Date: 2016-02-02
Speaker: MAXINE WATERS (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will just take these last few minutes that I have to say to those people who live in public housing that this is an important support effort of government to provide public housing for those who cannot afford marketrate housing. I have represented over the years many public housing projects in California. While I do not represent them all anymore. I still pay attention to public housing because I understand and know how very important it is to the lives of families and to the children who depend on having safe housing and affordable housing for them. I would simply like to say that oftentimes people who live in public housing have been demonized. There are folks who think. oh. they could do better if they wanted to. There are people who say that they dont want to remove themselves from public housing. I would like to have people know that many of the folks that I have known who live in public housing work every day for minimum wages. Many of them are trying very hard to be independent. Many of them would like to have job training. Many of them would like to have more support for childcare efforts. Many of them are working to get their GEDs. Many of them have returned to school. For the people who live in public housing. they dont need to feel that somehow they are getting something they dont deserve. I am proud of this government. and I am proud of this country that will provide a safety net for the least of these and safe public housing to those who cannot afford marketrate housing. I want our Congress to continue to see how we can do a better job even of providing safe and secure housing for those who cannot afford it. I want us to be able to provide additional support to those who live in public housing. for those who are saying to us: Help me with job training. Help me to ensure that my children can get the kind of support living in public housing that will give them access to a good education. Help us to have better health care so we can be better able to go out and take jobs to support our families. Help us to aspire to move upward and out. even. Help us to understand what is available to us out there. When we seek out help for our problems. dont look at us as if we are people who are not investing in ourselves. who are not relying on our own abilities. Simply see us as Americans who would like to do better. See us as Americans who unfortunately find ourselves in situations where we cant do better for now. but we are looking for the opportunity to do better and to have more and to enjoy everything that this country has to offer. So as we support this legislation todayand I support itI am optimistic about the fact that this is going to make a lot of lives better. but I am also optimistic that this is really a beginning for how we can begin to not only give support. but involve tenants in how they can help to make decisions about the units that they are living in and how they can serve on the boards that oversee them. how they can be a part of government. helping us to understand how we can do a better job with the authority that they have given us. So I am very proud. I am very pleased. I thank Mr. CLEAVER and Mr. LUETKEMEYER. I thank Mr. CLEAVER for telling his story about public housing. I want him to know that there are any number of Members in the Congress of the United States who have lived in public housing or their families. such as my family has lived in public housing. I want him to know I have watched public housing that has been very helpful. I have watched public housing that has provided safe. decent. and secure opportunities for the people who live there. But I have also watched public housing when it didnt work. The PruittIgoe in St. Louis. Missouri. was an example of what didnt work. I was in that city when it was torn down. The space that it occupied is still vacant in that city. It should be a space where we had additional public housing that would support the families who so desperately need it. So I dont take this bill lightly. I dont think about this as just another piece of legislation that we happen to get passed here in Congress. even with bipartisan support. I think of this as an important step and a statement. a statement that says both sides of the aisle understand housing. both sides of the aisle would like to continue to do the best job that they can do to provide safe and secure housing. and that we are not going to stand by and watch homelessness continue to grow. It was mentioned several times throughout this debatemaybe here today and when we were in committeethat. in Los Angeles County. homelessness has increased by 20 percent. People are sleeping on the sidewalks all the way up to city hall. We cannot abide that. We cannot stand by and watch that happen. While I am pointing to Los Angeles County. there are many areas all across this Nation where homelessness is shameful and unconscionable. I am very pleased and proud that we are sending a signal here today that we wont stand for it. I yield back the balance of my time.