make this note: I am concerned in 

rural America—how programs impact low-income, homeless people 

in rural America, as opposed to urban America, whether it is better 

structures, and I think more money flows. 

But poverty in rural America is just as dangerous and treacherous and sad as in urban America, and making sure there is some 

equity between the two—I look forward to continuing to work with 

you on how we can address these issues in rural America and 

thank you for your— 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time. 

Mr. DUFFY. —Service. I yield back. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. 

Meeks. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary, good to see you. 

Secretary CARSON. You too. 

Mr. MEEKS. Let me first just say that Puerto Rico needs all the 

help that it can get, and we need to make sure that we are doing 

what we need to do. And I would also say that the U.S. Virgin Islands, because I didn’t hear you mention—but the U.S. Virgin Islands cannot be forgotten about. 

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Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands are American citizens, and 

we need to do all that we can to make sure that the conditions that 

they are in, due to no fault of their own, but this national disaster—that HUD does what it can to make sure that these individuals get back on their feet. 

Secretary CARSON. Agreed. 

Mr. MEEKS. Now, our life story is somewhat similar. I grew up 

in public housing, which is very important to me. And the opportunity to move on there was great, in the sense that there was— 

looking for homeownership. 

And I know—and I think that you said during your testimony 

that there has not been a tremendous amount of progress at relieving poverty with housing programs. I could tell you that, if it 

wasn’t for housing programs, I probably would still be in poverty. 

And I could name friend after friend after friend who grew up 

in the same public housing development that I did, who no longer 

lives there, who would be in poverty if it wasn’t for a housing program, a decent place to live over their heads, et cetera, which is 

HUD’s mission. 

And when you look at the fact that individuals that were preyed 

upon—because I know that you also believe, as I do, that the goal 

is homeownership, but those individuals, many of them, who lived 

in public housing, who thrive to live—aspire to live in a home and 

own a home—they were the ones that were victimized by exotic 

mortgages, and they were the targets, et cetera. 

And now, they are forced back into rent—to renting their apartments and homes, and need housing programs so that they can 

continue to have a roof over their head, so that they can get out 

of poverty. 

And one of the pieces that I am concerned about that we have 

at HUD now is the DASP program, Distressed Asset Stabilization 

Program, which seems as though we are selling homes to private 

equity firms, who has no interest in making sure that we stress 

homeownership and make sure that individuals stay in their 

homes. 

There, it is just about the dollar. And so I was wondering, what 

is your vision for the DASP program going forward? And do you— 

or do you expect the program to continue? 

Secretary CARSON. OK. First of all, public housing is important, 

and assisted housing is important. The point was that, even though 

it is important, we need to be looking at ways that we can reform 

it, so that we can make more progress in terms of getting people 

out of poverty. But definitely, I don’t want to get rid of it. 

As far as the DASP program is concerned we have to, again, be 

cognizant of our responsibility to taxpayers. And that means not 

taking on and keeping a lot of properties that require a lot of taxpayer money. If we can find ways to dispose of those properties, absolutely, we want to do it. 

But we have written into the regulations a requirement that people who are in those houses cannot be expelled from them for several months. So we try to give people appropriate time to be able 

to get out. 

Mr. MEEKS. So let me just ask, could—in the DASP program 

then target local municipalities and non-profits in buying these 

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bulk homes? Because I know that they have the interests of putting people—and keeping people in those homes. 

If that program was designed so that local municipalities, who 

have a vested interest in this, and not-for-profits—then it would be 

something that would encourage, I think, the same thing that you 

are talking about— 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. 

Mr. MEEKS. —Getting people into home ownership. 

Secretary CARSON. I agree with you. And I know that the former 

mayor here in D.C. has been working on that kind of issue, and 

we would be happy to work with you. The—I think our goal is obviously to get that property into the hands of private citizens, if we 

can do that. I am— 

Mr. MEEKS. Let me just—because I only have 11 seconds, I just 

want to get this in, because I think it is tremendously difficult— 

also, if you look at the public housing stock in my district, for example, with 1.1 million families living in public housing—but if you 

cut all the money that goes into repairing those homes—any roofs 

that leak, to get rid of the walls that have mildew—then there is 

no way that you can repair them if you don’t have the money to 

reinvest in them, just as in a home. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. The 

chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Pearce, 

chairman of our Terrorism and Illicit Finance Subcommittee. 

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you. Appreciate you being here today, sir. 

We appreciate the work that you are doing. 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you. 

Mr. PEARCE. Now, recently, the New Mexico delegation sent you 

a letter about the vacancy in the Albuquerque HUD office. Are you 

making any progress on finding someone to fill that position? 

Secretary CARSON. Yes, we are making very good progress on 

that, and you should be hearing something soon. 

Mr. PEARCE. OK. Appreciate that. 

Now, I visited with you before about Native American housing. 

It is—Native Americans are sometimes located in some of the deepest poverty areas in the country. I watched my families—maybe not 

the same circumstances as yours—work our way up through, out 

of poverty, one small house at a time. 

And so, I am pretty passionate about NAHASDA, Native American housing. Just this last week, I visited two of the really good 

examples of what tribes can do to provide housing. 

And so, again, I have invited you in the past. I would like to reextend that invitation to come and visit, to see what tribes are 

doing to build houses for their own citizens and extending their 

mortgage rules to where banks, at—in some cases, are financing 

the houses on Indian reservation, which has not happened much in 

the past. 

And so I think it is very innovative. When you talk in the broader case about your forward initiatives and the restore, these are 

things that I can identify as having worked in our life. I hear your 

story about how they have worked in your life. 

And so I really appreciate your bringing your world experience 

in, and implementing it into a format that hopefully others can 

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14 

reach. Tell me a little bit about the public-private partnerships 

that you visualize, and some of the community initiatives. 

Secretary CARSON. OK. First of all, thank you for the work that 

you have done with the Native American community. I had an opportunity recently to go out to Montana and visit with some of the 

tribes there, as well as a multi-tribal council, and visit with some 

of the young people there and look at some ideas for really moving 

that along. And NAHASDA, with the help of Congress, will get revamped very soon. 

As far as a public-private partnerships around the country, they 

have been amazing, and it is really the new way that we do things 

at HUD, rather than riding in with a big bucket of money and saying, ‘‘Build this place for these people,’’ getting the local private 

sector involved in a way that they actually have significant investment, so that the success and maintenance of the neighborhood is 

incumbent on them, to maintain their financial benefit. 

And that is the way should be, win-win situations all along. The 

other thing about that—some of these public-private partnerships—instead of just building a house or putting a roof on they 

are trying to build communities, because you need a variety of different things in order to create a healthy community in any part 

of the country. 

And hopefully, later on, I will have an opportunity to talk a little 

bit about the Envision centers that we are working on—hopefully 

opening the first one in a couple of months—that will really add 

a lot to complete communities. 

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, sir. 

Being a veteran myself, I noted that you said that you are concentrating on eliminating veteran homelessness. Can you give me 

a little bit more specifics on what is going on in that program? 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. Over the last relatively short period, 

homelessness for veterans has been decreased by 47 percent, and 

is still going down. 

We are working with the Veterans Administration, as well as 

across multiple agencies, because I believe that that is something 

that we can completely eliminate. The HUD-VASH program has 

been very successful. In fact, we had extra vouchers left over last 

year. 

One of the things that I think would be very helpful to us, working with your committee, is having less restrictions on how we can 

distribute those vouchers, because there are some places where 

there is absolutely no one who needs them, and other places where 

they do need them. We need the flexibility to be able to transfer 

them to the appropriate places. 

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Chairman, I see my time is expired. I yield back. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Gentleman yields back. 

Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. 

Capuano, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for 

being here. I would like to yield my time to the ranking member, 

Ms. Waters. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Capuano. 

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15 

I have serious concerns about the potential conflicts of interest 

with regard to HUD funds that are contributing to the profits of 

multifamily developments owned in part by the President and his 

son-in-law, Jared Kushner. 

Do you think it is appropriate that the President and his family 

are profiting from Federal Government funding intended to support 

low-income families? 

Secretary CARSON. If you can give me a specific example, I can 

address that question. 

Ms. WATERS. I want to know if you think it is appropriate that 

the President and his family are profiting from any Federal Government funding intended to support low-income families. 

Secretary CARSON. I don’t think it is appropriate for public officials in general to do that. 

Ms. WATERS. OK. Do you stand by the President’s decision not 

to divest himself of his interest in properties that receive HUD 

funding? 

Secretary CARSON. I think the best thing to do is tell me specifically what you are talking about, and then I can address it. 

Ms. WATERS. What have you done to ensure that HUD is properly handling these unprecedented conflicts of interest? 

Secretary CARSON. Again, if you can tell me what the specific 

thing is, I can address it. 

Ms. WATERS. These properties that are owned in part by the 

President or Mr. Kushner are also reportedly in very bad condition. 

You know Starrett City, don’t you? 

Secretary CARSON. Yes, I know of it. 

Ms. WATERS. For example, which is part owned by the President—you know that, don’t you? 

Secretary CARSON. I do know that he has— 

Ms. WATERS. And you know it has received increasingly— 

Secretary CARSON. —A small part ownership of that. 

Ms. WATERS. —Declining HUD inspection scores. You know that, 

too, don’t you? 

Secretary CARSON. Do I know what, now? 

Ms. WATERS. That it has increasingly declining HUD inspection 

scores. 

Secretary CARSON. I know that there are problems there, yes. 

Ms. WATERS. But, specifically, do you know that Starrett is a 

problem, that they have received increasingly declining HUD inspection scores? Do you know that? 

Secretary CARSON. I know what is necessary to know as the secretary of HUD, regarding that. Do I know all the numbers about 

Starrett— 

Ms. WATERS. No, I don’t want you to know all of the numbers. 

All I want you to know is about Starrett. Starrett—everybody kind 

of knows a lot about Starrett, and it is partially owned by the 

President. 

You are the HUD secretary, and you are in a conflict of interest 

situation. And I just want to make sure you understand what you 

are overseeing. Do you know that they have declining HUD inspection scores? 

Secretary CARSON. I know that they have been having difficulty. 

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Ms. WATERS. OK, so you know that they have not passed inspection. What are you doing to ensure that these HUD residents are 

not suffering as a result of poor management and lack of investment by its profit-motivated owners? 

Secretary CARSON. Of course, we oversee the PHAs that are involved with that, and work with them, as we do with the ones all 

around the country. 

Ms. WATERS. We have learned that the owners of Starrett City— 

the biggest project-based Section 8 contract in the country, of which 

Trump is part owner, are planning to sell the property. This sale 

is already rife with controversy, as infighting between the ownership is playing out in public. 

To date, we have no knowledge of how HUD approves the transfer of Section 8 contracts when a property is not FHA insured or 

HUD-held, as Starrett City is, because HUD has not published its 

process. 

HUD has the ability here to insist upon things like robust tenant 

protections and longer affordability requirements, but the process 

is frankly unknown. Have you gotten involved with this? It is a big 

issue. 

Secretary CARSON. We have a very well-formulated group that 

deals with these kinds of issues, and they will deal with this one 

in the same way that they deal with all such issues. There won’t— 

Ms. WATERS. So they have not— 

Secretary CARSON. —Be anything that is done differently here 

than has been done. 

Ms. WATERS. —They have not kept you apprised of what they are 

doing? 

Secretary CARSON. Excuse me? 

Ms. WATERS. Are you satisfied with the progress that they are 

making? 

Secretary CARSON. They will handle this as they have handled 

all things, and it has— 

Ms. WATERS. So you don’t know? They have not kept you apprised; you don’t know whether or not the process is working. 

So I would like a full accounting of the process that your department is planning to employ, including all decision points and who 

will make them, should this process move forward. And so I want 

you to commit to that because, again, this is a big project that is 

owned partially by the President of the United States. 

And I want to know how this sale is going to work, what kind 

of protection these tenants are going to have. And you should keep 

yourself apprised of it, because I am going to want to know, as others will want to know, how it is progressing. 

Secretary CARSON. We will be happy to work with you and your 

staff to disseminate that information. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Missouri, Mrs. 

Wagner, chairman of our Oversight Investigation Subcommittee. 

Mrs. WAGNER. Thank you, Chairman Hensarling, and thank you, 

Secretary Carson, for your testimony this morning, for being here. 

Welcome; we know that you have been on the job for a brief for 5 

or 6 months. We are glad to have you in front of the committee for 

the first time. 

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Secretary CARSON. Thank you. 

Mrs. WAGNER. As you know, the Committee Development Block 

Grant program, CDBG, is HUD’s third-largest program. But what 

is often forgotten is that the CDBG disaster relief program, which 

is designed to help communities and neighborhoods recover from 

costly disasters—while the committee has long been concerned by 

the previous administration’s misuse of Community Development 

Block Grant disaster relief funds, it is important to note that Congress recently provided the program with $7.4 billion in funding. 

Understanding again, that you have only been with HUD since 

March and this is the first disaster relief effort you have been involved in, are you aware, Mr. Secretary, of some of the problems— 

some of the concerns of the program, especially regarding prior 

misuse of funds? And what importance do you place on making 

sure these programs go to the Americans who need them most? 

Secretary CARSON. First, I will thank you for that question. It is 

very important to point out that CDBG and CDBG-DR are different 

programs— 

Mrs. WAGNER. Correct. 

Secretary CARSON. And CDBG-DR has been, obviously very, very 

important in disaster situations like the ones that we have recently 

seen. There are very good things that have been done through the 

program. And there are some things that perhaps are quite questionable that have been done. 

It doesn’t mean that we are not recognizing the things that are 

good that have been done, and the things that need to be done in 

terms of infrastructure and redevelopment and development of 

communities. And those things will continue to be done, without 

question. 

So, I am not questioning the things that have been effective and 

that have worked. We are questioning the things that have wasted 

taxpayers’ money. And we have a way of reforming those things. 

Mrs. WAGNER. Wonderful. I am glad to hear that, Mr. Secretary. 

As the chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Committee 

here on Financial Services, we are going to be looking into the program, and—in even a potential upcoming hearing. 

And I just ask for your commitment and cooperation to work 

with this committee on finding those very solutions that will improve effectiveness, efficiency, and probably most importantly, taxpayer accountability regarding the Community Development Block 

Grant disaster relief program. 

There are ways, I think, for rules—putting rules for the program 

in statute, limiting—putting limits on money, deadlines, perhaps 

recapturing of funds, even just better tracking of funds. So I hope 

that you will be willing to work with us. 

Secretary CARSON. And all of those things will be done. And that 

is why we have—we put together a more businesslike approach. 

And we will be looking forward to working with you on that. 

Mrs. WAGNER. I appreciate it. 

Staying with that theme, I wanted to go back to something you 

said in your testimony. And I quote ‘‘While pursuing his mission 

to provide safe, decent and affordable housing for the American 

people, the HUD team is also cognizant of its vital duty to be good 

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stewards of taxpayer dollars and, like the medical dictum’’—I love 

this the best—‘‘to first do no harm.’’ 

Having spent $1.6 trillion in taxpayer funds since its creation in 

1965, is HUD—just a broad question—is HUD making life better 

for American cities and other communities? 

Secretary CARSON. A lot of good things have been done. There is 

no—I don’t—I don’t want to disparage the efforts that people have 

put into this. But I see all the things that have been done before 

as stepping stones to help us to get to where we want to be. And, 

I have a tendency—not to spend a lot of time disparaging people. 

Mrs. WAGNER. I appreciate that. I am interested to know how 

HUD—how you—what your perspective is on measuring success, 

beyond the number of programs it serves or creates, or the amount 

of money spent. 

Secretary CARSON. I think success for us will be, not the number 

of people we get into these programs, but how many people we get 

out of it, how many people actually climb that ladder of success 

and become self-sufficient. And that is what our programs are all 

going to be aimed at. 

Mrs. WAGNER. Mr. Secretary, I find your approach refreshing 

and uplifting. I thank you for your testimony here today. And, Mr. 

Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Yes, Mr.—Secretary Carson. Tell me, why do you 

think President Trump asked you to be secretary of HUD? 

Secretary CARSON. Probably because, before I endorsed him, we 

spent a lot of time talking about what was happening particularly 

in some of our disadvantaged communities, and how we really 

needed to recognize that, if we are going to succeed as a Nation, 

all those people have to succeed as well. 

Mr. SCOTT. Let me ask you this. It just seems to me that—I believe that the President put you there to give cover to cutting and 

eliminating the CBDG program. Let me tell you why. 

First of all, this is—this is the crucible of the whole argument. 

You should be at the forefront of telling the great story of success 

of the CBDG program, the fact that it has created and retained 

386,000 jobs for low and moderate-income people. 

The CBDG program has benefited 42 million low and moderateincome persons through public improvements, including senior citizens, child care centers, centers for people with disabilities, veterans, veterans with disabilities. It has benefited 133 million low, 

moderate-income persons through public service, like employment 

training. The funds have been used to assist credit-worthy working 

families with down payments and closing cost assistance on their 

homes. 

You should be out here shouting the success of this program, but 

rather, I believe that the President has you there to give cover to 

cutting this program and eliminating it. Here is what you told the 

New York Times, Mr. Carson, when this issue was brought up. 

In July of this year, you said, ‘‘I know that the CBDG has been 

called out for elimination.’’ You said that. ‘‘I know that the CDBG 

program has been called out for elimination.’’ Was it President 

Trump that called that out? Who else could? 

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My impression is that what the President is really saying is that 

there are problems. And you said this: ‘‘I think it was someone on 

his staff who kind of said, well, maybe we should just get rid of 

the whole CBDG program.’’ 

I am here to tell you, Mr. Secretary, I am not going to let you 

do that, and I believe we have enough Democrats and Republicans, 

because this is a bipartisan program that is doing well. 

And you would do well, Mr. Secretary, to stand up and fight back 

in this administration. It needs help, when it comes down to dealing with hurting Americans. And you are in this position, being 

Secretary, not just because of what you said. ‘‘Well, even if we cut 

these funds, I believe that the American people are a compassionate people.’’ 

Mr. Secretary, you should know better than anyone that compassion alone won’t do it. It wasn’t compassion alone that got you sitting where you are right now. Somebody had to give you and your 

family and others a financial helping hand. 

We need you to speak up and fight back in this administration. 

Talk that talk. 

Chairman HENSARLING. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. 

Luetkemeyer, chairman of our Financial Institutions Subcommittee. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Secretary Carson. I am over here. 

Secretary CARSON. OK. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Welcome. 

Last year, President Obama signed into law the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2016, legislation I introduced 

with my friend and colleague from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver. He is 

here this morning. 

Part of the legislation required the FHA to streamline rules that 

apply to condominiums. Last September, the department published 

a proposed rule, and just for timing’s sense, can you give us a sense 

of timing on the final rule, when you anticipate it being—coming 

out and being finalized? 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. There were like 28 different sections that 

had to be satisfied, three-quarters of which have been satisfied. So 

we are coming down the home stretch on that. And it is really very 

important because condominium purchase is frequently the first 

step into homeownership. 

And homeownership is a vitally important part of the economy 

of our Nation. And wealth accumulation—it is the primary source 

of wealth accumulation. The average homeowner has an accumulated wealth of $200,000; the average renter, accumulated wealth 

of $5,000. 

So it is a big issue and one of the reasons that I am looking for 

ways to get a lot of people who are relatively complacent with renting to be homeowners. But we have to do it in a responsible way. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Appreciate the comment. 

Last month, the Congressional Budget Office released a report 

entitled ‘‘Options to Manage FHA’s Exposure to Risk from Guaranteeing Single-Family Mortgages.’’ The purpose of the report was to 

provide policy options that are designed to further the true mission 

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of FHA, while also improving the agency’s financial position. I assume your staff has read that report. 

Secretary CARSON. Yes, they have. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. And are you aware of it? 

Secretary CARSON. I have—we have had some discussions. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. OK. What—of the provisions that are in 

there, are you looking at implementing some of those? Or are you 

able to talk about some of it yet that you have some plans on? Or 

are you just still reviewing the report? 

Secretary CARSON. Those are things that obviously we would be 

very happy to work with you on. I am looking forward to having 

an FHA commissioner involved in those discussions, as well. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. You have an idea of when that individual will 

be appointed? 

Secretary CARSON. I am hoping, very shortly. It has been quite 

an ordeal getting people in place. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. I understand. 

As housing costs continue to grow and demand for rental housing 

continues to escalate, but incomes for many low-income families remain stagnant—given these realities, demand for affordable housing has increased dramatically since the economic crisis. What innovative programs are the administration considering to provide 

access to housing? 

Secretary CARSON. As you probably know, right now, we are only 

able to provide about one in four or one in three people with affordable housing who are looking for it. We have an extensive waiting 

list. 

And one of the things that is really helping to cut down on the 

backlog of people are some of these public-private partnerships, 

particularly through the RAD programs, that have that taken these 

places that have the big backlogs of capital improvements that 

need to be made and, by partnering with the private sector and 

through LIHTC and things of that nature—creating vast numbers 

of affordable units. 

I was in Florida and Miami recently, Liberty Square, where they 

are demolishing 700 units and replacing them with 1,600 units, 

which are very nice and are complete neighborhoods. Those are the 

kinds of things that will help us to make progress, and will make 

progress a lot faster than we did with the old model. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. I have only a minute left, but I was just kind 

of curious—you talked about the hurricane relief that you are 

working, improvising—providing some housing solutions. Can you 

elaborate a little bit more on and explain? 

We have had three major storms here, and had another storm hit 

last week. How is your agency providing relief and help for those 

folks? 

Secretary CARSON. This is an unprecedented situation that has 

occurred with this level of hurricane activity so close, one after another. We have been involved with each thing. Even before it hit, 

we had people on the ground—volunteers on the ground, assessing 

what the needs are. 

How many people do we have who have been displaced? How 

many units are there. In Puerto Rico, for instance there are 203 

mcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

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multifamily units with over 2,100 units, and the vast majority of 

those are assisted housing. 

Finding out what happened to those people, where are they located and how can we get them most quickly back into things—the 

initial response is through FEMA, and we work very, very closely 

with them. We rely upon their numbers to help with the long-term 

recovery aspects of what we do. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you very much. My time is expired. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Sherman. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. Lot of focus on the FHA program—the 

prior administration was in the process of implementing a 25-basispoint reduction of the premium that would have saved the average 

borrower $500 in the first year, and more in high-cost areas like 

mine. A million homeowners would have benefited, and they would 

have saved over $27 billion. 

In your confirmation—of course the—before you were nominated, 

the administration halted that plan to reduce the premium by 25 

basis points. During your confirmation, you agreed to look at that 

policy with the possibility of reinstituting that 25 basis points of 

decline. 

We also see that, back in—until 2013, you stopped making premiums when you reached a loan-to-value ratio of 78 percent. You 

had 22 percent equity in the property, and at that point, it was 

thought you did not need insurance to make insurance premium 

payments. That was reversed in 2013. 

Are you moving toward, perhaps, reducing the insurance premium by 25 basis points? And are you examining going back to the 

policy of saying, ‘‘Once you have 22 percent equity, you don’t have 

to make premium payments’’? 

Secretary CARSON. Certainly both of those things are under 

study, being looked at very carefully. I personally don’t want to 

make the commitment in terms of either one of them right now, because we are so close to having an FHA commissioner. But do bear 

in mind that we want the prices of homeownership to be as low as 

possible, while still protecting the taxpayers. 

Mr. SHERMAN. And how will the recent reverse-mortgage changes 

impact the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, the FHA Insurance 

Fund? And do you expect additional changes to the reverse-mortgage program? 

Secretary CARSON. When the reverse-mortgage program was initiated, I think it was done with very good intentions, but without 

really looking down the pike. And people were taking out much 

larger amounts of their equity, in the beginning, than was sustainable. And this was leading to a lot more problems than it was helping. 

It has also resulted in a much higher default rate, and that has 

been a big drain on the MMIF. So the changes that we have made 

will sort of stop the bleeding, in terms of new mortgages—or reverse-mortgages. 

And the forward mortgage program is doing extremely well. So 

we are doing some draining from the reverse-mortgage, but we are 

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22 

doing a lot of putting into the fund from the other. So we are very 

close to the 2 percent right now. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. 

Secretary CARSON. We obviously need to watch further before we 

do— 

Mr. SHERMAN. I want to get into—to one other issue. Beyond 

your responsibilities for Housing and Urban Development, you 

have other responsibilities under the Constitution, along with other 

Cabinet secretaries, particularly Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. 

And we all live by this Constitution. 

Section 4 deals with the possibility that a President is unable to 

discharge the powers and duties of his office. Have you taken the 

time to get legal counsel to brief you on what your responsibility 

is, as a Cabinet secretary, under the 25th Amendment? 

Secretary CARSON. I have not had any in-depth discussions of 

that. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I would urge you to do so. This amendment was 

written in the early 1960’s as a result of what we—life that happens, whether it is the dangers that a President faces, whether it 

is the health problems a President can face. 

I would urge you first to get legal counsel, to know what your 

responsibilities are, and second, to discuss with other Cabinet officers how you would implement Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. 

I yield back. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Gentleman yields back. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. 

Barr, committee chair of our Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee. 

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Secretary, welcome to 

the committee and— 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you. 

Mr. BARR. —Thank you for your service, not just as a public 

servant, as secretary of the department, but also as a physician in 

private life, and for helping so many children, and most of all, for 

the example that you have set that hard work, integrity, persistence—that those are values that are critical to escaping poverty. 

And thank you for expressing the viewpoint that many of us have, 

that government dependency often undermines those values. 

As we have talked many times, my district in Kentucky unfortunately has one of the highest opioid addiction rates in the country. 

Unfortunately, the Commonwealth of Kentucky suffers from the 

third highest drug overdose mortality rate in America. 

But the good news is that I have seen success of evidence-based 

transitional housing programs, including St. James Place, Recovery 

Kentucky, Revive, Shepherd’s House. These are organizations that 

help individuals coming out of recovery and—transition back into 

the work force through job training, financial literacy and counseling services. 

Unfortunately, HUD’s Housing First program has not been helpful; individuals who come out of addiction rehabilitation are placed 

in housing situations where their neighbors are abusing the very 

substances that they once abused themselves. This contributes to 

a cycle of addiction that tears apart our communities and also is 

very costly to the American taxpayer. 

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Does HUD have any plans to address this issue, in light of the 

opioid epidemic? Have you considered the need for support of transitional housing programs as an alternative to the very counterproductive Housing First program? 

Secretary CARSON. The homelessness is a big issue, and I think 

one that we as a Nation actually have the opportunity to resolve. 

Housing First, I think, gets a bad name because people think we 

are just getting people off the street, and then we are forgetting 

about them. And maybe some people have done it that way. We are 

not doing it that way now. 

We believe in Housing First, housing second and housing third. 

Housing First—you get them off the street because you leave them 

under that bridge for a year, they are going to end up in an emergency room, frequently end up getting admitted. 

A week’s admission costs as much as a year or more of housing, 

so that really doesn’t help us very much. There are a lot of statistics I can give you in terms of how much they cost when you don’t 

house them, versus when you do. 

But—so you get them housed first. Second, you diagnose why 

they were in that condition. That is critical. And, in housing third, 

you fix it. So, I don’t think it is appropriate just to get them off 

the street and forget about them and move on to the next project. 

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Secretary, for that answer. And I also appreciate your desire to see greater flexibility in HUD-VASH, and 

seeing the success in HUD-VASH. St. James Place, my district— 

I have invited you to come see what they are doing with HUDVASH. 

The flexibility that you are requesting—we want to help you with 

that, because organizations like St. James Place are using the 

HUD-VASH program to great success, requiring work, requiring sobriety, helping these people, not just measuring success by how 

many veterans they are housing, but how many veterans are leaving and graduating that program. 

And again, I want to invite you to come— 

Secretary CARSON. OK. 

Mr. BARR. —See the good folks at St. James Place in Lexington, 

Kentucky. 

Dr. Carson, I introduced an amendment on the House floor last 

month to stop overreach by your department. And that amendment 

prohibited HUD from using funds to implement, administer or enforce three HUD actions inconsistent with statute and negatively 

impacting manufactured housing. 

As you can imagine, in rural Kentucky, manufactured housing is 

a terrific affordable housing opportunity for many of my constituents. As the leader of HUD that regulates manufactured housing, 

can you undertake an effort to comprehensively review all of these 

regulations impacting manufactured housing, and direct your team 

to utilize this information so that any new regulations do not have 

unintended cost consequences? 

Secretary CARSON. Yes, we have a regulatory reform committee 

that has been formed at HUD for purposes just like that. 

Mr. BARR. Thanks for that. 

And finally, while we all abhor discrimination, the prior administration enacted regulations that you described in a 2015 Washmcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

24 

ington Times op-ed as government-engineered attempts to legislate 

racial equality, that create consequences that can make matters 

worse. 

This is, of course, the disparate impact regulation. Is HUD actively working to ensure—to revise that 2013 rule, to avoid the 

problems you outlined in your article? 

Secretary CARSON. We are making things logical, making things 

make sense. So, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was one of the greatest pieces of legislation ever. I am a big fan of it, and certainly 

don’t want any discrimination of any type going on under my 

watch. 

But we also don’t want regulatory burdens to impede our ability 

to get things done, and we don’t want to penalize small municipalities that don’t have the ability to hire consultants and do all kinds 

of things to comply with those issues— 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time— 

Secretary CARSON. So logic takes— 

Chairman HENSARLING. —Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. 

Cleaver. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. And I don’t want 

to be melodramatic, but, when I was elected, I didn’t—you know 

the press said, ‘‘What do you want to do?’’ And I don’t want to be 

speaker, I don’t want to be assistant speaker, I don’t want to be 

the person in charge of trash, whatever. 

All I wanted was to be on the subcommittee on housing—only 

thing I ever—that was my biggest aspiration, coming to Congress. 

And it was because of my background, and what I had seen, and 

what I—what has hurt me personally, and many other people over 

the years, which is when people make disparaging comments about 

people living in public housing. 

You and I grew up very similarly, so, you know—you know that 

that is not something that can give you great joy. My father, living 

in his home today, I—my goal is to never let him know ahead of 

time that he can watch us on C-SPAN, because I don’t want him, 

having done all the work he did to get four kids out, to hear some 

of the things that people unintentionally say, because this is the 

house I lived in for 7 years. 

Six people—my mother, my father and my three sisters—7 years. 

My father worked three jobs, like a lot of the other people in our 

community—three jobs. Willie Taylor, Nelson, Katie Boston, Percy 

Cleveland, Troy Criner—classmates of mine—their parents were 

doing the same thing. 

I have never heard a person, as of today, say, ‘‘Boy, I can hardly 

wait to get my own public housing unit.’’ This is a serious thing 

to me, my family and a lot of other people. 

My goal is to do something, before I leave here, more than I have 

done, and hopefully, can inspire others to want to do something— 

to do some major overhauls of some of our policies. And Mr. 

Luetkemeyer and I were able to do 3700 together, and I want to 

ask you a question about that. 

mcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

25 

But I want it to be known that helping one family will not 

change the world, but it will change the world for that one family. 

And people want help, and they need it from time to time. 

If you look at 17 in Genesis, when Abram left Ur to the land— 

going toward the land of promise, he stopped at a place called 

Haran. Many theologians call that the halfway house. He stayed 

there until he could find a better route to get to the Promised 

Land. 

Public housing is Haran. A lot of people stay there until they can 

get someplace else. My father—my father sent my mother to college from when I was almost in the seventh grade. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Gentleman yields back. 

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. 

Huizenga, chairman of our Capital Markets Subcommittee. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Dr. Carson, up over in this corner, over here to 

your right. A little further to your right, here. 

Secretary CARSON. That right. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Yes. I know, with the configuration, it is sometimes difficult. And I see my colleague has just left, and I know it 

was very emotional for him. I think this is a very emotional issue 

for a lot of us. 

I, in my family, have—I have a father who was born in 1921. He 

passed—passed away a year-and-a-half ago. My mother was born 

in 1931. They lived through the Depression. My mother lived in 

Flint—that is where she was born and raised. 

Recently, with the Flint water crisis that was going on, I went 

and visited. I asked my mom for a couple of the addresses where 

her family had moved around to. And I had—I am getting choked 

up, myself. I had my fourth son with me, who was 13. And I 

stopped. I stopped the car in front of the houses, and the house— 

the main house that my mother grew up in. 

And I had cousins and uncles and aunts that all lived there. In 

fact, I had one of my cousins, frankly, reprimand me and ask me, 

‘‘What in the world were you doing in that neighborhood?’’ I know 

how hard people have worked to get out of those situations. I saw 

it. I witnessed it. I have seen it with my own mom, as well. 

And it pains me that my colleague, my friend, has felt that he 

has heard disparaging remarks about those who live in public 

housing. That was his quote. I wrote it down. And he said, and this 

is—this is the inspirational part, ‘‘A lot of people stay until they 

can get somewhere else.’’ 

And I know that is my goal. I believe that is his goal. I trust that 

that is your goal as well. And I think the question and the debate 

that we have is, how do we get that to happen? How do we allow 

that? Because, as I have seen some of your discussions and we 

have had a chance to talk in the past, not everybody takes advantage of those opportunities to move ahead, or to get out of a particular situation. 

And I believe what you are doing with moving to work to allow 

flexibility for these public housing authorities, to attract privatesector folks in there, attract these outside opportunities, is commendable. And it is my understanding that about 55 percent of 

mcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

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able-bodied adults receiving housing assistance are working. And 

that, to me, is a key. 

How do we—how do we make sure that we are giving those folks 

who are working hard—non-senior citizens, non-disabled, the ablebodied, working—or able-bodied individuals, you know—do you 

support these work requirements and those things that are being 

tried to sometimes nudge people out of a comfort zone? 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you for asking that question. We all 

come at this from different angles and different life experiences. 

But, when you really sit down and talk to people from all these different places, we all really have similar wants and desires, and we 

allow ourselves sometimes to be manipulated into thinking that we 

are enemies. 

We are not enemies. And, this issue of getting people to excel 

and realize the talent that God has given them—it is a serious 

issue because, there are those who would have everybody believe 

that you are a victim, and that everybody is against you. 

We need to be concentrating on how can we actually get people 

to climb that ladder of opportunity. We have to recognize things 

like education. It doesn’t matter where you come from or your 

background, if you get a good education in this country, you are 

going to write your own ticket. We need to emphasize that. That 

needs to be integrated into our living situations, as well. 

Health care needs to be taken out of the political arena. We need 

to be putting clinics into our neighborhoods so that people don’t use 

the emergency room as their primary care. That costs five times 

more, and also, you wind up with all the stage IV diseases because 

people don’t have consistent care. 

All of these kinds of things, we can solve, if we as Americans are 

willing to work together and not allow ourselves to be polarized. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. In closing seconds, I believe that we need to look 

at how current housing assistance programs either incentivize that, 

or hinder that opportunity. And hopefully you will be able to talk 

more about that. 

Secretary CARSON. Absolutely. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Thank you. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from New York, Ms. 

Velazquez. 

Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Carson, I am here. I am the only member who is a Puerto 

Rican American citizen who sits in this committee. So, since I don’t 

have the—President Trump in front of me, I just would like for you 

to let him know how shameful all the tweets that he put out this 

morning—how offended and insulted I am as an American citizen. 

And I would like to suggest that the President get some history 

lessons regarding the Puerto Rican relationship with the United 

States. In 1898, American troops invaded Puerto Rico. American 

troops took over Puerto Rico. 

In 1917—so Puerto Ricans didn’t invite the United States Armed 

Forces. It was invaded. So with that invasion comes responsibility. 

In 1917, American citizenship was imposed on Puerto Ricans— 

timely, so that they could join the Armed Forces and fight in World 

War I. 

mcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

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So those tweets are unPresidential. The most basic, fundamental 

responsibility of the President of the United States, the President 

of the most powerful country in the world, is to show up and 

make—and provide the assistance and the relief that American 

citizens needs. 

They don’t need this type of insult. And by the way, why is it 

that he doesn’t put the same tweets when it comes to Texas or 

Florida? You invaded Puerto Rico. We invaded—the United States 

of America invaded Puerto Rico. 

My uncle participated in the Korean War. We shed blood to defend the freedoms that every American in this country enjoys. So 

to kick fellow citizens when they are down is shameful. 

You said that you are providing assistance for those who lost 

their homes in Puerto Rico. I hear from the National Low Income 

Housing Coalition and affordable housing groups on the island that 

the Federal Government’s housing response has not been sufficient. 

What are you doing? In my hometown, Yabucoa, we lost 10,000 

homes that were destroyed. What kind of assistance are you providing? 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you for asking that question. And, I 

too sympathize greatly with the people who have lost so much. 

There are 114,000 single-family homes that are FHA-backed, and 

that—many of them have sustained significant damage. 

Our people are on the ground, including one of our associate senior assistant secretaries, Nelson Bregon, who is a Puerto Rican and 

has been extraordinarily helpful to me. He has moved over there. 

We have dozens of others— 

Ms. VELAZQUEZ. So what kind of assistance are you providing for 

those who lost their homes? 

Secretary CARSON. —Dozens of others who have gone over there. 

And what we are providing is insurance for those who have lost 

their homes through Section 203(h), 203(k) for rehabilitation of 

homes. 

Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Dr. Carson, are you working with some housing 

groups on the ground? 

Secretary CARSON. And I will be going to Puerto Rico myself next 

week. 

Ms. VELAZQUEZ. That is great, but that doesn’t provide the assistance that they need today. People are dying. 

Secretary CARSON. I am very— 

Ms. VELAZQUEZ. And it is the reason—it is the rainy season in 

Puerto Rico. I understand that FEMA promised to bring parts for 

roofs that were lost. It is the rainy season. People are dying today. 

Secretary CARSON. FEMA is the first responder there. They are 

gathering information. We are working with them in that process 

for the long-term recovery. 

Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Dr. Carson, when you were nominated by the 

President, I said, ‘‘What does he know about housing?’’ But then, 

you are a doctor, and you said that you are going to take care of 

those who are suffering from health issues in public housing. 

I see a disconnect between your confirmation hearings and your 

commitment to address the issue of asthma, respiratory illnesses in 

public housing, and cutting $2 billion out of the capital and operating funds for housing. 

mcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

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Do you believe that— 

Chairman HENSARLING. The time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Royce. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, at the outset here, I just wanted to invite you to come to my district, especially out to San Bernardino, California, where the housing authority is working on a Moving to Work program. 

It is an agency that has been up and running for some time 

there, and it is running very, very effectively. And they have had 

a number of successful self-sufficiency programs, including homeownership programs and term limits on those, and work requirements. We would love to have you see this firsthand, if you could. 

Secretary CARSON. Sure. 

Mr. ROYCE. Wanted to extend that. And I was wondering if you 

could talk a little more about what the department is doing to advance MTW, as it is called, the Moving to Work program, and other 

sustainable best practices which lift people out of their situation, 

and on to economic independence. 

Secretary CARSON. Sure. Thank you for that question. The Moving to Work initiative really was to provide various municipalities 

with the ability to be flexible, recognizing that they were probably 

the people who best knew what their needs were. And this really 

allows for a significant amount of innovation. 

The first 39 districts that benefited from this have produced 

some pretty good results, and that has resulted in us extending the 

program to another 100 communities over the next 7 years. 

I am hopeful that we will be able to go far beyond that. And we 

look forward to working with you on ways that we can expand that 

program. We are looking for everything that is highly effective. 

Mr. ROYCE. Very good. 

Secretary CARSON. And, some of the programs that have been 

talked about here this morning have had some components that are 

highly effective. We are going to make sure that we learn from 

those things and continue to push those things. There may be different mechanisms to do it, but we are not going to abandon those 

things. That would be foolishness. 

Mr. ROYCE. And two other questions. One is the department is 

reviewing its policy to allow PACE liens on FHA finance loans. As 

you know, the defaults on these loans are on the rise. And I was 

going to ask if you could comment on when you might make a decision on whether to withdraw the current mortgaging letter or clarify how the FHA will treat these PACE loans. 

Secretary CARSON. Obviously it is a serious issue when you put 

in the first lien position somebody other than the major lender— 

Mr. ROYCE. Exactly. 

Secretary CARSON. —That is an issue. 

Mr. ROYCE. It is very concerning to us. 

Secretary CARSON. Yes, that is very concerning to me too, and we 

are taking that into consideration. We will have a decision on that 

soon. 

Mr. ROYCE. And one last question—as you know, Mr. Secretary, 

the GSEs have engaged in significant credit risk sharing transactions. This shields American taxpayers to some extent, and Gwen 

mcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

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Moore and I have a bill to get them to do even more in terms of 

that approach. 

I have been told that the FHA may have the authority to do 

similar risk sharing transactions, or at least purchase coinsurance 

to reduce the risk to the public. 

I think this could be a very constructive means of reducing taxpayer exposure. Would you support legislation here or regulatory 

clarification of FHA’s existing authority to explore credit risk sharing? 

Secretary CARSON. We have already engaged in some discussions 

on that, are continuing those. I am looking forward to having an 

FHA commissioner, but I agree with you that that is an area ripe 

for discussion and movement. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Secretary Carson, and I will yield back. 

Appreciate it. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Gentleman yields back. 

The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Ohio, Mrs. Beatty. 

Mrs. BEATTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, ranking 

member. 

And, to the witness, thank you for being here. I have a series of 

questions and, for the sake of time to get through them, many of 

them, Mr. Secretary, I will ask you to simply affirm or deny with 

a yes or no vote. 

On July 12th, I sent you a letter, signed by more than 15 or 20 

of my other colleagues as Members of Congress. And in that letter—and I want to, Mr. Chairman, enter that letter into the record. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Without objection. 

Mrs. BEATTY. So first of all, I want to know, did you receive the 

letter and read it? 

Secretary CARSON. I don’t know what was in the letter, so I can’t 

tell you whether I received it. 

Mrs. BEATTY. OK. It was requesting that you follow through on 

your predecessor’s decision to lower these annual premiums, citing 

the fiscal strength of the fund and historically low homeownership 

rates, especially among first-time home buyers. 

Secretary CARSON. Certainly I have had some correspondence on 

that. So it was probably your letter. 

Mrs. BEATTY. So did you respond to it and I didn’t get it? Is that 

what you are saying? You read it. Did you respond to it? Or I am— 

Secretary CARSON. I personally did not. Did my staff respond to 

you? I don’t know. 

Mrs. BEATTY. I think we did, from—some intergovernmental relations person sent us a paragraph. It was—it didn’t—it did not, 

in my opinion—it did not answer my question. 

Secretary CARSON. OK, I can answer for you now. 

Mrs. BEATTY. I guess the reason I am asking you this—is it your 

practice, when members of the U.S. Congress sends a letter personally addressed to you, that you pass it on to a congressional intergovernmental—I don’t know what that person does—relations person, to say that they have received it? I did not address it to them. 

Secretary CARSON. Yes, many letters that come do not— 

Mrs. BEATTY. Many letters from Members of Congress— 

Secretary CARSON. —Do not come— 

Mrs. BEATTY. —On the committee that you are testifying before? 

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Secretary CARSON. —Do not come personally to me. 

Mrs. BEATTY. No, this was sent personally to you. 

Secretary CARSON. I am saying, it may be sent personally to me, 

but it doesn’t actually end up in my hands. Somebody else—actually looking at it. 

Mrs. BEATTY. So, you don’t get—people write me personally all 

the time. But if a member of—so let me ask a different question. 

So if a Member of Congress is writing to you about issues that you 

are coming to testify before this committee—you get it, and it 

doesn’t get in your hands, and you say ‘‘Oh well, so what,’’ and you 

don’t answer? 

Secretary CARSON. No, someone else actually goes through it 

first— 

Mrs. BEATTY. OK. So, let me ask a different question— 

Secretary CARSON. —And then—and then they bring it to me. 

Mrs. BEATTY. —For the sake of my time. No. It is my time. 

So I am going to resend the letter, and I want to ask you, would 

you answer the letter that is coming from me and 20 other Members of Congress? 

Secretary CARSON. If I get the—if the—when the letter is 

brought to me, we will give you a response. 

Mrs. BEATTY. No—we, or you? I would like to ask, would you respond to my letter? 

Secretary CARSON. I can respond to you right now. 

Mrs. BEATTY. I have some other questions. So maybe afterwards, 

I will leave the letter with you and you can respond to me. 

So, oftentimes, when members come here, you represent not only 

a secretary of housing, but the President. So I have a question for 

you. We have spent a lot of time talking about Puerto Rico and the 

Virgin Islands, so this can be yes or no. 

Do you think it was Presidential for President Trump to throw 

paper towels, when he was in Puerto Rico? Yes or no. 

Secretary CARSON. That is not a yes or no question. 

Mrs. BEATTY. Sure it is. Yes, it was Presidential, or no, it was 

not Presidential? 

Secretary CARSON. I don’t believe— 

Mrs. BEATTY. Second question; do you think it was Presidential 

when President Trump talked about two members in Puerto Rico— 

that they were messing up the budget? 

Secretary CARSON. You know— 

Mrs. BEATTY. Was that Presidential, yes or no? 

Secretary CARSON. —I think it would be wonderful if we talked 

about what we can do to help our people— 

Mrs. BEATTY. Do you think it was Presidential— 

Secretary CARSON. —Rather than divide them. 

Mrs. BEATTY. —When he asked the people in Puerto Rico how 

many people had died, and then compared it to a greater number 

in Katrina? 

Secretary CARSON. Again, I think we should be talking about 

positive things and what we can do to ameliorate the situation. 

Mrs. BEATTY. I think you are absolutely right. And for me, positive, like Congressman Cleaver—all my life, I have wanted to serve 

on this committee. I didn’t live in public housing, but I dedicated 

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more than 25 years of my life—my very first job, professional job, 

was working in public housing. 

So let me move to something positive. In this committee, Chairman Clayton of the Securities and Exchange Commission testified 

before this committee. He said, although he had not asked for more 

funding in Fiscal Year 2018, that in Fiscal Year 2019, he would be 

requesting more money. 

In Fiscal Year 2018, the budget request from HUD, you requested a 15 percent cut to your budget. Will you be asking for an 

increase in your fifth—in Fiscal Year 2019? It is positive, so I assume you are going to tell me yes. 

Secretary CARSON. We may well. We continue to ask for what we 

need, based on information that we derive, so evidence is what 

drives our budget request. 

Mrs. BEATTY. Thank you, and I yield back. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Mr. Secretary, thank you for appearing today, and thank 

you for the character and the integrity, the heart and the class and 

the aspirations that you bring to your position. 

Many people would say that you had maybe one of the best opportunities in the world to become a failure, to be dependent on 

government. You proved all the critics wrong, and you became the 

model of success, of achieving the American dream, and proof that 

anyone can do it. And I applaud you for that. I think a lot of people 

applaud you for that, and I applaud you for trying to help others 

do that, too. 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you. 

Mr. POSEY. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that somehow 

benefit from people being dependent on government, because they 

think it keeps them being elected. I think self-sufficiency is the 

way to go, and you obviously do too. And thank you for your efforts 

to transfer people from dependency to self-sufficiency. 

I want to apologize for some of the mean and nasty comments 

made toward you today. They are undeserving. They are attempts 

to shame you, while they criticize the government for attempting 

to shame somebody—the President for attempting to shame somebody. That may be logical to some people, but I am sure it is probably foreign to you, and you are probably wondering about that. 

Most intelligent people would. 

Secretary CARSON. Yes, I am used to it. 

Mr. POSEY. Yes. Most intelligent people would. 

But we all have the same people in our districts. They hate the 

President, and they hate anybody that doesn’t hate the President. 

So we are going to—they are going to be around for a while, so we 

just get used to it and do the right thing for the right reasons, 

which you have a history of doing. 

Your forward initiative to reimagine how HUD works, to restore 

the American dream and to rethink American communities is an 

awesome plan. And my question to you this morning is, how can 

we become more engaged in helping you achieve those goals? 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you very much for your comments, and 

for that question. 

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I will be coming back to you, particularly as we continue to analyze what works, because, in order to be efficient, we need the ability to be flexible and to be able to address things quickly so that 

we don’t have to go through so many different channels. 

We are not just going to come to you vaguely with something like 

that. We are going to say specifically, ‘‘We need to do X and Y so 

we can get to Z quickly.’’ So just be open to that. 

We want to work with you. We want to benefit from your collective knowledge, experience and the fact that you represent the people. And we are public servants. That means we work for the people, they don’t work for us. And therefore, we need to know, 

through you, how we can best serve them. But we want to work 

with you to do things in an effective way. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Clearly, you have a heart 

of a servant, and you can always count on me, I know, and probably most the people here, for our support. 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you. 

Mr. POSEY. God bless you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Gentleman yields back. 

The chair will now recognize the gentleman from Washington, 

Mr. Heck. 

Mr. HECK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Carson, I have been interested, since I first arrived 

here, in the reverse-mortgage market, and not just because it is 

called the HECM program as an acronym. We were able to pass 

legislation giving you more flexibility at the department to run the 

program, with an eye toward improving its financial performance. 

But it has always been hard to get a good sense of how the reverse-mortgage program is doing, because the actuarial numbers 

swing so wildly from year to year. In addition, although the program is small, compared to the FHA forward mortgage program, 

the swings in reverse-mortgages are so large they are pushing 

around the capital ratio, as you know, for the MMI Fund and affecting mortgage insurance premiums for the more stable forward 

program. 

I know you haven’t been though a reporting cycle yet for these 

actuarial reports. But I wanted to get your initial thoughts on 

whether you would be open to changes in the framework. 

I am thinking about asking GAO to consider options, including 

moving the reverse-mortgage program out of the MMI Fund, or creating new forecasting assumptions for the reverse program that 

would create more stability over time and from year to year. What 

are your impressions? 

Secretary CARSON. I think that is a very worthy thing to pursue. 

We are looking at, just over the last year, $7.7 billion out of the 

MMI because of HECM. 

The changes that we have made as of this month, and all the 

ones that will be going forward from this point, I don’t think will 

have that problem. But we still have the residual problem there. 

So yes, I believe that would be a worthy pursuit. 

Mr. HECK. Second, I want to ask about housing. I think the cost 

of shelter is kind of rapidly going out of control in a lot of communities, especially my part of the country. I think part of the reason 

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for that, personally, is that we have poorly designed Federal structure for dealing with housing policy, because nobody is looking at 

the whole picture at all. 

There are no policymakers charged with looking across the whole 

spectrum. It is incredibly siloed. That is not just an observation on 

the number of programs; I am talking about policymaking itself. So 

even if you look at Congress, for example, Federal mortgage assistance is spread across Agriculture Committee, this committee and 

the Veterans Affairs Committee. 

Even within this committee, the primary mortgage market is 

overseen by Financial Institutions Subcommittee, while the secondary mortgage market is in the Housing and Insurance or Capital Markets, depending on who is doing the securitizing. 

It may be that a bunch of narrowly tailored programs is the best 

way to address housing costs, although I frankly doubt it. But as 

a result of the silos, I think we address the problem—each of the 

problems in isolation. 

So we separate homeownership from rentals, market-rate housing from affordable housing, and homelessness from ‘‘the rent is too 

damn high.’’ But my view is housing is an ecosystem, and all the 

parts are connected, and especially through housing prices. 

You are new to this, this whole world of housing policy, and so 

my hope is that you are kind of looking at it with fresh eyes. I am 

wondering if you see the same thing I do, that we deal with this 

in a fractured and fragmented and siloed way. 

And if you do, do you have any ideas about how we might be able 

to address it so that we can all get about the business of ensuring—not just keeping the dream of homeownership alive for Americans, but also ensuring that everybody has a good place, a good 

shelter, a good home in which to reside? 

As I say, the number 1 priority here ought to be, blanket, pillow, 

roof. If you don’t have a pillow to lay your head on, a blanket to 

cover yourself with and a roof over your head, all the other problems in life get amplified very considerably. 

Secretary CARSON. We do have to make sure that we will are 

willing to work across different silos so that we can— 

Mr. HECK. Do you see it as a problem? 

Secretary CARSON. —We can address it holistically. In the past, 

we have not done that. I have been engaged with—several conversations with Secretary Mnuchin, as well as the NAC, the Domestic Policy Council, Department of Agriculture, to develop more 

holistic approaches to these problems. I think that is the only way 

we are going to get them solved. 

Mr. HECK. I look forward to working with you on that. I yield 

back the balance of my time, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Ross. 

Mr. ROSS. Thank you, Chairman. 

And, Secretary, thank you for being here, and again, I appreciate 

all your efforts. 

You know—and where I am from is central Florida, and Tampa 

Bay area has made quite an expansion in public housing, and has 

done, I think, a very good job, to the point where they have a 

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waitlist of 13,000 people. And, we are trying to expand it, we are 

trying to work more with, of course, your office. 

But one of the things that I have a concern about is the voucher 

recipients and the portability of vouchers. And I guess my concern 

is that you have regional housing authorities—how can we best design these so that we can get some of these people off a waitlist 

and, if nothing else, consolidate them, but allow them to have better access to affordable housing through this voucher program? 

Secretary CARSON. That is obviously a huge issue and a big question, how do we get those waiting lists down? Should we be 

prioritizing certain types of people, rather than just have a consecutive waiting list? 

Those are questions that we are examining now. We will be 

happy to work with you on those. But, again, the key, I think, is 

the public-private partnerships: programs like RAD, which has 

brought in $4.3 billion of private money to get rid of some of these 

capital backlogs and to create even more housing. 

We need to create win-win situations, even utilizing LIHTC. In 

the new tax plan that has been put forward, they recognize how 

important LIHTC is, and have included a way to make sure that 

it remains profitable for people, because this is how we are going 

to get out of this problem. This is how we can get out of that backlog. 

Mr. ROSS. I agree, and I—we have a good voucher program. I 

think that it needs to be able to follow the jobs, because that is important, because of course work brings dignity. But the incentive 

of private capital coming into the market to partner with HUD is 

very crucial. 

And I guess my concern is we have seen some successes in that 

regard, and not only the capital, but also the discipline and the 

counseling that is necessary. The Family Self-Sufficiency Program, 

for example— 

Secretary CARSON. Right. 

Mr. ROSS. —One that I think—that has shown some success. Do 

you think that that has been a program that we should continue 

to not only fund, but to expand? 

Secretary CARSON. Absolutely. Anything that has to do with creating self-sufficiency—and we are looking for innovative approaches for that. One of the things that I am looking at in the future is taking a sliver of the monthly subsidy, and putting it in 

what would be like an escrow. 

Mr. ROSS. Yes. 

Secretary CARSON. And that would be used for the routine maintenance of that unit. So if there is not a lot of routine maintenance, 

it just continues to grow and grow. But if the holes poked in the 

screen and the light bulbs are broken and paint—door needs to be 

painted, everything—it is not going to accumulate. 

But you let it accumulate, you let the people know how much 

money is in it, because that incentivizes them to really take care 

of their property, and if they leave public housing within 5 to 10 

years, they get that money for a down payment. 

That has the dual effect of allowing people to get into housing, 

but it also teaches them the responsibilities of homeownership, bemcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

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cause they start acting like homeowners in order to make it accumulate. 

Mr. ROSS. It changes the culture. It changes the culture. It grows 

appreciation and builds a base of dignity and ownership, and I 

think that is—when you stop—talked on your opening about innovation is key, I think innovation is the absolute compass that we 

need to be following, in order to change a model that has not 

worked very well over the last 50 years. 

Secretary CARSON. Exactly. 

Mr. ROSS. Finally, the Moving to Work program—what more can 

we do for those that are non-elderly and are work-capable, to provide them with a Moving to Work incentive? 

Secretary CARSON. The key thing that we have to recognize is 

that people have tried different iterations of that over the years, 

trying to—you work and you get out—and as they start climbing 

the ladder, we pull the rug out from underneath them. 

Mr. ROSS. Right. 

Secretary CARSON. What we have to do is we have to let them 

get far enough up the ladder that they are not even looking down 

the see if the rug is there anymore. So we just need to understand 

how that works, and the timing of it. 

Mr. ROSS. I appreciate it. I think that program—I would like to 

see it expanded. It is a pilot program right now. And we have seen 

it in Orlando. 

Secretary CARSON. Absolutely. 

Mr. ROSS. It is working there. With that, my time is up and I 

will yield back. Thank you, Chairman. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Gentleman yields back. 

Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from New York, Mrs. 

Maloney. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ms. 

Ranking Member. I would like to build on Congressman Ross’s 

questions about public-private partnership. And you have discussed 

right now the importance of it and your support for it in addressing 

our housing needs. 

But in your 2018 budget request, you target programs that encourage these partnerships, personally to leverage, as you said, is 

so important—there are not enough dollars out there in affordable 

housing, and private housing organizations really depend on these 

government programs. 

One in particular, 202, senior housing—there is always a waiting 

list by seniors needing the housing, but also developers who are 

willing to put it up. But the funding hasn’t been there. I am glad 

to see there is more in this budget. But still, it has been cut back 

dramatically, quite frankly, from when I first came to Congress. 

But how can you think the administration can encourage publicprivate partnerships if its budget largely cuts out the government’s 

role, and cuts the funding for the government’s role in the relationship? 

Secretary CARSON. All right, thank you for that question. I understand the basis of it. 

Here is the situation. Would we like to have almost unlimited 

money to deal with these problems? Absolutely. That would be 

ideal. But we don’t, and we have a $20 trillion national debt. 

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Now, I am not going to have to pay it. You probably won’t either, 

although you are younger than I am. You may have to pay some 

of it. But your children and your grandchildren will— 

Mrs. MALONEY. That is true, and I want to get on to another 

question. You know—but if you put your money into things that leverage more money and more housing, it is certainly a dollar well 

spent. And the budget does cut the private-public partnership section, and I—my request is to see if we can work together to see if 

we can restore some of it. 

Secretary CARSON. Absolutely. I would be happy to work with 

you on it. 

Mrs. MALONEY. I also—I want to invite you to my district. I represent a lot of HUD projects. My mayor, my city council president—everybody is asking you to come and take a tour. So if you 

are ever in New York, we would love to set something up for you 

to look at some of the things we have going on the ground. 

Secretary CARSON. OK. 

Mrs. MALONEY. But my district is very different. As you know, 

in New York, people don’t live horizontally. We live vertically. And 

we live in co-ops and we live in condos. And people are asking for 

you to revisit opening up assistance to first-time homeowners. That 

has been one of your themes. 

And right now, especially seniors are asking if the co-op owners 

could be part of HUD’s reverse-mortgage program. This is the type 

of housing I represent, and right now, co-op owners are unfairly excluded from FHA’s reverse-mortgage program, and I would say for 

no real reason. 

So my question is, will you consider allowing owners of housing 

co-ops to participate in FHA’s reverse-mortgage programs? 

Secretary CARSON. I certainly don’t see any reason why we 

shouldn’t engage in that conversation with you. 

Mrs. MALONEY. That is great. 

Secretary CARSON. And let’s look at the numbers, and let’s see 

what works, because I am for doing things that make sense. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much, because people are requesting that, particularly seniors, and we have not been able to 

achieve that. So this would be a great breakthrough. Thank you 

for— 

Secretary CARSON. Absolutely. 

Mrs. MALONEY. —Wanting to look at it. 

As you know, FHA plays a countercyclical role in the housing 

market. It expands in times of market stress, which we went 

through in 2008, when everyone else is pulling back, and it shrinks 

in times of market stability. 

And the most recent annual report shows that FHA’s market 

share has actually diminished substantially since its peak during 

the housing crisis, and has stabilized in these past few years. 

But despite this, some people continue to claim that the FHA is 

playing an outsized role in the housing market, and demand that 

FHA shrink. So do you agree that FHA is currently playing too 

large a role in the housing market? Or, you know— 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. Right now we are at about 13.2 percent, 

which is sort of back down to the pre-housing-crisis level. It expanded during the crisis like it should. It is sort of like an accormcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

37 

dion, right? It is a buffer, and that is the way that it is supposed 

to work. 

That is the ideal situation—doesn’t mean that there aren’t some 

reforms that we are looking at that make it even more efficient, 

but generally, it has a very positive balance, and it allows people 

to be able to get into homes, particularly first-time homebuyers, a 

lot of minorities. And we want to make sure that we maintain that 

strength. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you very much. 

Secretary CARSON. OK. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentlelady has expired. The 

chair wishes to inform all members that we will be excusing the 

witness at 12:30 today. 

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. 

Pittenger. 

Mr. PITTENGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you again for being with us today. Your demeanor and patience has been exemplary. I have so much appreciation for the focus and clarity of mission that you bring. Your life 

experience offers so much for each of us to pay keen attention to. 

I particularly appreciate all of your continued efforts on behalf 

of those individuals who are suffering, of course, from the national—the natural disasters that have occurred in our country. 

We have seen unprecedented damage that has been caused by 

Hurricane Harvey and Irma and Maria. Our hearts go out, obviously, to the victims of all of these awful storms. 

As you are very much aware, a year ago, Hurricane Matthew 

struck North Carolina with subsequent thousand-year floods, severely damaged 98,000 homes and 19,000 businesses. We still have 

150 or so families that are still living in FEMA trailers. 

It has affected our poorest counties in our State and, frankly, 

some of the poorest counties in the country: Bladen and Cumberland and Robeson, some of those counties, I know, that we hope 

to show you, hopefully, in early November, when you can return to 

our State. 

What I would like to ask you, Mr. Secretary, is, what can you 

say in terms of what the department is doing on long-term disaster 

relief for these areas? They are not in the media, and they are not 

the—on everyone’s attention, but the pain and suffering is still 

there. What can you say is being done currently? 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you for that, and thank you for your 

extremely good advocacy for the people of North Carolina. 

I did have a scheduled visit there— 

Mr. PITTENGER. Sure. 

Secretary CARSON. —As you know, recently. And then this little 

problem called Harvey came up. But we are rescheduling that visit 

to look at that very issue in terms of the long-term recovery function. We didn’t get the final plan from the State, in terms of recovery, until the 21st of April— 

Mr. PITTENGER. Yes, sir. 

Secretary CARSON. —Of this year. So we are working with your 

State and local officials already, and we will continue to do so. But 

we have not, by any stretch of the imagination, forgotten about 

that just because these other ones have come up. 

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Mr. PITTENGER. Are you comfortable that HUD has mechanisms 

in place in not just our State, but all States, to ensure the money 

is spent in a fiscally accountable and timely way? 

Secretary CARSON. For some reason, I am not hearing well. 

Mr. PITTENGER. Are you comfortable that the States have accountable structures in place, that the taxpayer money is being 

used in an appropriate way. 

Secretary CARSON. Let me put it this way. At the State level, 

there seems to be more accountability than there is, frequently, at 

a lower level. So one of the things that I am finding just in looking 

at past data, in terms of efficiency—working with the State tends 

to be a little bit better than working with 100 different municipalities. 

Mr. PITTENGER. Yes, sir. 

And my district, as you may be aware, includes Charlotte. It is 

a major metropolitan area of our State. I have seven other additional rural counties, and I would like to ask you, what is HUD’s 

involvement in these rural areas, particularly, and the value that 

it can bring to these communities? 

Secretary CARSON. One thing that sometimes people assume is 

that HUD is not interested in rural areas because it is called Housing and Urban Development. But obviously, if you look at programs 

that we have and those in association with USDA, we do pay quite 

a bit of attention—maybe want to rename the department, at some 

point, to reflect that. 

There are particularly large issues with poverty and with drug 

use in the rural areas, and we are working with—across the silos, 

with the Department of Justice, Department of Agriculture, on 

those issues. 

Mr. PITTENGER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and thank you again 

for your great spirit and your clarity of mission and dedication. We 

truly appreciate you. 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you. Thank you. 

Mr. PITTENGER. I yield back. 

Chairman HENSARLING. The gentleman yields back. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Kildee. 

Mr. KILDEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you again, Secretary Carson for being here. As I mentioned in my opening statement, and as we chatted briefly before 

the beginning of this hearing, I am from Flint, Michigan, a community not far from where you grew up, and a community that has 

been struggling in many ways for decades, but in a particular way 

for the past few years as a result of the water crisis. 

And you referenced in your testimony that the department, 

under your leadership, intends to take on some of these issues of 

exposure to toxic chemicals in housing. And lead is a really significant issue. As a physician, the impact that lead exposure—high 

levels of lead exposure can have on the brain of a developing child. 

And so this tragedy, while in many—in the eyes of many is sort 

of over—it is not in the news every day—it is an ongoing struggle, 

not only in terms of the infrastructure needs, which are slowly 

being met; the health and development needs, which are not enmcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

39 

tirely met; and the redevelopment challenge that this community 

faces as a result of a real gut punch to the community. 

So the challenges that it was already dealing with have been exacerbated by being known as a city of 100,000 people that had 

poisoned water. The impact on housing values, the impact on 

neighborhood development is palpable, and it is dangerous. 

In the previous administration, we had kind of an all-hands-ondeck approach to Flint’s recovery. And I was pleased to see, during 

the campaign, when then-candidate, now President Trump visited 

Flint, he said, and I am quoting him—this is regarding Flint—‘‘We 

will get it fixed. It will be fixed quickly and effectively.’’ And as I 

stated, Flint is not fixed yet. 

I reached out to the White House very early on and asked for a 

point person on Flint’s recovery, because there is a legitimate and 

important Federal role in this. Have not received a response. It is 

important that we have some sense of who we can work with. 

To your knowledge, is there a point person? I haven’t been able 

to get an answer out of the White House. I wonder if you have a 

sense of that, if there is a point person that we can work with. 

Secretary CARSON. I agree that there needs to be one. And I 

would be certainly willing to look into that for you. 

Mr. KILDEE. I appreciate that. And perhaps, as we mentioned, 

you and I could find time to meet. I have a real interest in the 

work of your department broadly, and I would like to share some 

thoughts with you, but specifically, to talk about how my community can continue to receive the support that it surely deserves. So, 

if we can find time to do that, I would enjoy getting on your calendar. So thank you for that. 

And I know this has been raised. I raised it a bit. The preconditions that led to the crisis in Flint are not unique to Flint. We 

have seen a lot of older communities—and I heard the reference to 

not just traditional large cities, but small towns as well—that have 

not seen the kind of private investment, and that still do require 

some public support for their development challenges, in order for 

them to be fully competitive and make the contributions that they 

should make. 

So I am really concerned about continuing deep cuts to the Community Development Block Grant program, for example, a highly 

flexible program, a former Federal investment that really defaults 

to the States and, in many cases, directly to local jurisdictions, 

making decisions for themselves as to what their needs might be. 

As in the case of any program, there could be problems. But 

what I fear is that this administration—and I am really interested 

in your take on this—is taking a ‘‘throw the baby out with the bath 

water’’ approach. 

This is a really important program that is essential to lots of 

communities. And can you help me understand what your position 

is on this important program? 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. My position is we should save the baby. 

Don’t throw it out with the bath water. 

The fact of the matter is, as I mentioned before, there are—there 

are multiple good things in these programs that have been very effective, some of which you have just mentioned. We will make sure 

that those things continue. 

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Mr. KILDEE. So long—I appreciate that, so long as we don’t take 

the approach that the only way to help the programs is to just 

make them so small, that they are not consequential any longer. 

I agree that there is a need for change. I have talked to the ranking member about changes in CDBG that I am interested in pursuing. So long as the solution is not simply to essentially eliminate 

the program over time, I am happy to work with you on that. 

Thank you very much. 

Secretary CARSON. Absolutely. 

Mr. KILDEE. Thanks for your testimony. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. 

Rothfus. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good morning, Mr. Secretary. Welcome. 

Secretary CARSON. Good morning. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. My district is home to an organization called 

HEARTH, which provides vital transitional housing services to victims of domestic violence. For more than 20 years, women and families in Allegheny County fleeing domestic abuse have had a reliable and caring place to go to that provide temporary shelter and 

protection from danger. 

HEARTH has provided hundreds, if not thousands of my constituents with a safe space and the support they need to transition 

to permanent housing. HEARTH has a compelling mission, and it 

fulfills a priceless service for the community. 

This program has a strong track record, because it provides residents with the supportive services they need to transition to selfsufficiency. Despite this, HEARTH and similar providers have lost 

or are in danger of losing their HUD funding, unless they abandon 

the services and high standards that have contributed to their success. 

This ties in to the Housing First policy that my colleague, Mr. 

Barr, raised earlier in the context of drug treatment programs. 

Under your predecessor, HUD adopted the Housing First policy 

and de-prioritized programs that failed to conform to that orthodoxy. Indeed, continuums of care were told that HUD will be less 

generous in funding transitional programs. 

I asked Secretary Castro about his position on transitional housing programs like HEARTH and their future place in our housing 

assistance toolbox. I greatly—I would generally characterize his response as a full endorsement of the Housing First policy which, 

again, is going to entail a de-prioritization of transitional housing. 

I would appreciate your taking a look at this issue, and I would 

appreciate your feedback on whether you think that we have to 

really keep our eye on the ball on transitional housing, in the context of this Housing First policy. 

Secretary CARSON. I would be very, very happy to work with you 

on that. But everything that we are going to do is going to be driven by the numbers, driven by the evidence. What is actually effective? 

And again, when I talk Housing First, I may be talking something a little different than what the previous secretary was talking. 

mcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

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Mr. ROTHFUS. Yes, we want to follow up with you on that because we want to make sure that this orthodoxy that he was going 

after isn’t really negatively impacting on really good programs— 

Secretary CARSON. Right. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. —That have been very beneficial to our community. 

Secretary CARSON. I agree. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. A number of folks have mentioned the Moving to 

Work program. We have had hearings about that, and it has been 

discussed today. I believe that this program offers flexibilities that 

can help public housing authorities better serve their local populations. 

My district has—one of the housing authorities does have a Moving to Work program. There are others that would like it. And I 

am—want to hear from you whether you support the expansion of 

the Moving to Work program. 

Secretary CARSON. I was very happy with the expansion to another 100 areas. And I am hopeful that we can, with the help of 

Congress, move far beyond that. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. Yes, I would like to see it really transition from 

being a pilot program—it has been a pilot program since 1996. I 

don’t know how long you have to have a program be a pilot program. 

One of the three national program objectives for CDBG is that 

projects principally benefit low and moderate-income persons. Critics have noted that CDBG funds often end up being used for parks, 

pools, street signs and community centers, diverting dollars from 

those communities with the greatest need, particularly in housing. 

In your testimony before the House Appropriations Committee 

this past June, you stated that the CDBG program is, quote ‘‘not 

well-targeted to the poorest populations, and has not demonstrated 

a measurable impact on communities.’’ Can you elaborate on that? 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. Some of the same things that you just 

mentioned in the question, and some abuses that are even more 

significant than that—this is a program that, again, has some very 

good components, and the things that are good in that program, 

and HOME Program, and various programs—we are not just going 

to abandon those things. We are going to obviously utilize the information in order to improve what we are able to do. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. You mentioned in your testimony before the House 

Appropriations Committee earlier this year that the first HUD secretary, Robert Weaver, said that we must look for human solutions, 

not just policies and programs. What do you think he meant by 

human solutions? 

Secretary CARSON. I hope what he meant is that we need to be 

looking at the people themselves, as opposed to just the concept of 

sticking them in a house and thinking that our job is done. If we 

develop the human capital that exists here, it benefits us all. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. It sounds like—that that would still be relevant 

today—as relevant today as it was when Secretary Weaver first 

said that. Would you agree with that? 

Secretary CARSON. That would—that would be the way that I 

would look at it. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I yield back. 

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Chairman HENSARLING. Gentleman yields back. 

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gonzales. 

Mr. GONZALES. I yield to the ranking member. I yield my time. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much. I appreciate having the 

time. 

I am sitting here, and I am listening to how much you care about 

the most vulnerable in our society and how you want to help people 

become independent and out of poverty. And yet your budget and 

what you are advocating for and what you are advocating against 

does not really define your representation that you care about 

these vulnerable people. 

You are cutting public housing by $2 billion, Housing Choice 

vouchers by $800 million, project-based rental assistance by $65 

million. You have members on the opposite side of the aisle talking 

about programs that are funded by the Community Development 

Block Grant. They don’t even know that you have completely eliminated that. 

The Home Investment Partnership Program—we talk about the 

national housing crisis that we have, and the National Housing 

Trust Fund is completely eliminated, and the Choice Neighborhoods initiative eliminated. And Section 811 housing for persons 

with disabilities—cut by $121 million. 

And so there is one thing that stands out in my mind, based on 

the campaign, and looking at what happened in the primaries and 

things that the President said, and how he talked to you and others and demeaned you so much. 

But one of the things that stands out in my mind so vividly is 

how he mocked and mimicked a disabled journalist. And so you 

have a—he has openly mocked disabled people, and HUD’s most recent budget proposal, which you supported and defended, proposes 

a steep 18 percent cut for Section 811 program, which is focused 

on serving low-income persons with disabilities, as well as harmful 

rent increases on Section 811 residents. 

This is very concerning, in light of the critical role that HUD 

plays in providing housing assistance to low-income persons with 

disabilities, as well as enforcing the Fair Housing Act, which protects persons with disabilities against discrimination in the housing 

market. 

Are—do you remember seeing that display by the President 

where he mocked and mimicked a disabled journalist? Do you remember seeing the sight of that? 

Secretary CARSON. I remember seeing the episode that you are 

referring to. 

Ms. WATERS. Do you think it was wrong for the President to send 

that kind of message about what he cares—about disabled people? 

Secretary CARSON. I am not really here to talk about the President. I really want to talk about the people that we are trying to 

help. 

Ms. WATERS. Yes, I want to talk about the people, too. Right 

now, I want to talk about the disabled people. And I want to know 

if his attitude is such that it is reflected in this budget. 

And you defend the budget. And are you defending in any shape, 

form or fashion the fact that the person who wanted to be the 

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President of the United States of America, for all people, would 

treat disabled people that way? What do you think about that? 

Secretary CARSON. As a pediatric neurosurgeon a large portion of 

my patients were disabled people. 

Ms. WATERS. All right, so you do care about disabled people. Is 

that right? 

Secretary CARSON. Of course. 

Ms. WATERS. When you are in front of disabled people who are 

advocating for resources to help with their lives, and they ask you 

about the President and the fact that he mocked and mimicked disabled journalists during the campaign, and they ask you, ‘‘Do you 

defend the President in doing that,’’ what would you say to them? 

Secretary CARSON. I would say that I am going to use the resources and the talents that we have to look out for the interests 

of the disabled people. We are going to commit to making sure that 

they are not displaced. 

Ms. WATERS. So do you think a cut of $121 million is a demonstration of your support for the disabled? Section 811 housing is 

for persons who are disabled—who are disabled. 

Secretary CARSON. I would say it is not the amount of money, it 

is the result that you get that that is important. 

Ms. WATERS. I beg your pardon? I can’t hear you. 

Secretary CARSON. I would say it is not the amount of money, 

but rather the result that you achieve that is important. 

Ms. WATERS. You keep talking about the amount of money, but 

you know your real concerns and what you care about is reflected 

in the budget. And it is difficult for me to believe that you really 

care about the disabled when you are cutting the resources to them 

because of the difficulty in their lives and the tremendous needs 

that they have. 

It is difficult for me to believe you care about them with these 

kind of cuts. I yield back. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Williams. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Secretary Carson, for being here today, and 

thank you for your testimony. 

Secretary CARSON. Absolutely. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. And, for a personal note, I would like to thank 

you for reaching out to the—those of us who were involved in the 

baseball shooting. 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you very much. Also, I want to thank you 

for your leadership. I have been around leaders all my life, and you 

are a leader, thank you for that. 

And also, I want to thank you for what you have done in Texas. 

I am from Texas. I want to thank you for what you have done in 

Texas with the—Hurricane Harvey, for reaching out quickly. Your 

response has just demonstrated the swift action and resolute—and 

Texans are grateful for what you—for what you have done. 

And I am also happy that, in such a pivotal time for our country, 

history of our Nation, that your leadership understands the challenges we face. We have talked about them today, and you undermcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER

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stand the actions necessary to be the best possible steward of the 

taxpayer, which is important, while assisting those in need to 

achieve their God-given potential. 

So, Mr. Secretary, I want start by talking about FHA’s mortgage 

insurance program, which so many in my district have addressed 

with my staff and myself. We are aware of many complaints from 

mortgage lenders who are being subjected to extended, costly investigations and then lawsuits by the Department of Justice for their 

participation in the Federal Housing Administration’s mortgage insurance program. 

While I applaud efforts to penalize lenders who deliberately submitted false or fraudulent mortgages, many lenders are being 

asked to pay penalties for loans they were—that were reviewed and 

audited by the FHA and HUD. 

These actions, forcing many lenders to avoid—or to keep them 

from participating in the program make it difficult for many firsttime homebuyers to purchase homes. So can you explain what circumstances would institute a penalty on a lender, after FHA and 

HUD have approved their mortgage? 

Secretary CARSON. It has been a problem because of all the red 

tape and all the regulations. And there are so many traps involved, 

when people do things that are really non-material mistakes, and 

then they find themselves in the kind of difficulty that would basically drive them away from even wanting to be involved in the first 

place. 

I have talked to Attorney General Sessions about that, and my 

staff and staff from DOJ are working on those regulatory barriers 

that are precluding people from wanting to get involved. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. The HUD work force, which you supervise, is just 

short of 8,000 full-time employees. In comparison to some Federal 

agencies, this may appear to be fairly lean—8,000 is hard to say 

lean—but given the responsibilities and scope of the department, 

many could argue that the organization is unnecessarily large. 

Do you have the flexibility and authority to right and—to right 

the size of the department, if needed, and moving the resources 

and employees as needed to meet the goals that you and the President have set? 

Secretary CARSON. I think we have close to what we need. We 

have come down from 15,000 to 8,000 in recent years, and are looking with a very careful look at the actual need to hire and bring 

people on and utilizing them effectively, and utilizing people in 

multiple areas in order to increase the efficiency, recognizing that 

we do have to be stewards of taxpayers’ money. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. And then what challenges stand in the way of you 

organizing your department to achieve the best return on taxpayer 

investment, which would be cost in return? 

Secretary CARSON. Well what we have done is divided people into 

work groups with captains, who are responsible, who bear some fiscal responsibility, so that we don’t simply say to the CFO, which 

we don’t have right now, ‘‘That is your responsibility.’’ And I think 

that the more we can distribute that responsibility and make people responsible, the more fiscally responsible they will be. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Last, one of the promises President Trump made 

to the American people was to direct his administration to decrease 

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regulation in order to spur growth. Regulations choke growth. 

Since you assumed your current position, what steps have you and 

President Trump taken to roll back harmful regulations in the 

housing industry? 

Secretary CARSON. We have established a regulatory reform committee. And they work through the Office of the General Counsel, 

looking at major regulations. We are going—we have about 10 of 

them right now, which we are looking to be able to get rid of, on 

the way to quite a few more than that. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you again for being here. Thank you for 

your testimony. I yield my time. 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. 

Kihuen. 

Mr. KIHUEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here and for sharing your testimony and also your 

time, as well. We know you are a very busy person, and we appreciate you taking the time to be here. 

Mr. Secretary, as you know, Las Vegas was the epicenter of the 

foreclosure crisis. My neighbors lost their home to foreclosure. I 

lost my home to foreclosure. The American dream of homeownership from all these families was ripped away. 

In the intervening years, Las Vegas has thankfully recovered. 

Foreclosures have slowed down. Our economy has continued to 

grow at a healthy pace. We are adding tens of thousands of jobs 

a year. 

However, housing stock isn’t being built at a proportional rate. 

We are starting to see both home sale and rental prices rising at 

an alarming rate. Year over year, housing prices were up 13.7 percent from September 2016 to September 2017. 

The apartment vacancy rate is one of the lowest in the country, 

at 3.1 percent. In Clark County as a whole, we need more than 

157,000 affordable housing units, but we only have 31,870 available. 

Unlike other cities, low-income people cannot—can’t move further out into the suburbs when housing prices increase in the Las 

Vegas area, since the city is surrounded by desert. These residents 

are increasingly being forced to live in untenable situations or 

leave Las Vegas. 

Mr. Secretary, you have spoken before about the need for people 

to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. However, there are situations, like in Las Vegas, where people have jobs, work hard, but 

still can’t get ahead in the housing market, where rental prices are 

increasing faster than their paychecks. Do you think there is a government role in helping these people with affordable housing? 

Secretary CARSON. There is, in the sense of creating the proper 

environment for the economy to grow, because a lot of the problems 

that we are having in that regard is because wages are stagnant, 

and they are not keeping up with the—with the increasing cost of 

the housing. 

So that will be the solution to many of the issues that are going 

on our country, including some of the social issues, because people 

get more irritable when they are not doing well economically. 

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Mr. KIHUEN. Another question: In HUD’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget proposal, the Home Investment Partnerships Program would be 

eliminated, and—instead of relying on local and State governments 

to fill the gap. 

However, the city of North Las Vegas relies on HOME to expand 

affordable housing options. What if local governments can’t pick up 

the slack? Is it your opinion that they are just out of luck and the 

Federal Government shouldn’t be assisting them? 

Secretary CARSON. We are certainly looking for State and local 

governments to play a bigger role. There is no question about that. 

But in terms, as I have said before, of the good things that programs do, including the HOME Program, we are examining those 

things and looking at the best ways to be able to continue them. 

Mr. KIHUEN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

And, last question, according to Amparo Gamazo, the executive 

director of the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, your 

proposed fiscal 2018 budget would make it very—and I quote ‘‘very 

difficult for us to keep up with the maintenance of existing public 

housing units.’’ 

Mr. Secretary, I just read a slew of statistics that pretty clearly 

show me we are not going to need less public housing going forward, but more. If our local experts are saying your budget—it is 

going to make it harder for them to just maintain what we have, 

how can we fulfill HUD’s mandate of helping the American people 

put a roof over their heads? 

Secretary CARSON. I hope that that will be one of the reasons 

that I can count on Congress to help lift the cap on rent, because 

that is how we get rid of those capital need backlogs. 

Mr. KIHUEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the remaining time. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Gentleman yields back. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Maine, Mr. 

Poliquin. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. 

Mr. Carson, it is wonderful that you are here. I appreciate it very 

much. Good to see you again. 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Dr. Carson, I represent rural Maine—not the 

urban parts of Maine, but rural Maine. And you folks might not— 

might not be familiar with this, but Maine is the oldest average in 

the country. It is not Florida, or it is not Arizona. It is Maine. 

I worry about folks that live in the rural area. I worry about our 

seniors, and I worry about making sure we have a very strong safety net for those that are less fortunate than us. 

But even though I worry about our seniors, they are also great 

teachers. My mom is 89, my dad is 87. I love them to death. I am 

very close to my parents, in their life and in their stage in their 

life. 

But I remember, when we were kids growing up in central 

Maine, it was a vibrant area with lots of paper mills that were just 

humming along, and folks were happy and taking care of themselves. And my parents were always working. That is what I remember—and I am sure, similar to your situation, in some regard, 

Dr. Carson. 

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My dad was a teacher and coach, and he was always traveling. 

And when he wasn’t teaching, he was coaching—or rather, refereeing high school basketball all around the State. And it is an 

8-hour drive from one part of my district to the other. 

And my mom was a nurse. She worked the night shift at nursing 

homes. So she was home when Jim and myself—my brother and 

I—got back to school. And so we grew up with education and compassion. And during the summertime, they were always working. 

Dad had a little lobster pond. 

So what my parents taught me more than anything—it is not 

what they said; it is what they showed me. It was honesty, compassion and hard work. 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Hard work—now, my first full-time job was when 

I was 12 or 13 years old. I worked for 50 cents an hour, pumping 

gas at a marina on a little lake in Maine. And, man, I worked 40 

hours a week, and got a $20 bill. 

I was just on my way. I remember the excitement and purpose 

I had, getting up every morning, and making my lunch, and going 

to work. And the next year, I parlayed it into my next job, working 

at a restaurant, running the cash machine—the cash register, for 

a buck an hour. Now I get two $20 bills for working 40 hours a 

week. 

This is what I learned, now. What I have found is that there are 

so many people, Mr. Carson, that look for the perfect job and retirement. You live long enough, you know there is no perfect job. 

Secretary CARSON. Right. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. The value of work is the journey. You learn something from every job. You find dignity and self-purpose, and that 

is what your kids see. And that is what your grandkids see. That 

is the value of hard work. 

Now, I have one son, who is 26. We are very close. He is a hard 

worker. I worry about Sam all the time. I worry about his generation. But I worry about him less, because he knows the value of 

hard work. I can’t even imagine, Mr. Carson, raising my son to say, 

‘‘OK. Now, you have had a good education. You know how to work. 

Now we want to make sure you sign up for every government program you can find.’’ 

And I know you believe the same thing. So my question to you, 

sir, is—you believe in the dignity and self-purpose of hard work, 

and what it shows the next generation. What are you good folks 

doing at HUD to make sure that our families are upwardly mobile, 

our families can escape government dependence and have better 

lives, with better futures, more promise and more freedom? 

Secretary CARSON. I thank you for that question. One of things 

that we are doing—we developed this concept called Envision centers. It comes from the Bible verse, Proverbs 29:18, that says, 

‘‘Without a vision, the people perish.’’ 

And a lot of times, when you go into the low economic areas, and 

you say to the kids, ‘‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’’ 

you get a blank stare. But sometimes, you might get a few things— 

maybe five things. But there are 1,000 things. 

And the Envision centers are to expose them to the other 995 

and tell them how to get there, and also to serve as a nidus for 

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mentorship programs, because it has been demonstrated by multiple studies that low-income students who are mentored have a 

much higher high school graduation rate than those who do not. 

It also facilitates child care, because so many of the young 

women get pregnant, and their education ends at that point. And 

we want them to get their high school diploma. We want them to 

be able to get their Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, become 

independent, but more importantly, teach that to their children so 

we break the cycles of dependency that have occurred. 

And it is also going to be an nidus for health care, for clinics, a 

whole host of things that—to really expose young people, because 

a lot of them—they have not really been exposed to those things 

that are necessary in order to be successful in our society. 

Mr. POLIQUIN. Thank you for what you do for our country, Mr. 

Carson, and keep doing what you are doing. I yield back my time, 

sir. 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman is expired. The 

chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank the witness for appearing, as well. Mr. Carson—Mr. Secretary, Dr. Carson, sir, you have indicated that there will be substantial cuts to the budget that HUD has. Can you give me that 

dollar amount? I am showing that it is about $6 billion. Is that correct? 

Secretary CARSON. That is about right. 

Mr. GREEN. Is that about 13 percent of the budget? 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. 

Mr. GREEN. And will these cuts, Mr. Carson, come from public 

housing, housing vouchers, community development block grants 

and other aid to low-income persons? 

Secretary CARSON. They come from a variety of sources, including— 

Mr. GREEN. How much from public housing, Mr. Carson? 

Secretary CARSON. Probably in the neighborhood of, if you com- bine all the programs, $2 billion to $3 billion. 

Mr. GREEN. $2 billion to $3 billion? How much from housing 

vouchers, Mr. Carson? 

Secretary CARSON. Rather than go through a quiz on all the 

numbers— 

Mr. GREEN. It is not a quiz, Mr. Carson. I have the time to ask 

you questions about things that you should have some knowledge 

of. If you have no knowledge of them, you can simply say so. I will 

accept it as an answer. But this is something that is within your 

bailiwick, my dear sir. How much from housing vouchers? 

Secretary CARSON. Again, I can give you that number, but— 

Mr. GREEN. If you would give it to me, I would greatly appreciate 

it, because I would like to go on to community development block 

grants. 

Secretary CARSON. Here is my point. I agree with you that it is 

difficult to do these things. 

Mr. GREEN. That is not—that has little to do with my question. 

You are answering a question that I am not asking, to be quite 

candid with you. 

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So would you kindly tell me how much HUD is going to—how 

much you are going to cut from the HUD budget, as it relates to 

housing vouchers? Now, if you don’t know, it is OK to say you don’t 

know, Mr. Carson. I don’t hold you to things that you don’t know. 

How much are they going to— 

Secretary CARSON. Let’s just move on and say that I don’t want 

to offer a number, because it is subject— 

Mr. GREEN. Why would the secretary of HUD not give the number—the amount that you are cutting from housing vouchers, Mr. 

Carson? 

Secretary CARSON. Because— 

Mr. GREEN. You are the secretary of HUD. 

Secretary CARSON. —Because— 

Mr. GREEN. You are making the cut. 

Secretary CARSON. —Because we have already talked about the 

total amount of the cut. 

Mr. GREEN. The total amount does not help me when it comes 

to the housing vouchers. I have people who use housing vouchers, 

and I need to be able to explain to them, Mr. Carson, how much 

the cut portends for them. How much, Mr. Carson? 

Secretary CARSON. Let’s hear your number. 

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Carson, forgive me for coughing while speaking. 

But, Mr. Carson, you are the witness testifying today, and if you 

want a moment to ask someone behind you, I would gladly accord 

you that moment. 

Secretary CARSON. I don’t—I don’t want to open the book and 

look at the numbers. 

Mr. GREEN. I see. 

Secretary CARSON. I want—I want— 

Mr. GREEN. So you choose not to say how much you are cutting 

from housing vouchers. All right. How much are you cutting from 

community block grants, Mr. Carson? 

Secretary CARSON. —I want to talk about— 

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Carson, you don’t get to talk about what you 

want to today. You get to talk about what I want you to talk about. 

You get to answer the questions that I pose, Mr. Carson. That is 

the way it works. 

Secretary CARSON. Yes, but I also get to answer the question the 

way I want to. 

Mr. GREEN. You can answer them the way you want, but if you 

want to show a lack of knowledge, you can do this. It is quite all 

right, Mr. Carson. 

So, now, how much from community development block grants, 

Mr. Secretary? 

Secretary CARSON. Again, I am not willing to sit there and go 

through— 

Mr. GREEN. So you don’t know how much from community development block grants? 

Secretary CARSON. —I am not going to go through the list, this 

much, this much and this much. I think that is— 

Mr. GREEN. I don’t—I will move on, Mr. Carson. I accept that 

your lack of knowledge. 

Now, Mr. Carson, there seems to be a belief among the ranks of 

those who have opportunities to help others who have been blessed, 

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themselves. They seem to think that the rich need more; that the 

poor can do more with less, but the rich will have to have more to 

do more. 

Mr. Carson, if poor people could do more with less, there would 

be no poor people. Poor people are not poor because they choose to 

be. I know about your ‘‘state of mind’’ comment. But they are not 

poor because they choose to be poor. 

Have you not noticed, just for edification purposes—and I am 

sure that you are aware of it, but there may be people who are listening who are not—black unemployment, Mr. Carson, is always, 

with some exceptions, about twice that of white unemployment. 

There are many reasons for this. 

But that fact has a lot to do with what people can do with money 

that they have, and what they can’t do with the money that they 

don’t have. There are other factors involved in this country, other 

than a state of mind. There is still, Mr. Carson, invidious discrimination in the United States of America. 

While you may not suffer it, there are others who do, and they 

need to know what you plan to do, and I regret that you are unable 

to tell us today. I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary CARSON. The positions that you ascribe to me are your 

opinion of what I think. They are not what I think. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Chair— 

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, if he chooses to respond and say this, 

I would then asked to— 

Chairman HENSARLING. —The time— 

Mr. GREEN. —Be allowed to let him know that my positions 

are— 

Chairman HENSARLING. The time of the gentleman has— 

Mr. GREEN. —What you articulated and did not articulate. 

Chairman HENSARLING. —Expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. 

Zeldin. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Carson, is there anything that you would like to say 

using my time? 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. 

Sometimes I get a little bit tired of people ascribing to me things 

that people have said that I believe. And I appreciate an opportunity to say this. 

When I say that poverty is largely a state of mind, what I am 

saying is that the way that people approach things has a lot to do 

with what happens to them. If your mindset is one that ‘‘I am a 

victim’’ and that ‘‘everybody else is in control of my life and I just 

need to sit here and wait for them to do something for me,’’ you 

are going to approach life very differently from somebody who says, 

‘‘I am going to take this issue into my own hands.’’ 

It was one of the things that I learned from my mother. She 

came from a very large rural family, got married when she was 13, 

later on discovered her husband was a bigamist, had only a thirdgrade education, worked three jobs at a time. But the one thing 

about my mother—she was never a victim, and she never allowed 

us to be victims. 

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And that was very important. And she did that for other members of our family, too, who were in a very bad situation. And she 

convinced them that they didn’t have to be there, and they came 

out of that situation. She was really quite an interesting person. 

Now, I realize that not everybody has a mother like mine. But 

I also recognize that we, as a society, would do much better if we 

stopped sitting around trying to tear each other apart, and start 

saying, ‘‘What can we do to change the attitudes and to create different outcomes from people?’’ 

And there are those who allow themselves to be manipulated into 

just creating dissension, rather than try to figure out a way that 

we can actually solve the problems. Isn’t that what this whole government was supposed to be about, representatives who can help 

us solve the problems, not people who simply sit there and try to 

tear things down and try to create dissension and try to create 

victimhood? 

We don’t need that. We can do much better than that. This is 

America, the United States of America, a place that rose from nowhere to the pinnacle of the world in record time. Why? Because 

we created an atmosphere of innovation. 

Were there mistakes made? Were there problems? Absolutely. 

Are we a perfect society? We are not, because we are—we consist 

of human beings. That is why—that is why we need a savior. 

But, we really can do much better than what we are doing, if we 

stop fighting each other and start figuring out how we are going 

to solve these problems. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here, for your 

service. You are someone who wants to lift people up and provide 

more opportunity, not to keep them struggling, but to have all of 

the abilities, all the tools necessary to be able to rise up out of that 

situation for a better life. 

I feel like our country is blessed to have you serving as our secretary of HUD. It is a calling that hopefully will provide great opportunity for you to empower many Americans desperate for your 

leadership, to help them have that opportunity. 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you. 

Mr. ZELDIN. I wanted to speak briefly about veteran homelessness. On any given night, with HUD numbers, 40,000 veterans in 

the United States are struggling with homelessness. 

Any veteran who raises their hand, willing to serve our country, 

should have a roof over their head. They should have shoes on 

their feet. They should have food on their table. So the ultimate 

goal for that number will always be pursuing the permanent solution of zero. 

We know that voucher programs, which give flexibility to Americans struggling from affordable housing, has been shown to be 

more effective than the traditional housing project programs. I applaud your efforts to move more to a voucher model at HUD for all 

housing programs. 

Earlier, you noted that the agency is making progress, but that 

the HUD Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program is in need 

of more flexibility to get the vouchers in the right hands, and in 

the right place. 

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Additionally, you spoke about the expansion of public-private 

partnerships and increasing the collaboration of your agency with 

local non-profits to assist in veteran housing. 

I stand eager to work with you. I am sure many of my colleagues 

are, as well, with the ultimate goal of getting to zero veteran housing—homelessness one day. I thank you again for your leadership. 

I yield back. 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you. 

Chairman HENSARLING. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady 

from Utah, Mrs. Love. 

Mrs. LOVE. Thank you, Secretary Carson, for being here today. 

I would like to talk to you a little bit about the Moving to Work 

program, which is meant to give public housing authorities the 

flexibility to pursue innovative strategies to increase housing 

choices for low-income families and ultimately to encourage economic self-sufficiency. 

This program, now operating at only 39 of the approximate 3,200 

housing authorities in the U.S., was authorized to expand to 

more—to 100 more agencies more than 2 years ago, through the 

consolidation—Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016. 

Your department, both under your predecessor and now under 

your leadership, has moved slowly and cautiously on this directive 

from Congress to expand that. HUD has missed some of its deadlines. From that viewpoint, some of our housing authorities, it 

looks like HUD is trying to add more regulations to a program that 

was meant—that was designed for deregulation. 

Two of my home State housing authorities, of Salt Lake City and 

Salt Lake County, are desperately awaiting the chance to apply. 

They see it as a chance to redesign and streamline antiquated 

HUD programs to meet local needs more directly and successfully. 

So how can we help you advance the Moving to Work program 

so that local agencies can apply for it and hopefully gain that flexibility that they are seeking? 

Secretary CARSON. You have already helped me by that question, 

because I wasn’t aware that that was going on—that we were trying to increase the regulations, rather than decrease them. That is 

the exact opposite of what we should be doing. 

Mrs. LOVE. Right. 

Secretary CARSON. So we will look into that. 

Mrs. LOVE. OK. 

Can you tell us a little bit more, generally, about your assessment of the Moving to Work program? Has it been successful in 

moving more people to economic self-sufficiency? 

As we know—and I think that we can all agree on both sides of 

the aisle that we should not be in the business of giving people exactly what they need to stay exactly where they are. We should be 

giving people opportunities to be able to have their needs met, and 

then be able to move out of there, and be contributing members of 

society, and help other—and help their communities. 

So can you tell me how successful this program has been in helping people move and be self-sufficient and— 

Secretary CARSON. Yes—yes. First of all, we discovered through 

this program that we have some incredibly innovative people, if we 

take the barriers out of their way and allow them, because they are 

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able to see the community that they live in and see the opportunities that exist in their community. And therefore, they can design 

the program in order to take advantage of what exists where they 

are, not what exists in Washington, DC. 

And that is one of the reasons that the 39 programs that existed 

have done well enough that the expansion was authorized. I think 

the expansion probably should be authorized far beyond another 

100, because it is working. 

And we are continuing to accumulate data, but it all is pointing 

in the same direction, and that is giving local control, as long as 

you have a responsibility. 

We have to have a way that we measure what they are doing 

and make sure that we are not having any type of inappropriate 

activity going on. But, as long as we have that in place, this is 

clearly the way to go. 

Mrs. LOVE. I just have two things I want to bring up really 

quickly in the minute that I have left. 

According to CBO, Federal spending on programs to serve lowincome families was approximately $744 billion in 2016, to take 

into account 80 programs throughout the 13 different Federal agencies, and that doesn’t include the States that are helping out. 

I am trying to figure out how much goes to brick-and-mortars. 

One of the comments that you had made is—and I think it was actually a good comment—is that, as a bureaucrat, you feel—you are 

going to be a fish out of water. 

And I want you to be a fish out of water, because it is—it should 

be uncomfortable. We shouldn’t be sustaining bureaucrats. We 

should be sustaining people. 

Secretary CARSON. Right. 

Mrs. LOVE. And I want you to just keep conscious of the fact that 

these programs are meant to make sure that we make it so that 

people can have an opportunity to get out of the system. We should 

be incentivizing good behavior— 

Secretary CARSON. Right. 

Mrs. LOVE. —And people who are wanting to get up. And most 

people that are there—they do. They want to be masters of their 

own life. 

Secretary CARSON. I agree. They want that. 

Mrs. LOVE. So thank you. Thank you for being here. 

Secretary CARSON. That is—OK. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentlelady has expired. The 

chair expects to clear one more member in the queue. 

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Trott. 

Mr. TROTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Carson, thank you for being here today. And I represent Michigan’s 11th district, which is Oakland County and 

Western Wayne County. So we are awfully proud of your— 

Secretary CARSON. Very familiar. 

Mr. TROTT. —Awfully proud of your Detroit roots. And I am 

happy to report to you that Detroit is making quite a comeback 

under Mayor Duggan. 

Secretary CARSON. Absolutely. 

Mr. TROTT. And I know you visited. 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. 

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Mr. TROTT. And you are always— 

Secretary CARSON. I was very impressed. 

Mr. TROTT. —As am I. 

So I am the last person, so I am going to end with a couple of 

compliments. I have been in Congress about 3 years, and more 

often than not, the witnesses that appear before us do what we call 

the old political pivot, and they get a question they don’t like, or 

they feel insulted by, or is self-serving from the person who is asking the questions, and they talk about something else. 

You have actually sat here all morning—and I have been watching in my office and been here in the committee room—you have 

actually listened to our questions and done your best to answer our 

questions. And I suspect it is because you are brighter than most 

of us, so you are not intimidated by any of these questions. But I 

want to acknowledge that you have been, actually, one of the more 

productive witnesses I have seen during my tenure in Congress. 

Also, I want to compliment you on the President’s choice—and I 

am sure you had some input on—I think Brian Montgomery is 

going to be nominated as the FHA Commissioner. He served with 

distinction toward the end of the Bush Administration, and I think 

he will be a great asset for you at HUD. 

Secretary CARSON. Absolutely. 

Mr. TROTT. So let’s talk about the FHA program. There is a great 

article from the HousingWire from July of this year, written by 

David Stevens from the MBA. And it talks about the unprecedented use of the False Claims Act by HUD and the Department 

of Justice, starting around 2011, under President Obama. 

And the False Claims Act is a very important Federal statute. 

It was promulgated under President Lincoln to deal with profiteers 

who were supplying the Union Army and cheating the government. 

Been used over the last several decades to deal with Medicare 

fraud and to deal with defense contractors who are ripping taxpayers off. 

And so I am all for the False Claims Act being used. But are you 

familiar at all with how it has been used in the context of FHA 

lending— 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. 

Mr. TROTT. —And some of the ramifications of that? 

Secretary CARSON. Very much so. 

Mr. TROTT. So I believe you and Attorney General Sessions could 

easily solve that problem. And the consequence of the improper use 

of the False Claims Act to impose outrageous penalties against 

lenders for immaterial defects in loan origination files on FHA 

loans—the consequences are many lenders have left the FHA program, and those that have stayed in the program are more costly 

for the borrowers who can least afford it. 

So do you have any plan, once Commissioner Stevens is in place, 

to quickly address that problem? 

Secretary CARSON. Yes. We are already addressing that problem, 

our staff along with the DOJ staff, and we are committed to getting 

that resolved, because it is ridiculous, quite frankly. 

And I am not exactly sure why there had been such an escalation 

previously, but the long-term effects of that escalation is obviously 

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providing fewer appropriate choices for consumers, and that is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. 

Mr. TROTT. Who can least afford it, too, so—right? So great, that 

is good news on the way there. And I know the MBA has done a 

great white paper on the issue, and I commend it to you in terms 

of seeking out an easy solution that can be put in place without 

congressional action. 

Secretary CARSON. Absolutely, yes. 

Mr. TROTT. I dealt with HUD for many years in my prior life, 

and I always found—and this has been a real interesting dichotomy 

today, because you have been attacked for the budget issues that 

you propose for HUD, and some people think that we have unlimited amounts of money here in Washington. There is a debt clock 

behind you that will tell you differently. 

But your answer has been a good one, which is, ‘‘I am more interested in results than I am in funding, and we have to get results 

for the people that need it, and for our taxpayers.’’ And in my experience with HUD, you have talked about the reforms that you are 

working on—the field offices need to be empowered. 

Secretary CARSON. I agree. 

Mr. TROTT. It is kind of like Tip O’Neill’s old comment, ‘‘All politics is local.’’ I think all housing is local, and the more the field offices can act and focus on results and the—and the department 

here in Washington’s focused on big-picture, broad issues, I think 

you get better results. So I commend that to you, number 1. 

And, two, and I guess this is more of a lecture than a question, 

but in my experience, it was very important that HUD try and 

partner whenever possible, and not create—like, under Secretary 

Cuomo, it was an adversarial relationship between the local and 

State housing agencies and HUD. 

It doesn’t need to be that way. They should be partners to deliver 

results. And again, the best results are delivered local and closer 

to home than here in Washington. So I commend that you, as you 

look at reforms. 

And I believe my time has expired, but I thank you for your time 

today and I thank you for your insightful testimony—one of the 

more productive mornings I have spent here in committee. 

Secretary CARSON. Thank you. 

Mr. TROTT. And I think, last time, I was on Judiciary Committee 

last Congress, and Attorney General Lynch said, ‘‘I don’t know; I 

can’t help you’’ 74 times, and you have tried to answer our questions. I thank you. 

Chairman HENSARLING. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the ranking member for a unanimous 

consent request. 

Ms. WATERS. I would like to submit to the record—need unanimous consent—to submit the National Housing Law Project’s opposition to the funding in HUD, particularly the $3 billion at 

CDBG— 

Chairman HENSARLING. Without objection. 

Ms. WATERS. —$4.6 million will be lost in substance abuse, 

and— 

Chairman HENSARLING. Without objection. 

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Ms. WATERS. —Domestic violence, $9 million will be lost. I submit— 

Chairman HENSARLING. I would like to thank Secretary Carson 

for his testimony today. 

The Chair notes that some Members may have additional questions for this panel, which they may wish to submit in writing. 

Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 5 legislative days for Members to submit written questions to these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. Also, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days to submit extraneous 

materials to the Chair for inclusion in the record. 

This hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

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