Skip to main content

HOPE VI Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2007

August 4, 2009
Floor Statement
Rep. Maxine Waters [D-CA]: I rise in support of H.R. 3524, the HOPE VI Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2007. As you know, I introduced H.R. 3524 on September 11 of 2007.

I want to thank each of my colleagues both on the Committee on Financial Services and in the House who have joined with me to see that this important legislation passes the House. I want to especially thank Chairman Barney Frank, Melvin Watt, and Christopher Shays for their original coauthorship, cosponsorship, and support of H.R. 3524.

In drafting this bill, we worked closely with the minority, resident organizations, housing advocacy groups, public housing agencies, housing developers, bankers, green building experts, and practitioners, and other Members with an interest in the HOPE VI program. The end result is a bill that I believe takes into account the needs of residents, the community, the investors and lenders, and our public housing managers. Most importantly, we have a bill that preserves and revitalizes our public housing stock.

H.R. 3524 reauthorizes and improves the HOPE VI public housing revitalization program by requiring the one-for-one replacement of all demolished public housing units, providing residents with meaningful and substantive involvement in the planning and development of the HOPE VI plan, expanding community and supportive services from 15 percent of grants that amount to 25 percent of grant amount; prohibiting HOPE VI specific screening criteria so that public housing residents and HOPE VI aren't held to a higher standard than non-HOPE VI residents, requiring housing agencies to monitor and track the whereabouts of relocated families, and mandating that developments be built in accordance with green building standards.

Public housing residents, including those not yet impacted by HOPE VI, and housing advocates have said that this bill has been a long time in coming, and I agree with them. I would like to note why the bill before us today is so important.

First, it preserves public housing. The administration eliminated the one-for-one replacement requirement in 1996, effectively triggering a national sloughing off of our Nation's public housing inventory.

Housing authorities have consistently built back fewer units than they have torn down and, as a result, over 30,000 units have been lost as a direct result of the HOPE VI program. Stopping this bleeding was paramount in the drafting of this legislation. One-for-one replacement is not only a part of the bill; it is the heart of this bill. Limiting one-for-one to only occupied units does a disservice to families on waiting lists and to families waiting to get on waiting lists. Public housing is a community resource, and units can be unoccupied because they are not fit for humans to live in. That does not mean that there is no need for them.

Second, because of strict screening criteria, HOPE VI has become limited to the cream of the public housing crop. Some people think that the HOPE VI development represents a new and better community and should have new and better people. However, as a Congress, we must be clear that public housing is for the most in need, not just the easiest to serve.

HOPE VI projects have programs and services that can greatly benefit our neediest families.

In addition, in the drive to separate the wheat from the chaff, public housing agencies have implemented screening criteria that are nothing short of draconian. These criteria include everything from credit checks, home visits, work requirements, and other criteria that many nonpublic housing residents would be unable to meet. We must reject any attempt to continue to punish public housing residents for being poor and must continue to provide them with the tools, through programs like HOPE VI, to assist them in improving their lives.

Lastly, I would like to talk about why green building standards should be mandatory in HOPE VI developments. Our public housing was built poorly and inefficiently. Many of our developments are wasteful and hazardous to the health of the residents, and many investments we make in public housing developments, which will be around for the next 40 years, should ensure that this housing is safe, sound, energy efficient and good for the environment. This is just good public policy. We owe it to our public housing residents and to the environment to make sure that we do not recreate the inefficient and harmful mistakes that went into building many of these developments in the first place.

This bill has the support of over 145 resident organizations: the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the National Housing Law Project, the Community Builders, Bank of America, the Housing Justice Network, the Corporation for Supportive Housing, and others. There are a lot of good things in this bill, and these groups recognize this.

Specifically, regarding the green building provisions, although one group is not supportive, over 30 organizations, including the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the American Public Health Association, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, and others, have voiced their overwhelming support for the green building requirements in the bill.

We have crafted a bill that is good for residents, housing authorities, and communities. I urge you not to be blindsided by threats from third parties and to support our Nation's low-income families and to preserve our housing stock.

Madam Chairman, I would like to say in closing that this should be a bill that receives support from both sides of the aisle. This is the kind of bill that we can truly come together around. Everyone recognizes that it is needed in all communities, rural and urban, suburban, all over the United States.

###