Hearings on the bill are tentatively scheduled for early March. Last year, the Committee reported out H.R. 1095 authorizing bilateral and international organization debt relief for up to 45 of the poorest countries of the world. This plan was 70 percent funded in the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. This year, working with faith-based organizations, the Administration and the Senate, the Committee will assess approaches to comprehensive funding for this initiative. Homeownership is a building block for family security and stability as well as for healthy, prosperous communities.
All families deserve the opportunity to achieve the American dream of owning a home.
H.R. 1073, which is based on legislation that passed the House by a vote of 386 to 23 in the 105 th Congress, passed the Committee in April 1999 by voice vote. Although the federal government has more than doubled spending on homelessness programs in the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children remain homeless. H.R. 1073 would address these issues by consolidating seven disparate federal homeless programs and requiring coordination among affected federal agencies, thereby eliminating wasteful duplication and directing resources where most needed. The bill focuses on prevention and permanent housing solutions. The Committee expects to take the bill to the Floor during this session.