Tornado Shelters Act

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 43) expressing the sense of Congress that Congress should participate in and support activities to provide decent homes for the people of the United States.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in strong support of this resolution expressing support for Congress Building America and for increased affordable home ownership opportunities.

This country is home to people of many different origins, but everyone seems to have the same dream, to own their own home. This dream means many things: Independence, financial security, geographic stability, the ability to accumulate personal wealth, a place to raise a family, or simply a place to go after a long day's work and find peace.

As a homebuilder for over 30 years, I enjoyed watching many people achieve this dream. One could always see the excitement and anticipation in the face of a home buyer. The Congress Building America program will offer every Member of Congress this opportunity to experience how the dream of homeownership builds hope in their communities and across the Nation.

I feel very strongly about this issue, because homeownership is the key to personal wealth in our country. When someone buys a home, they purchase an asset which will grow over time.

I started the Building a Better America Caucus, BABAC, when I arrived in Congress 4\1/2\ years ago, because I thought it was important to provide a forum for us to start addressing issues that impact homeownership. One of the objectives of BABAC is to help cultivate an environment where more Americans turn the dream of homeownership into reality.

When I first started my business, I had an old van that used more oil than gas and a cardboard box which held every tool I owned. I started small. Over 30 years, my business grew, but with each passing year, I saw the impact of government on the housing industry. With each year came government laws and regulations making it harder to build homes. The red tape kept increasing costs. In business, these costs are passed on to consumers. Homes kept getting more expensive.

It is very important that Congress start talking about how the government is impacting home prices. In some parts of the country, my district in southern California is one of them, the heavy burden of Federal, State and local mandates is creating a generation of people who cannot afford to live in the communities where they work and grew up. I call these people the new homeless.

Exactly who are these new homeless? In my district, it might be a couple. The husband is a firefighter and the wife is a teacher. They have a good job and they make a good living, but the combined income does not enable them to purchase a median priced home in southern California which costs over $300,000 today. This is a national problem, and Congress must work expeditiously to address it.

I encourage all my colleagues to become active members of BABAC so we can do something about the housing affordable crisis in this country.

BABAC provides Members a forum where we can discuss ways Congress can increase homeownership in America. The Congress Building America program provides Members the opportunity to personally help make homeownership a reality for a family in their district.

The Congress Building America program will give every Member of Congress a chance to express their commitment to affordable homeownership by picking up a hammer and nails and building alongside Habitat for Humanity families to make the American Dream of homeownership a reality.

The goal of this resolution is to encourage Members of Congress to participate in Congress Building America events with Habitat homeowner families and local Habitat affiliates in their districts or States during the 108th and 109th Congress. This new initiative is a partnership program between Habitat for Humanity International, the United States Congress, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and national corporate sponsors.

I urge each Member to support this resolution and to personally join with the Habitat for Humanity affiliates in their districts to help low-income families realize the American Dream of homeownership.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), the author of this resolution.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I enjoyed the one comment: ``This resolution is here so Republicans can just talk about affordable housing.'' The gentleman from Massachusetts and I, we do agree on one major issue: there is a huge shortage of affordable housing in this country. I believe we both have a passion in common to try to resolve this problem. Earlier this year, I brought a bill up before our committee on brownfields. Brownfields are contaminated sites within inner cities where the infrastructure is in place and the need for affordable housing is there. The gentleman from Massachusetts has worked hand in hand with me to bring this to the floor; but because of a lack of agreement on his side of the aisle, none to his blame, we are unable to do that because one Member wants to define brownfields using an EPA definition. The gentleman from Massachusetts and I realize that if you do that you eliminate petroleum sites which are 50 percent of the half million sites in this country. So he and I have worked to resolve something and others are giving lip service to this issue.

There has been much talk about subsidies. We deal with section 8 housing and the need for section 8 housing. We come to an agreement that there is a need for that. But in Los Angeles County, we had the housing authority here, I asked them the question of what is your occupancy rate in California, in L.A. County? They said, we are 97 percent occupied. That means 3 percent of the units that are not occupied are under renovation. Basically, they are 100 percent full. They have no available section 8 housing for people to go to. We can increase section 8 vouchers causing more money to chase no product, and all it does is increase the cost of the product.

But there have been things that have been said here today. We need subsidies which we do provide some. The President has come up with a great idea. He said, let us allow people to take section 8 vouchers, up to 12, and apply them as a down payment to buy a home. That is a great idea. I hope the appropriators this year will fund that program. What we are saying is people who have been locked into section 8 housing can now take the money they would have received in 12 months and put it as a down payment to buy a home, so 10 years, 15 or 20 years from now their payment is the same as it is today, not rising as it does in rental housing. We need to create homeownership rather than just create renters in this country.

There has been a comment made about we need a housing production program. We have that in this program. It is called the Building Industry Association. But government does everything it can to stop builders from providing affordable homes in this country. We have so many mandates on builders. I remember 30 years ago when I entered the industry, you could go out within a matter of 2 months and make application on a tract map to build a tract of homes, whether it be five, 10 or 15; and in 60 days you had entitlements, yes or no. They had to do it because on day 59 you were approved by law. I talk to builders today that have been 3, 4, 5, 8, 10 years processing subdivisions trying to provide affordable housing for the people of this country and they cannot get through the process.

I spend more time helping builders with Fish and Wildlife and Army Corps of Engineers issues. One thing I wish the other side of the aisle would agree to do and that is reform the Endangered Species Act. In Colton, California, there is one project that has 3,000 homes on 3,000 acres. They are only wanting to develop about 300-and-something of those acres, but they happen to have a rat on that property. It is called the San Bernardino kangaroo rat. It is becoming extinct. People who love rats want to set aside habitat for these rats, but they always want to set the habitat aside on privately owned property. That means somebody who owns a piece of land, all of a sudden the government determines that they own habitat that this rat should live on. The problem with the San Bernardino kangaroo rat is it only lives in washes, which means every time it rains during the winter, the little critters drown and the reason they are becoming extinct is the little critters are too stupid to get out of the wash that they are drowning in and go somewhere else. So no matter what we do, those little critters year after year after year are going to continue to be less in population than they are today because they are too stupid to move out of a wash.

There is another great one in California called the Delhi sand-loving fly. I remember years ago when our parents ran this country, we used to swat flies and poison rats. Now we set aside habitat for them on privately owned property. Something is wrong with this country. I think it is incumbent upon us to change it. It is nice to give lip service about affordable housing, and I believe many of my colleagues who spoke today are genuine about a passion; but this resolution allows Members of Congress to actually do something besides give lip service, lean over and pound some nails, finish some concrete, hang some dry wall, put some roofing material on, put some plumbing in, run finish on electrical, paint, hang doors, run casing and base.

We can actually do something besides talk about it. Yes, it is a small gesture; but if you look at the problems we have caused because of the stupid laws and regulations we have placed on the building industry today, anything we do, even if it is small, will help. If we are really talking about helping people get into affordable housing, let us do something genuine about it. More government is not going to solve anything. Yes, more government has created a problem and some believe that government money now should resolve that problem and that is wrong.

If we would just step back at the Federal, State and local level and say, how do we reduce the regulations placed upon the building industry so a person can go out and reasonably buy a piece of property and in a given span of time can build homes instead of 3, 4, 5, 10 years of process. When you take 3 years to get an entitlement, it is costing somebody a lot of money to buy the property and hold it and pay all these consultants to work on the property.

In California, we require builders to go through title 24. That is energy efficiency, which means a home must be airtight, no air infiltration. They even limit it in most fireplaces you can put in that are man-made because they do not want air infiltration in a home. When you have water and no air infiltration, what do you get? Mold. One of the problems we are facing in this country is that insurance companies do not want to write policies because of mold. If we did not have the policies we have today dealing with energy efficiency, perhaps we would not have some of the mold problems we have in this country.

When we talk about affordable housing, let us talk about it in reality. If you are going to have section 8 housing that is available, you have got to have an affordable move-up marketplace, and it is not there today. People in section 8 housing receiving government assistance cannot afford to move out of that house because there is not an affordable unit for them to move into. So if we really want to help people be able to get out of section 8 housing, to actually attain the rights that we believe they should have of homeownership and the luxury that goes along with that, with building assets and everything else, if we really want to do that, then let us look at the structure we have created. Let us pass a law that says any regulation at the State level or the city level that has any negative impact on the cost of housing must have a cost-benefit analysis and you must be able to determine that it is really beneficial to do that, not just something that makes people hug each other and feel good and pat each other on the back. Let us change the way we do business in this country.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

I take back my time. What I said is a cost-benefit analysis. If you can do something and determine that there is a benefit in the regulations you are placing on affordable housing, that is fine. But for us to sit here and say, oh, we need to have more government programs and more government funding and yet we do not get to the core problem of affordability, you have to get to the core problem of affordability. There is no difference from us saying, let us, the Federal Government, fund housing but you have got to have everybody in agreement we are even going to put it there.

The problem you have with section 8 housing, and the gentleman from Massachusetts knows this to be a fact himself, is you go to many communities and you say you are going to build low-income housing and the whole community is in an uproar because they do not want it in their community because they start saying, you are going to have gang violence, you are going to have problems, you are going to have transients. They do not want it in their communities.

I am not saying that it is bad; I am saying that is just a fact. It is this NIMBY, not in my backyard attitude. That is a problem we face in this country, unless you will change the laws to where a builder has a reasonable time

to process a subdivision. Yes, let us look at the environmental impact that might be placed on the community of a project; let us look at the environment, if there are any species that are going to be harmed there. But let us do it in a reasonable span of time, not 3, 5, 10 years. I told the gentleman from Massachusetts of a project I owned for 12 years that I finally ended up selling to the city because nobody wanted it built, yet there was not a bit of flora or fauna that was in any way impacted, nor was there a species out there that was on the endangered species list. Let us look at the problem and let us work together to see that we are not overturning local rights, but let us work with the local communities.

Reclaiming my time, if we look prior to 1948, the tax revenues in this country generally went to cities. It started to change after 1948. The State started taking more and the Federal Government started taking more. About 1972, it got so bad that locals were being deprived of so much money they could no longer afford to put the streets and the sewers and the storm drains in necessary to build homes. Why? Because the Federal Government and the State government got greedy and started taking the money from the people who need it, the cities. What we have done is create a situation where now the tax dollars are not put in the infrastructure; the builder puts in the infrastructure. Plus he pays for all the local mitigation and impacts that the community might face in some fashion, even if it is a signal 5 miles down the road that might be impacted in some fashion because this tract of 80 people living in it might impact that intersection.

But we have got to look at what government has done. Government has changed to such a degree that we have taken the money, become greedy; and now we do not want to address the problems we can address.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, this resolution is really record-setting. I have not in all my years here seen so much wind up and so little pitch. This goes on quite eloquently and quite accurately about the importance of homeownership, and it talks about the need for affordable housing. It says, ``Whereas an integral element of a strong community is a sufficient supply of affordable housing.'' It says, on the next page, ``Whereas affordable housing may be provided in traditional and nontraditional forms.'' It talks a very good game about the importance of housing, and particularly affordable housing; and it delivers virtually nothing.

I have been lamenting for some time the opposition of my Republican colleagues to a housing production program in this country. In many parts of this country you will not get affordable housing, as we define that, that is housing for lower-income working people, middle-income people in some areas, unless there is some element of subsidy. We are not talking about the Federal Government simply building the housing. We are talking about a whole range of cooperative programs, many of them private-public cooperations. But it is clearly the case that unless the Federal Government contributes something, you will not get affordable housing.

Now, my Republican colleagues have been strongly against most production programs, but I see now they have come up with one. It is in this resolution, which I am going to vote for, because I am all in favor of good wishes. I think we should all, at all times, be in favor of things that we should be in favor of. And this resolution is clearly in favor of a lot of things that we should be in favor of. It just does not do anything about them. Does not make them worse. And it does have a production program.

I call Members' attention to page 3, paragraph 3. It says, ``During the years of the 108th and 109th sessions of Congress, Members of the Senate and the House should sponsor and construct two homes in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.''

Now, the legislative draftsmanship is perhaps not perfect. I will read that as being two homes each. I assume this does not mean that we should all of us build two homes. And I hope not, because there are people here that I would not want to be near them when they had a hammer or a saw or a drill. So I would not want to have to be in a joint effort to build some of these homes.

So we are talking about two homes each for 4 years. Now, there are 535 Members of Congress. Two homes apiece would be 1,070 homes a year for 4 years. So we now have the affordable housing program of the Republican Party for production: 4,280 homes over the next 4 years in the metropolitan Washington area, D.C. and Fairfax County, although they probably would not get that many, Alexandria, Arlington, parts of Montgomery and maybe more in Prince George's.

Now, 4,280 houses is better than nothing, although I have to say I am willing to do my part; and I have to say this, we are not often sufficiently modest around here, and each of us is supposed to build two houses, but, Madam Speaker, I would not want to live in a house I built. There are some things I think I am good at, some things I am not so good at. The notion of all of us building houses is an interesting one.

Actually, this is motivated both by a desire to do affordable housing, but it also carries out the Republican approach to unions. Because their entire production program would be built by overwhelmingly nonunion labor. There are a couple of Members here who are members of unions, although it is rarely the building trades. My colleague from Boston, the gentleman from Massachusetts, was an iron worker; but he can only do so much. And I do not know how many of the houses would be made out of iron or structural steel or whatever anyway.

So here they have a housing production program, 4,280 houses for the entirety of America, built almost exclusively by nonunion labor, without a penny of Federal Government contribution. Unless we built them during work hours. I suppose if we built them during working hours, when we were getting paid, it would be some Federal contribution. I assume the position is that we do not.

Now, I guess I am a little ambivalent about the notion of unleashing every Member of the House and the Senate to build two houses. I know you cannot comment on Senators, I understand that, Madam Speaker; but I think you can comment on past Senators, and I guess I can say that I am pleased Strom Thurmond will no longer be covered by this. It is a lucky thing we did not pass this last year, because Strom Thurmond would have been charged with building two houses somewhere, and I would want to live in those even less than the ones I would build.

But the problem is not so much with what it says, but with what it does not say. We have not for some time had a program in this country to have Federal resources go for housing production. And in the absence of a housing production program, families will have a hard time getting affordable housing. We have some programs that help. We have the programs that help build housing for the elderly and for the disabled. We have the low-income tax credit, which does a good job; but it is limited. We have the section 8 voucher program which works well in a lot of areas, but the section 8 program does not contribute to production, particularly when we have rulings now that say you can only use a voucher 1 year at a time. No one can build a house on a year-by- year commitment.

So I am all in favor of the goals of this resolution. I just wish it did something other than asking this workforce to go out and build a couple of houses a year to carry it out. We have a terrible crisis in this country with regard to affordable housing. And let me just say, Madam Speaker, that one of the arguments we have when some of us talk about the need for the Federal Government to participate in doing things that are important for the quality of our lives, we are told we should not worry about it, the private economy will take care of it.

The private economy does a great deal. The private economy supplies many of our needs, and a private sector is something we should all work for. But there are some things it will not do. And with the very prosperity of the 1990s, which was so important in helping people achieve so many goals, for many people it made the housing situation worse. Because prosperity is obviously not uniformly distributed. Under the policies now in power, it is even less uniformly distributed than ever, as a conscious choice. But even at its best, prosperity will be uneven.

And many people in this country, in the greater Boston area, in the area around San Francisco, in Chicago, in many of our great metropolitan areas people whose incomes were somewhat fixed, many of them public employees, teachers, firefighters, police officers, and social workers, and public works people, people on relatively fixed incomes found themselves worse off in the housing market because prosperity drove up the value of many properties, and some people benefited enormously, and some were left behind.

We are told, well, a rising tide will lift all boats. But if you are too poor to afford a boat, the rising tide will go over your head and drown you. And that happened to many people. The very prosperity of the 1990s that were so welcome nationally exacerbated the housing crisis.

That does not mean the government building all the housing is the answer. It does mean that a sensible, well-funded production program, where the government contributes along with the private sector an element of subsidy so that new housing can be built in many parts of the country, is the only way this resolution will be more than just empty rhetoric.

So at this point we only have this resolution. But we will later in the year have a chance to address this, I hope. I hope the committee which brought this out, the Committee on Financial Services, which has jurisdiction over housing, will be allowed by the leadership of this House to formulate a sensible production program and bring it forward. And if we do, we may be able to rescue this resolution from the charge of being just empty rhetoric.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I notice on page 4 it says each Congress Building America house should be constructed primarily by Members of the Senate and House, their families and staff. Now, presumably, if we do this, it is voluntarily. But if we pass a bill like this and our staffs do it, it might not be voluntary. We might need an interpretation from you, Madam Speaker, under the bill you have been sponsoring. If our staffs show up to build housing and they have to work overtime, would we pay them overtime or would they get comp time?

So I think we will have to have further interpretation when our staffs report for home building, which some of them probably did not sign up for.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), a very active leader in the fight for affordable housing in our committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity of the Committee on Financial Services, and a great leader in this field.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I just want to make sure I understand. The gentleman is proposing that we pass a Federal statute that would say that no local zoning regulation could go into effect?

If the gentleman will yield further, I think the gentleman, however, is being inconsistent. I have been critical of the use of local zoning in many cases to block housing proposals, but I do want to be clear. These are local and State laws. The Endangered Species Act is Federal. But most of what the gentleman talked about are local and State laws, and I am asking the gentleman, is he proposing that at the Federal level we pass statutes that regulate and restrict and limit what form local zoning can take, saying that it has to have a cost-benefit analysis, et cetera? I might be interested in joining that, if that is what the gentleman is advocating.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 23) to amend the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 to authorize communities to use community development block grant funds for construction of tornado-safe shelters in manufactured home parks, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes to speak in support of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank many of those responsible for the bill coming up today. I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Oxley), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney), the chairman of the subcommittee. I also want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), who has always been very supportive of this legislation. This legislation has had overwhelming, bipartisan support.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation is a response to something that every day, during at least 6 months out of the year, almost every day, we open the newspaper and we read where someone has been killed by a tornado. Now, we cannot prevent tornadoes from happening, but we can save lives when those tornadoes do happen, because the technology is there. The technology today, particularly on an F4, F5 tornado, the technology is there to give residents a 30- or 40-minute warning of a tornado bearing down on their community.

Now, what many residents have when they get these warnings is they have a place of shelter, they have a place to go. Many residents have a site-built home, they go down in the basement of that home, and that offers protection; or they go into an interior room. Manufactured housing residents do not have a basement. That is pretty obvious. They often do not have an interior room. The Society of Civil Engineers, who have endorsed this bill this week, actually pointed out the fact that this is something that manufactured housing communities need, and they have endorsed this legislation.

Because what this legislation will do is it will allow, wherever we have concentrations of manufactured housing, sometimes referred to as mobile homes, it will allow community development money to be used, and this is the option of the city or the county, to be used for a storm shelter for those residents. I have actually in the past few months visited two storm shelters, and they offer almost 100 percent protection from these storms. Coupled with the warning and the shelter, we should be able to reduce fatalities substantially.

Last year, the House of Representatives passed this bill, and Senator Tim Johnson tried to bring it up or attempted to bring it up; he made efforts to bring it up in the Senate. But for whatever reason, that bill did not come up. Senator Johnson and many other Senators have joined with House Members in asking that this bill be a priority this year.

Last year, when this House overwhelmingly passed this bill, I introduced the picture of a little girl named Whitney. Whitney was a resident of a manufactured house, a mobile home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She shared that home with her mother and her 16-month-old baby brother, and also a sister. When a tornado struck their home, it threw Whitney out of the home several hundred yards. Because it actually took hours and hours to find her, and she was actually mistaken for a pile of rubble, but an Associated Press photographer was there on the scene when Whitney was found and her little picture with her torn dress and her bloodied face went all over the United States. What a lot of people that saw that picture did not know is that Whitney's little brother did not make it through that storm. Whitney's little sister and Whitney spent days and weeks in a hospital recovering, but now they are home with their mother.

What Whitney did not have and what a sixth of the people in the United States who live in manufactured housing do not have is they do not have a shelter from the storm.

This storm was predicted to go through her community some 30 minutes before it went through her community. Her parents had a warning, but what they did not have is a place to hide. In fact, they were advised wisely: do not get in an automobile.

So I close by simply saying, this legislation was too late for Whitney's little brother and Whitney's father, but it is not too late for millions of American families today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman and also the

gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), my home State, who joined me along with my fellow Alabamans, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Everett) and the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers) in being original cosponsors of this bill.

What we saw was little Whitney and any citizen that lives in manufactured housing is basically discriminated against in Federal law today because there are not funds available for mobile home shelters for them. Had she lived on a site-built house, the Federal Government would have provided money for a tornado shelter.

One thing that we are doing with this legislation is we are going to allow all of our residents to be prepared for our next tornado, all our community, not just those that live in site-built homes.

We need to be careful as we move forward that we do have legislation that does not discriminate against any of our residents. And in this case, manufactured housing, many of our low- and middle-income residents choose this as a most affordable option, but when they choose this option they should not be discriminated against. They ought to, particularly in those areas that are tornado prone, also have an opportunity for those programs that had been created to protect them from this type of disaster or to mitigate the circumstances.

Had a shelter like this been in place in my community when this tornado hit, Whitney's father would be there to take care of her today. Whitney's little brother would be with her. Because they are not, she has continued to incur medical bills and her mother has continued to have to have assistance. And I do not want that to be the case.

I want us to be able to offer these people protection and security, and this is a very affordable way to do that and it is very sound. It works as the recent endorsement from the American Society of Civil Engineers shows.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Whitfield). The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 23, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. Con. Res. 43, which expresses the sense of Congress that this legislature should participate in and support activities to provide decent homes for the people of the United States.

The goal of this resolution is to encourage members of Congress to participate in Congress Building America build events with Habitat homeowner families and local Habitat affiliates in their districts or states during the 108th and 109th Congress, and I urge each member's support of this resolution and to personally join with the Habitat for Humanity affiliates in their districts to help low-income families realize the American dream of homeownership.

I urge my colleagues to endorse this resolution that will not only express the sense of Congress in support of increased affordable homeownership opportunities, but will result in the building of hundreds of new homes for low-income and minority families across the country.

The fact that June is National Homeownership Month makes the scheduling of this concurrent resolution especially appropriate. For the vast majority of families, homeownership serves as an engine of social mobility and the path to prosperity. We are blessed to live in a country where every citizen--regardless of race, creed, color, or place of birth--has the opportunity to own a home of their own. And, new homeowners can create wealth for their families for generations to come, while also helping transform neighborhoods and communities.

The home has long held a place of mythic stature in the hearts and minds of Americans, as many of this country's forebears considered homeownership a key component of a democratic society. Homeownership creates stakeholders within a community and inspires civic responsibility. It offers children a stable living environment that influences their personal development in many positive ways--including improving their performance in school. Studies by housing experts show a clear link between an increase in homeownership and a decrease in crime rates.

In the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity this year, I plan to continue working hard to explore new ways to put people on the path to homeownership, so they can realize its many benefits. The Financial Services Committee already marked-up three housing bills last month by voice vote: H.R. 23, The Tornado Shelters Act, H.R. 1614, the HOPE VI Program Reauthorization and Small Community Main Street Rejuvenation and Housing Action of 2003, and H.R. 1276, The American Dream Downpayment Act.

The American Dream Downpayment Act, introduced by Katherine Harris of Florida, is a vital initiative in the creation of new homeowners. This bill would provide $200 million in grants to help homebuyers with the downpayment and closing costs. This has the potential of assisting 40,000 families annually achieve the dream of homeownership and would make available subsidy assistance, averaging $5,000, to help low- income, first-time home buying families.

In addition to moving these important pieces of legislation, the Subcommittee is in the midst of holding a series of hearings examining the current operation and administration of the Section 8 Housing Choice voucher program, which provides rental assistance to more than 1.8 million families. While the concept of the program remains sound, the program has often been criticized for its inefficiency. More than a billion dollars are recaptured from the program every year, despite long waiting lists for vouchers in many communities. The rising cost of the Section 8 program and some of the administrative concerns have caused many in congress and the Administration to conclude that the program is in need of reform. In the coming months, I look forward to hearing the different perspectives from our many distinguished witnesses as we continue to discuss ways to improve America's communities and strengthen housing opportunities for all citizens.

Congress Building America will enable Members of Congress to express their commitment to affordable homeownership by picking up hammers and nails and building alongside Habitat for Humanity families to make the American dream of homeownership a reality. This initiative is a hands- on approach to making affordable homeownership a reality, one family at a time, one community at a time.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding me this time, and I thank the House for considering Senate Concurrent Resolution 43.

Just to depart briefly from my prepared comments, I listened to the gentleman from Massachusetts rail against this legislation. It is just absolute proof that no good deed goes unpunished. This is a good idea. This is an idea that is very successful. It is an idea that gives individuals the opportunity to volunteer to help their neighbors to build a home. I suspect even if he may be a ham-handed carpenter that with a good foreman on the job he could learn how to pound nails.

But the point really is this is not about mass-production housing. It is about creating homeownership. Earlier this week, I had the privilege of joining a handful of my neighbors at the home of Nyoka Williams, a participant in the Syracuse Neighborhood Initiative. The Syracuse Neighborhood Initiative is a city-wide effort to expand homeownership opportunities and improve quality of life in Syracuse, my hometown.

We gathered to celebrate the success of the Mini-Grant program, which provides city families with grants and loans to improve their owner- occupied homes. At the ceremony, Ms. Williams reflected on her own hard-fought struggle to purchase a home. This program creates homeowners.

Now, not everybody in this country can afford to own a home, but we ought to be doing everything we can to make that possible, and this program goes a long way.

With Syracuse Neighborhood Initiative's assistance and her hard work, her previously vacant home is now a showcase on the block. And after years of renting substandard apartments, she is thrilled to be able to take care of her aging mother and entertain her multiple grandchildren in her very own home. Ms. Williams told me that homeownership has not only provided her with a quality place to live and to spend time with her family, but has given her a renewed sense of pride in herself and a new level of confidence that she can meet any challenge.

And I can tell you that Ms. Williams wears that sense of pride and accomplishment in a big beautiful smile whenever she talks about her good fortune and her very own home.

Madam Speaker, for many years now, Habitat for Humanity has been working to offer the same level of accomplishment and that sense of pride to thousands of families the world over. By making homeownership affordable and accessible, Habitat has coordinated the construction of thousands of new homes across the United States, relying upon a great deal of donated goods and utilizing a volunteer labor force.

Now, those volunteers can be labor union members or nonlabor union members. The good news is it does not matter. If they are willing to donate their time and hammer, or carry some lumber, or lay some concrete, God bless them. Nobody is going to tell them they cannot do it.

This program has made 50,000 Americans homeowners. I am proud to be a veteran of previous Habitat builds back home in Syracuse, in my home town and here in Washington, where I worked with Members of the House and Senate on two different houses in the Washington, D.C. area. Some of us were more handy than others, but the good news is we worked together. Even in Belfast, Northern Ireland, people of both communities came together, and the Habitat house build provided a vehicle to bring people together. And it does that here too.

It is our hope that every Member of Congress will build a house, all 535 of us, in their districts, through this program. Habitat for Humanity provides affordable quality homes for those currently struggling to achieve the dream of homeownership. There are millions of Americans who could become homeowners if we helped them through this program and the many other programs provided through the housing agency,

through HUD. They support renewed investment efforts in America's cities, and they allow for a better quality of life for all involved.

I urge my colleagues to support S. Con. Res. 43 and encourage their active involvement in the Congress Building America program in the 108th and 109th sessions of Congress. Prideful smiles like Ms. Williams demonstrate just how rewarding homeownership efforts like Habitat for Humanity really are.