Community Restoration and Revitalization Act of 2007

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

Mr. Chairman, let me begin by thanking Chairman Frank for bringing this bill to the House floor today and for presiding over a constructive debate when the Financial Services Committee considered the legislation earlier this month.

I also want to thank Ranking Member Bachus for his leadership on this issue and of course Chairman Waters for all the work that she has done in the Subcommittee on Housing on this.

Let me just kind of return to where we started with the hurricane on August 29, 2005. Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans. September 2, 2005, President Bush signs into law a $10.5 billion supplemental appropriations measure for the affected areas. It was passed by voice vote in the House. September 9, 2005, President Bush signs into law a second installment, this time for $51.8 billion, again passed the House. March 16, 2006, the House passes the third installment for the supplemental. May 30, 2006, HUD approves Governor of Louisiana Blanco's Road Home Program, and the Governor needed congressional approval for the $4.2 billion. Fifteen days later, the House agrees to the conference report of voting approval. June 15, 2006, President Bush signs into law a third installment for the amount of $19.3 billion. June 16, 2006, the Road Home Program is operational in Louisiana. March 5, 2007, the Road Home enters its ninth month of operation. 112,672 Road Home applications. How many have closed? 2,790 grants.

So we have entered a new era where it was very important for us to go down and see what was happening and to make sure that we could effectively have something happen there.

The hurricanes that struck the gulf coast in August of 2005 affected over 1 million Americans, destroying or damaging some 265,000 homes and apartments in Louisiana and Mississippi alone. Since the disaster, the Federal Government has committed more than $110 billion to help the gulf coast, including $16.7 billion for the CDBG program, which provides flexibility for housing and economically rebuilding the programs. Unfortunately, getting the money out the door is taking more time than it should. With respect to the CDBG funding, for example, only $1.2 billion of the $16.7 billion promised has been delivered.

With respect to the affordable housing stock, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita left 112,000 fewer rental units in the five-State gulf coast region than existed before the storms. As the region recovers, and as residents seek to return, there has been a spike in demand for nondamaged rental units from construction workers, displaced lower- income renters, and higher-income homeowners who are temporarily renting units in the area while their houses are repaired.

Since the disaster first struck, the Financial Services Committee has certainly played an active role passing much needed legislation last Congress that relieved regulatory burdens and shored up the government's flood insurance program. During this Congress, the full committee and the Housing Subcommittee, on which I serve, have held multiple hearings on the reconstruction and recovery area in the gulf. Indeed, over the President's Day recess, as Chairwoman Waters mentioned, my colleague from Texas, Mr. Neugebauer, and I participated in field hearings held by Chairman Waters in New Orleans and Mississippi. There we heard from residents trying to rebuild their lives and communities in the face of considerable obstacles and often maddening bureaucratic delays.

The magnitude of the challenge facing the gulf coast residents requires us to rise above partisanship and political finger-pointing and develop sustainable solutions to the very serious problems that persist in New Orleans and other parts of the region.

While the committee Republicans share the majority's goal of providing displaced families with stability and ensuring there is access to safe, affordable housing, a number of provisions in H.R. 1227 are troubling. Accordingly, the Republicans will offer several amendments made in order by the Rules Committee that will seek to assist those in need while, at the same time, being mindful of the need for fiscal responsibility and for prioritizing among competing demands for tax dollars.

It is important that we act in a deliberative and thoughtful manner on this important piece of legislation. Rather than seeking to simply reconstitute a public housing system that was clearly broken long before Katrina made land fall, we owe it to the residents of the gulf coast to build something better. Our focus should be on helping those families who lived in the gulf before the hurricanes and wish to return home to rebuild their lives and communities.

Hurricane Katrina not only left physical devastation in its wake; it left behind a reservoir of anger, strong emotions and painful experiences. Our challenge is to channel these experiences and emotions into an appropriate response. Thousands of affected Americans depend on us not to get angry, but to do it right. So do the families who in the future may themselves experience a Katrina-like tragedy.

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

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to yield 8 minutes to my very distinguished and esteemed colleague, the ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Bachus of Alabama.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, the deputy ranking member of the Financial Services Committee and who also traveled to New Orleans and Mississippi.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker), who has probably seen much more of the devastation than we can ever imagine.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, let me just say that going down there was quite an experience and something I never would have dreamed had happened. To see that firsthand, to go into the public housing and to see the interiors that had been sitting there for over 18 months that had been underwater for several days, particularly in New Orleans. In Mississippi, it was just a storm surge so the wall of water went in and then it went out, taking with it the homes.

But in New Orleans where the water sat, and to see the debris that was left inside, the clothes, the furniture, the food and cupboards and the mold will take an enormous amount of fixing.

When I was talking about it to someone, they asked, Are the cars still in the trees? I said, No, the cars have been removed from the trees, but the buildings are still standing just as they were untouched. So it is a big job.

As Ranking Member Bachus said about finding mixed-use housing, to move public housing into the 21st century I think should be all of our goals, to be able to provide a place where those who need subsidized housing can live in what would be a larger unit. The units that we saw were tiny. Water heaters were in the kitchen next to the stove with all of the wires where little kids would be playing. So to have larger units for a family, to have open spaces, and to have the services.

Right now they are in a quandary because people want to come back, but there is no housing. People want workers in their community, and there is no place for the workers to live. So until we can break this cycle, and that is what takes leadership from those that are in the community, to break that cycle so there is housing, there are workers, and there are services.

At least seven hospitals were destroyed in New Orleans. They don't have the medical services or the groceries stores. So even if someone comes back, and they have restored some of the housing and some of the units, they may remain empty because they are living in a place that is almost empty and there are no services. You can't just go to the grocery store. We have to jump-start this, and I think this bill goes well on its way to get over the bureaucracy and to have the leadership, the grass-roots leadership, begin to do that.

In Mississippi we saw a different situation where the storm came in and out.

All you see are slabs and concrete stairs from those slabs going to nowhere. About the only thing remaining were oak trees, beautiful, beautiful oak trees that did survive. All of the other foliage is gone.

There they have been able to rebuild. A lot has been done. Maybe it is because houses didn't sit in the water. The water came and went, and they were able to remove the debris. But there I think we had some of the leadership that is needed on the local level.

From the hearings, it gave us hope. After 18 months, they have the money. Congress has done their job and we will be able to get them back on a track and not set precedents that will be unwieldy if there are other such disasters.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to the amendment, but for clarification.

It is my understanding, and I know that your Dear Colleague letter states that currently vouchers of the public housing residents and section 8 vouchers do not include utilities. It is my understanding that prior to Katrina and Rita, the public housing residents had vouchers that did include utilities

I yield to the gentlewoman.

So this really is just a reclarification of how it was done in the past.

Mr. Chairman, I have no objection to the bill.

The other thing that worries me, though, is just that you said you saw a government that did not care about its people. And I think certainly we have seen people in the government here that care very much; $110 billion has been turned over to those States to use to rebuild. I just think that we all care about it, we as the government, we in the administration, and I think the State and the local government.

I yield to the gentlelady.

Reclaiming my time, let's just say that we are moving forward. I think this bill is a way to move forward, and I would accept the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to introduce an amendment that I think fixes a provision of the bill that mistakenly includes replacements for 2,000 units in New Orleans, even though these units were not occupied and, in fact, were condemned and scheduled for demolition prior to Katrina.

Let's just do the math. Before Katrina, there were 5,156 public housing units that were occupied in New Orleans. We don't know how many of those 5,156 residents will want to return. We have asked HUD to find them and conduct a survey to ask that question. In the meantime, this bill authorizes replacements not only for the 5,156 units that were occupied by Katrina, it throws in another 2,000 units that were unoccupied, condemned, and scheduled for demolition. I see no point to that.

We don't know how many of the residents will return. Why then would we want to replace not only the 5,156 units they occupied, but an additional 2,000 units that nobody lived in even both before Katrina?

My amendment will permit one-for-one replacement of the units that were occupied by public housing residents at the time of the 2005 storms.

According to CBO estimates, this amendment would reduce the spending authorized in this bill by $270 million, which is the cost of replacing the 2,000 public housing units that nobody lived in before the 2005 storms hit.

Mr. Chairman, I urge support of the amendment, and reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to my colleague from Texas.

Mr. Chairman, I am glad that Mr. Neugebauer clarified that. The buildings, we went into those buildings and we climbed up to the second floor and it was just as bad as the first floor and there were no other floors.

One thing about New Orleans housing is at least it was not the high rises like we saw originally in Chicago, that a whole precinct would be public housing. And those have been done away with.

But let me just say that we want people to come back, and we want them to have the housing. And there are some of the units that have been fixed up. And what has happened is there is nobody there, and the police have to come because they are broken into and they are vandalized. And we need more people there.

But these units, we need to know how many people are going to come back originally. We have got to start the process someplace, and we don't seem to be able to do that. If we have 5,156 residents that were promised that they could come back, we should provide that. And it is a one-on-one. But for the 2,000, let's get those first people back and get them back by August so that they could have their kids go to school. The housing is not great, but let's get them back to do that. But to have 2,000 other units that are built

that we really would rather get the first ones going, we have got the money for it. And I think now we are talking about 18,000 people that are on the waiting list.

First of all, let's just say that there are people that have moved to other States. They have jobs. They have a life. The survey goes out, and it is going to be completed by HUD and we will know. We don't know how many people are on the waiting list. Nobody has made an attempt to figure out if they are people that are waiting or they have gone someplace else.

So I would say that this is just to get it going. And to undertake 5,165 units is going to take awhile. Obviously, to build a whole multi- use facility is going to take a lot more time. But there are plans to do it. So we can do it both, but let's get it going.

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

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Chairman, with that, again, before we make all these decisions, we really have to know how many people are going to return. If we have the 5,100-some units and all the people that have been living in those units don't return, then there will be a time that they can open up the section 8 housing and have people off the waiting list who qualify. If they still qualify, if they come back.

But what this bill is doing is a one-on-one replacement, and that is what it says in this bill, is to replace the one-on-one replacement for those units that we were talking about, whether it is 5,000 or it is 7,000. And I say let's use the dollars that we have to start with the people that were displaced from there. They have the public housing, they have the vouchers, and let's not wait any longer.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to Mr. Bachus for the remaining time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would again extend FEMA temporary financial assistance through the end of December and then provide those section 8 vouchers to FEMA-assisted families when FEMA assistance expires, and that is exactly what the gentleman was talking about, but I think that the amendment is unnecessary.

The President currently has the authority to extend the length of this temporary assistance, as he has already done before. This assistance was supposed to expire at the end of 18 months, but the President extended it through August of 2007 to allow FEMA ample time, I think, to work with the families and help them secure permanent housing. This means that this assistance will have lasted a full 2 years since Katrina.

Since the hurricanes, FEMA has provided billions of dollars in assistance directly to individuals and households to support their recovery, including flood insurance payouts, direct payments for rental assistance, payments for home repairs and lost property. But FEMA assistance was supposed to be temporary to give families that were affected by the devastation time to get back on their feet. But today, as was said, 35,000 families are still living in FEMA trailers. Our efforts should be focused on moving these families to permanent housing, including homeownership, instead of keeping them in limbo.

It really concerns me that we move from FEMA and then turn it into section 8 housing. Deadlines such as the August 2007 deadline have encouraged families to make decisions about their future rather than continuing the expectation that the Federal Government will provide for them. In fact, every time FEMA has had a deadline and has enforced it, we have seen more people move further on the road to recovery and self- sufficiency. When FEMA moved people out of the hotels and motels, people said thousands would be

homeless. In fact, nationwide less than 100 people were in the shelters as a result, and most of them for only 3 days. I understand the same held true for the cruise ships. When the cruise ships' assistance ended, nobody ended up in a shelter.

So we need to encourage the President to have the flexibility he needs to do this right, and that means leaving it to the administration to determine when and for how long to extend the housing aid through

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the ranking member of the Financial Services Committee.

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

What this really boils down to, I think, and the problems we are having in communication is what to do with the long-term disaster housing. We haven't faced something like this before.

We have the disaster vouchers. We have the section 8 vouchers, and how do we make this all work. I think we all care about what is happening to these families. It has been over 18 months. We are concerned. People need to get on with their lives.

I don't think we are really asking for anything different except that we think that this is unnecessary because the President has the flexibility now to do what we are talking about. I think we should leave it. We think we should leave it to the administration to determine when, whether, and for how long to extend the housing aid through FEMA.

I agree, most of the families and individuals in the FEMA-sponsored housing are living in travel trailers that are not suitable for long- term housing. Just think of a family living in a trailer for the long term. I think extending the assistance will prolong this unsuitable housing arrangement.

I think FEMA is working now to determine, with Federal and State partners, to address the potential for what is going to happen for long-term housing needs as a result of these hurricanes.

We are setting precedent here. Let's hope we never have something like this again. I think this is moving along.

It will increase the amount of this bill if these vouchers are made permanent, but maybe we need to sit down and really work out what are disaster vouchers, and we already are working on section 8 vouchers; and we have jumped ahead on some of these things. I know everybody is enthusiastic on

this committee and wants to do everything right now, but we have a whole consideration of section 8 vouchers. And to extend FEMA and then turn them into permanent vouchers, section 8 vouchers, and I know they have to be eligible, but we really need to sit down and determine and debate what are really the long-term ramifications of what is going on.

I think some of these things can be worked out later. We don't have to do everything at once. I think this already is a costly bill, and I think we should wait to determine some of these things.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remaining time.

Again, I think we are talking about the same thing; it is just how we get there.

What we are saying is that right now FEMA has provided temporary assistance. When it has been needed to extend, it has been extended. If people finally have found housing, and they qualify for Section 8 vouchers, they will be able to get them, but let FEMA work to address the problem and the potential for long-term housing needs as a result of the hurricane.

I just do not think that this amendment is necessary because it has been taken care of by the administration.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, first, let me thank the Chair of the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Barney Frank, for all of the time and attention he has placed on making this our number one priority, dealing with the aftermath of Katrina. He said to me and to all of the Members of my subcommittee, ``Move as quickly as you possibly can. Get the hearings going. Let's get a bill to the floor.'' And because of his interest and because of his support, we are here today on the floor indeed addressing many of those issues that should have been addressed a long time ago, and I thank Mr. Frank so very much for that.

It has been exactly 2 weeks since the Committee on Financial Services considered H.R. 1227, the Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007. By a vote of 50-16, the committee passed the bill. I want to thank again Chairman Frank for supporting the bill through markup. I want to thank the members of our committee from both sides of the aisle who voted for this bill.

There are also many Members of Congress who have expressed major concerns about the rebuilding process in the gulf region post-Katrina and support this bill.

This bill addresses many of the obstacles to the rebuilding process in the gulf region. Prior to consideration of this bill, the Committee on Financial Services held hearings on post-Katrina housing issues, followed by 2 days of subcommittee field hearings in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Gulfport, Mississippi.

The bill before you today represents consensus on one major issue; that is, for the rebuilding process in the gulf region to ever begin, we need to address the affordable housing crisis in the gulf region by returning people to their homes. Whether it is a home in need of major repair, a public housing unit damaged by the storm, or a home totally destroyed, every person who desires to live in the gulf region must be given an opportunity to rebuild and to return home.

We learned through hours of testimony that the reasons for failure in the gulf region related to the rebuilding process were often bureaucratic, administrative, as well as a consequence of inadequate poststorm planning by the Federal Government.

The hurricanes hit the gulf region in August of 2005, leaving behind unparalleled devastation. Many have acknowledged their frustration with the speed and pace of the recovery. Others realize that the efforts of Congress to provide $110 billion to the gulf region have not necessarily resulted in money into the right people's hands, and I could not agree more.

However, this bill does not place blame on anyone, but rather recognizes the need to bring efficiency to the process, whether through administration of the Road Home program or the Federal Public Housing program, so that persons in need are assisted with the financial resources that we approved for them months ago.

I had one goal when I introduced this bill, and that was to see the gulf region rebuilt, while addressing the affordable housing crisis in the region. The hurricanes destroyed nearly 300,000 units of housing in the gulf region, affordable rental units, homes of low- and moderate- income families, and public housing. The hurricanes did not discriminate when it came to destroying the housing stock in the gulf region. No income group was spared. Whether the family lived in public housing, high-priced homes, or affordable rental housing in the gulf region, they were all affected alike. Many of the residents of the major affected areas like New Orleans and elsewhere have not recovered from the storms, and thousands are still displaced and living in other parts of the country months after the storms rather than their formal communities. While all of these persons may not choose to return or even wish to return, we must provide those who do with an opportunity to return.

H.R. 1227 is about rebuilding communities to allow people to return to the gulf region. We should not have to rebuild communities one at a time in the gulf, and in some cases that is what it will take. What would be worse is not rebuilding any of the communities in the gulf region, and that is the path that we are currently on. Housing is the key to everything in the gulf region. No housing means zero communities. No communities will mean that rebuilding is impossible in the gulf region.

This bill will address a number of issues. The build resolves the HUD-FEMA dispute by allowing the Hazard Mitigation Fund to be combined with the Community Development Block Grant funds. In addition, the bill requires monthly reports by the State of Louisiana on number of households assisted through the programs funded with CDBG funds for the Road Home program.

By eliminating the prohibition against the match requirement, CDBG supplemental funds can be used in conjunction with other Federal programs, including those administered by FEMA. In addition, the bill also provides for reimbursements related to an entitlement community's use of the Community Development Block Grant funds to provide rental assistance to displaced residents.

Public housing because of the hurricanes. Many public housing residents are displaced with no reasonable housing option. Living in trailers and doubling up do not qualify as reasonable housing options. This bill would provide a means to return for the greater of 3,000 or those who respond to the survey who are former New Orleans public housing residents. It also establishes the one-for-one replacement principle by requiring a plan to be approved by HUD and the residents prior to any wholesale demolition or redevelopment efforts of public housing units.

Under the bill, HUD is required to complete a survey of displaced public housing residents to determine whether they want to return to public housing in New Orleans. In addition, the bill requires HUD to report on any proposed conversion of public housing units located in areas affected by the hurricane, as well as comply with the bill's other requirements related to public housing.

The bill addresses disaster vouchers and project-based rental assistance. It extends disaster vouchers for 3 months until January 2008. Project-based vouchers would be protected where a project was destroyed or is in need of substantial rehabilitation. The bill clarifies the voucher allocation formula by requiring HUD to make appropriate adjustments consistent with the funding year 2007 continuing resolution. In addition, the bill requires a number of proactive measures related to vouchers that will ensure that no one is left without access to housing as a result of hurricanes.

Further, title IV of the bill would provide for the reimbursement of landlords who suffered damages related to

commitments made by FEMA in conjunction with providing rental units to displaced residents. Without their commitment to house displaced families, what can best be described as a tragedy would have become a 21st-century horror story.

I am pleased that the Members of the House are in the position to speed up the recovery and rebuilding process in the gulf region by supporting this bill. This bill is a small investment to make sure that the $110 billion we have spent thus far is not squandered. Unfortunately, renters and homeowners alike have suffered in the gulf region for too many months. I believe this bill will bring much needed relief to those persons who have suffered the most.

Again, I would like to thank Barney Frank, our chairman, for the tremendous work that he has done. I would like to thank all of the members of our subcommittee and of the entire committee, and I want to thank Mrs. Biggert, the ranking member on the opposite side of the aisle, for the cooperation. She went to New Orleans. She sat in those hearings, and she visited those public housing projects, and she has as much knowledge about this as anyone.

So I am thankful that we are at this point today, and I would ask for an ``aye'' vote on this legislation.

I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Florida for all the work she has done to help the residents of New Orleans and the gulf coast. I know she was down there days after the hurricane hit, and I know of her passion. I am very appreciative for the help she has given us on this legislation, and I would like to assure her that those returning residents will have included in their rent the cost of the utility bills. So please do not worry about that. It will be done.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and I know of her concern about making sure that all the residents have the opportunity to return.

In our bill we have notification for return by August 1, and they have until October to honor the August 1 notification.

Now, let me just say that we crafted this for several reasons. One is we did not want to be in the position of taking people out of where they are living now and forcing them to have to take their children out of school, but we wanted them to return in time to enroll the children in school for the semester starting in September. So we think that accomplishes that. And I know that you are concerned about all the people having adequate time.

Let me tell you something else that was taken into consideration. Mr. Neugebauer, who was with us, has past experience as a developer- contractor type. He made it very clear that when you rehab a unit, that if it is not occupied by a certain length of time, then you are going to have to go back 6 months later and put the same amount of dollars in again to rehab that unit that has been sitting vacant; because of the moisture and everything in the area, that you just cannot maintain the properties without them being inhabited.

So for those two reasons, what we think makes good sense in terms of giving people an adequate period of time, and so that we don't have to spend additional money to rehab a unit the second time, we think that this would do well for those residents.

In addition to that information, we have placed in this bill a requirement that the Road Home program must report to us every 30 days, because we are watching them very closely, we have let them know that we were not happy with the progress, and now we have information coming into us that will help us to see how fast they are moving, and we will take additional action if we have to.

No, I am not aware of that, Congresswoman. What I do know is this: We have up to $150,000 in subsidy for homeowners to rebuild their homes. Some qualify for the entire amount, others qualify for different amounts based on whether or not they had insurance or whether or not there are other deductibles. My understanding is that if they decide not to come back, that they can sell their properties, and it is supposed to be at fair market value.

If I may, if you will yield, I need to make one additional comment that I was just reminded of, that if they do not return to New Orleans, there is a penalty. That is designed to rebuild the neighborhoods and get people coming back. But there is a 30 percent penalty.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

This bill is about stabilizing families who have been displaced because of a natural disaster. These are people who are trying to return home. The people that he is referring to are people who come from various walks of life. Some of them do work, even though they live in public housing. Some of them are on fixed income, some are elderly, some are disabled and some of them are in welfare programs already.

This amendment is not needed. It is not proper. It is not the time that should be utilized to try and do something that really has already been taken care of in welfare reform. We should be about the business of returning people to their homes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green).

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time we have left on this amendment.

I would like to yield 1 additional minute to Representative Cleaver.

Mr. Chairman, in closing on this opposition, I would simply like to say, I think that my colleagues have made a wonderful case for why we should not support this amendment.

And let me just say that this amendment is not in the spirit of the work that has been done on this bill. We have had wonderful cooperation with Ranking Member Bachus, Ranking Member of the subcommittee Biggert, and Mr. Neugebauer, who all attended the hearing and participated in the tours. And I think that everybody is bending over backwards to do the right thing.

We are not trying to penalize people, we are not trying to accuse people of trying to get something for nothing, we are not trying to treat people differently than we treat others. And I think this has been demonstrated throughout our work.

So the case that has been made here and the comparisons that have been made are legitimate. And I think you can see very clearly that there is some very deep feelings about any attempt to treat people differently, to try and penalize them in any unfair way, to try and put another welfare reform bill on top of the welfare reform bill that we already have that people are involved in. And I think that my colleagues in this Congress, too, will understand that.

I suppose I could always say to the gentleman, in the interest of us working together, perhaps you should withdraw the amendment, but that is not mine to say. Mine simply is to say that I am opposed to the amendment. I think it is disruptive, I think that it is polarizing, and I think it is not the kind of amendment we would like to see on a bill where we have had such tremendous cooperation.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentlewoman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

First let me thank Mrs. Biggert for all the work that she has done in helping us to get this bill to the floor, and the time that she has taken to pay attention to this issue. And I certainly respect her thinking on this issue and the fact that she was there, she went through the units, she saw them. But I must respectfully disagree.

I must disagree because not only did we have 18,000 individuals on the waiting lists, waiting for public housing units; yes, these units were boarded up, these units were boarded up, and there had been a promise that there would be redevelopment that had not taken place. Not only do you have 18,000 on the waiting list, do you realize that many of the people that have been displaced because of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita are folks who were working, who had jobs? They lost their homes, they lost their jobs. They are living in temporary situations. They are in Houston, they are in Atlanta, they are in cities in Florida. They are all over. They now may qualify for public housing based on the fact that they have lost on their jobs. They want to return, they want to come back, and they should have an opportunity to apply for and receive public housing units that should be available to them.

So let me just say that we should have one-for-one replacement because it is needed. People are standing in line. They were standing in line before Katrina; they will be standing in line after Katrina. And, Mrs. Biggert, if you remember, the mayor of the city of New Orleans said he would love to contract for 1,000 units to have places for people who want to come back to New Orleans to work.

We are unleashing the possibilities for infrastructure rebuilding, with

some of the match requirements having been modified in the way that we have done them. They want to get started with the building, And people need places to live. So he would like to have units for people to come back and work in. When these units are replaced, we have enough people who want to live in them. And so it is not a fair way to determine how many units get replaced by simply saying only those that were occupied prior to Katrina, because that waiting list is a reminder to all of us of how badly those units are needed

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman and Members, I would like to reiterate something that the gentleman from North Carolina just said, and that is the fact that we are not trying to stop development. As a matter of fact, what we are doing is restoring units so that people can have some place to return. Their lives are in a temporary state of existence. Our residents that we talked to said they would be happy to work with the housing authority and HUD to talk about the future development. So I just wanted to make that clear.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the remaining time to the gentleman from Massachusetts, Chairman Frank.

I would like to stand and give my strong support to this amendment, and I thank the gentleman from Texas for working on this amendment and strengthening this legislation.

I am tired of the headlines at the end of one of these periods of time when the temporary assistance has run out, the headlines that say all of those people out there who are living in temporary situations are going to have to get off, they will not be supported any more, that their assistance has run out, and then legislators go running to beat up on FEMA. And then FEMA, after a few days or so, will make another extension. Time out. It is time for us to help people get some kind of permanency to their existence. This amendment will do that.

This amendment will simply say for those people who are living in trailers and all of this temporary housing, some of it is really not fit to live in, in places where we are spending money with the temporary vouchers, will now be given the opportunity with the passage of this amendment and this legislation to begin to reorder their lives and to go ahead and come home and get jobs, jobs that are needed, not only by those families but the infrastructures that need to be rebuilt by those people who will be there to do these jobs. All of this can happen with this kind of permanent voucher.

I think it is important to note, it has been said here that these vouchers will be given only to those people who are eligible for them. When they are no longer eligible, they will cease to exist. I don't know how you can be any fairer than that.

So we are talking about moving from temporary status to permanent status. When you don't need it any more, it is gone.

Mr. Chairman, I begin by yielding myself 1 minute, and then yield to the main author of this bill, the gentlewoman from California.

This is a bill which comes to this House about 18 months late. It is in response to the problems of the hurricane in the gulf. It is the result of very diligent work.

One week after the committee was organized, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), who is the Chair of the Housing Subcommittee, and I began to work on this. We had a very long all-day hearing in Washington.

During the February break, the gentlewoman from California took her subcommittee to Louisiana and Mississippi and had very extensive hearings. As a result of these very extensive hearings and consultations, we have brought forward a bill of which she is the primary author, which we believe does as much as can be done to respond to the needs of the people in that area that have sadly been, in some ways, neglected since the hurricane.

I am very pleased to be able to yield to the gentlewoman from California, who is the moving spirit behind this bill, as much time as she consumes as we describe our very belated, but still very necessary efforts to respond to these human needs.

Mr. Chairman, first for 1 minute I would like to recognize myself to acknowledge the spirit in which this happened. I think this bill is a very good blend of partisanship and bipartisanship, and they are equally important. Partisanship, there has never been a democracy in the history of the world where you did not have political parties. People who are on trying to govern themselves cannot do that as a kind of a random mass. And there are general philosophical differences. The key is not to allow those legitimate differences of ideology and partisanship to poison the ability to work together. I think this bill shows that.

And I am very grateful to the gentlewoman from Illinois, the gentleman from Texas, the gentleman from Alabama. We worked together on this. There were some strong disagreements. We had a number of rollcall votes. Some of them were close; some of them weren't. We have managed to reproduce through the rule most of those, not all I acknowledge, but most of those substantive disagreements about this bill, they are in here in the rule to the extent that people wanted to redebate them. And that is important.

But I acknowledge the fact that while we had some differences, that did not prevent us from coming together on some commonality. There was never in this bill any effort to delay or divert. We managed to talk seriously. And, yes, there are differences between the parties. There is on our side, I believe, a greater willingness to provide some funding for some of these things. Those will be legitimately debated.

Mr. Chairman, let me now yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), who is the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who has been very helpful, because the lives of FEMA and HUD are deeply intertwined, and trying to legislate here requires treading this. And the gentleman from Minnesota is an example to others not to allow turf consciousness and jurisdictional hypersensitivity to get in the way of good

public policy. So I thank the gentleman. I yield him such time as he will consume.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

We agree on all the things the gentleman from Alabama said we should do. Nothing in this bill stops them from doing it.

All we say is this: please don't tear down the houses that people now live in before you replace them. We are not in any way opposed to that; but if you don't think the housing the people live in now is great, and neither do I, understand that they are only there because they can't get anything better, and that is the only point of difference. We are saying do not displace them before that nice, new stuff is ready.

And as for one-for-one, we aren't saying it has to be one-for-one right on-site. If you get a one-for-one replacement that is in mixed housing, that will be fine; but just don't displace people.

Mr. Chairman, I now yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds to say I agree with the gentleman that we should not be spending a lot more money where it has been badly spent. Also, I did not think we were going to be talking about Iraq until later in the week.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca).

(Mr. BACA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds to thank the gentleman for his work on this and to say that one of the things the gentleman talked about last year when I worked with him and we decided whoever would be in the majority, we need to straighten out going forward the FEMA-HUD relationship with regard to housing. Part of the problem is, in fairness to FEMA, they should not still be in the housing business. That was not their expertise.

I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. Chairman, we will work that out.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones).

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

I would join my colleague in supporting this particular amendment.

In my experience the gentlewoman, someone who is not on the committee and not from the district, has really made herself an expert and an advocate. I would say this: If as this goes forward there are delays in the legislative process, yes, of course, it would be sensible to deal with the deadlines. That is, we should think of the deadlines almost conceptually as based on a certain timeline of legislation. If the basic decisions by the government slip, then the deadline should be adjusted accordingly.

Some of it I am, and some of it I am not. I am not an expert on it, but go ahead.

Well, I would say this, if the gentlewoman would yield to me: It is our hope, and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker) was very active in this, and we listened to the others, the two gentlemen from Louisiana, Mr. Melancon and Mr. Jefferson, we believe we have responded to some of the issues. There was, for instance, a debate between FEMA. FEMA didn't like some aspects of the Road Home regarding whether or not you got a penalty for not staying in the State and whether or not elderly people were done. That was pulled. We have in this bill said to FEMA, please, leave that one alone. So we hope we have sped it up. No one I know of thinks that the rate of spendout of the Road Home has been sufficient to date. We hope this bill makes it better, but I don't have all the details.

If the gentlewoman would yield, there is one other aspect that was resolved. In the committee we adopted an amendment offered by the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker) which went in the other direction and nullified one set of offsets when the gentleman from Louisiana mentioned that we had a scoring problem with CBO. There was an offset procedure for certain tax things, and frankly we felt that was not only somewhat unfair, but it was also one thing that held up the speed because we tried to offset that on the other hand.

Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Chairman, who has the right to close?

Well, in that case, since I am our last speaker, I would ask the other side to use up their time.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Illinois is absolutely irrelevant to whether or not people ought to be occupying existing units. That is not what is involved here.

First of all, let me say the gentleman from Alabama and others said they have these plans to build these great new places. Who is stopping them? The hurricane was in September of 2005. It is now March of 2007. Have they started this? Have I stopped them? Have the tenants stopped them? Has the gentlewoman from California stopped them? Nobody has stopped them.

And the New Orleans Housing Authority, by the way, is HUD in drag. So nobody here has prevented them.

Here is what we are saying. What is amended is this: if you plan to tear down units that are now habitable, you cannot do that until you have met with the tenants, talked about this and replaced them.

This is an issue not about whether you live in the existing units. This isn't about rehabbing existing units. This is as to what is the obligation to replace the units.

The fact is that, according to HUD's own figures, more than half of the rental units in New Orleans were destroyed by the hurricane. People talk about job problems. That is because they have nowhere to live.

The gentlewoman's amendment would reduce by 2,000 the number of units they would be obligated to build before tearing down things that now exist. And you know, it is very nice. We have been doing this for years. We have promised the poor people all kinds of things, and those promises don't always materialize.

All we are saying is do whatever destruction you want after you have found places to live. And let me make it clear: we are talking about people who don't live here, who live in Texas and elsewhere and they want to come back. And it is not simply former residents of public housing. There were a lot of people who were displaced from New Orleans. We don't think we are in danger of running out of people who want to come back.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

That is simply not the case. Here is the problem with the gentleman's view. They have this view that you can only build new units for poor people after you have torn down what they had. No one has enjoined them from building new units, except the budget that the people on the other side have voted for. We have got to get this clear. Nobody has prevented, there have been no plans by HUD, also known as the Housing Authority of New Orleans, to build new units. Nobody has stopped them except, yes, people have said you can't tear down what we have as the pre-condition for building. But if HUD had wanted to go forward and build, no one would have prevented that. The wonderful housing that the gentleman from Alabama talked about, the mixed-use housing, what has stopped them from building it? I will tell what you has stopped them from building it, the budgets that have been voted for by my friends on the other side that didn't have any money for new housing construction.

I will tell you what we are going to do. We are going to pass the GSE bill that is going to have the housing affordability fund so they can build these things.

So we are simply saying do not destruct before you replace and do the poor people the favor of tearing down the bad housing they live in so they have nothing left at all.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I appreciate the kind remarks of the gentleman from Alabama. He is right, we accepted a number of amendments, and there is a great deal that joins us together. But there are some differences,

and I think in the spirit of democracy, we should debate these differences.

In the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) and this amendment as we debate it, there seems to be this view, as my friend from North Carolina said, that these are people who need to be jolted out of this welfare way of life. The gentleman from Texas wanted to subject these people to a 20-hour work requirement where no work needed to be done.

Here we are objecting to these people staying on section 8 because we want, as my other friend from Texas said, we are going to have some tough love.

Let's remember who we are talking about. These are people who were working overwhelmingly. They were working at lousy jobs for low pay. These were people who were doing work in the service industry. They were living in not great circumstances, and their homes and their jobs were washed away. They were driven out of their homes to strange places. Some of those places have been very welcoming, and I was pleased to see the Kennedy family give the mayor of Houston a Profile in Courage Award for the generosity that he has shown in welcoming people. But that is who we are talking about.

People had said, well, we want to improve the quality of their life. Do Members think, Mr. Chairman, that poor people are so dumb that they are voluntarily living in worse places than would otherwise be available to them? They are not living in great circumstances, but they are the best they can find and afford. When you displace them from what they have without providing them alternatives, you are likely to make them worse off.

Now, I understand there is a problem that some people might not fully deserve what they get, but overwhelmingly here is what we are talking about: people who had jobs and homes in New Orleans and maybe some other parts of Louisiana whose homes and jobs were washed away. And they are now living in emergency conditions provided by FEMA, and they haven't yet been able to fix it.

People ask, Why don't they go back to New Orleans? Well, we have a chicken-and-an-egg problem. We have a problem where there are no jobs because there is no place for the people to live.

In Mississippi along the gulf, the Oreck vacuum cleaner company opened up a plant after the hurricane and then closed it because they couldn't get workers because there wasn't housing. We are trying to build housing.

Vouchers in New Orleans is the problem. According to HUD's own figures, more than half of the rental housing units in New Orleans were destroyed by the storm. How do you expect these people to go back?

Now we have a bill that I am very proud of. The gentlewoman from California has worked very hard on this. We got organized on January 30. A week later we had our first hearing. A month later we had our markup. We are now on the floor. This has been a very high priority for us, to try to break this cycle of no job and no housing and no way to get back and no way to live and no decent life. And, yes, we are trying to build housing and we hope that the housing brings jobs.

Will there be some problems? Yes. But I have to say, if we are going to err, can we not err on the side of people who are poor in many cases to begin with and whose hard jobs, and in some cases meager homes were destroyed, and they were driven out of those homes by a force of nature and they are living in Texas and they are living in Atlanta, and they are being told tough love. We don't think the quality of your life is good enough.

We don't think you are trying hard enough. Is that what Members think?

These are among the toughest people around that they are still integrated and they are still with their families given what they have been through, the physical and emotional horrors of that hurricane and the lack of any action afterwards. Can we not resolve together to say to these people, look, we are going to work to try to help rebuild New Orleans. Until then, we will assure you can live in these places.

These vouchers people will get are what we call disappearing vouchers. They are not permanent additions to the voucher stock. They are for the people who were displaced from New Orleans, and as the gentleman from Texas pointed out, as long as they are economically eligible.

I don't think they all want to stay there and live in these temporary quarters. As they do find alternative ways to live, the voucher will disappear. So that is what we are talking about: thousands of our fellow human beings who were subjected to physical terrors and emotional troubles far greater than most of us, fortunately for us, will ever have to go through. Their homes and their jobs were destroyed. Their children were uprooted from schools. They were driven away from where they used to live. And they have then been put under the tender mercies of FEMA. And as my friend from Texas said, every so often they were told, you know what, there hasn't been enough trauma in your life, the flood, the deaths, all that, that's not enough. Now we are going to threaten you with eviction. Now you won't know where you're going to live.

What we are saying is let's say to these remaining people, while we are trying to rebuild New Orleans, we give you assurance that you will be able to live in the circumstances in which you are now living as long as you meet the guidelines. I don't understand the opposition to that. I don't understand why that brings Members to say tough love, we are going to improve the quality of their life.

Let's let these people at least have what they now have: a home that was something they were able to put together after that great trauma. And the alternative is people say they shouldn't worry, the President will extend it.

What do you say to your 8-year-old and 12-year-old when they ask: Where am I going to school next year? Oh, don't worry, the President will extend it.

Frankly, there are a lot of people here who wouldn't feel a great comfort in that, let alone an 8-year-old.

We are dealing with totally innocent people, hardworking people whose lives were already tough, were destroyed by a hurricane and they were forced physically out of their homes. We are saying instead of them continuing to live under the fear that they may be evicted, that they may have no further support in terms of their basic living, that we as a compassionate Nation will continue to make sure that they at least have a place to live while everything else goes forward. I hope the House will accept the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1227, the Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007. Among other things, this legislation includes provisions designed to speed up the repair and rebuilding of homes and affordable rental housing in areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma; ensures continued rental assistance for both families that have moved back to their home areas and for families displaced by such hurricanes, and provides reimbursements to communities and landlords that were generous in providing assistance to hurricane evacuees in the aftermath of the storms.

Mr. Chairman, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit landfall in 2005. In the immediate aftermath of the storms, Congress provided substantial sums through the Federal Emergency Management Administration, FEMA, to address emergency needs arising from the devastation that the storms created, and to provide a housing safety net for families who lost their homes or were otherwise displaced. Later in 2005 and in the summer of 2006, Congress approved two emergency spending bills providing more than $16 billion in CDBG funds for affected states, to provide assistance for home repairs and reconstruction and for repair and rebuilding of a depleted stock of affordable rental housing. Congress also appropriated $390 million for the Disaster Voucher Program, which provides voucher assistance to formerly HUD-assisted families that have been displaced by these hurricanes.

However, some 18 months after these storms, the pace of recovery of housing repair and reconstruction is not as robust in many areas as many had hoped. The pace of home repair, particularly in areas within Louisiana, has been slow. The repair or rebuilding of many damaged federally subsidized public and assisted housing units, affordable to lower income families, has still not taken place. And, tens of thousands of federally assisted evacuees from these hurricanes face impending deadlines later this year for continued eligibility for rental assistance.

The Financial Services Committee has held a number of hearings over the past year and a half, including two in September 2005, two in December 2005, two in January 2006, one in February 2006, and three in February 2007 to explore the pace of the housing recovery effort in the Gulf Coast. The hearings included representatives of Federal agencies, State and local government officials, housing developers, nonprofit organizations, and representatives of low income housing. Witnesses testified as to the current state of the housing recovery in various communities in the Gulf Coast and offered legislative suggestions for addressing housing problems in those areas. The bill ultimately reported out of the Financial Services Committees relies extensively on the hearing record and these suggestions.

Flexibility

H.R. 1227 includes a number of provisions designed to improve flexibility with respect to previously appropriated funds for hurricane recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast. The bill would free up for use $1.175 billion in funds

previously made available for use to the State of Louisiana under the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, but which has been held up by FEMA. Louisiana has proposed combining these funds with CDBG funds under its Road Home program for grants to homeowners, but FEMA will not approve use of the funds because of Road Home provisions that provide incentives for homeowners to commit to returning to the state to live. Under the program, homeowners would receive a 40 percent reduction in any Road Home grant money if they leave the state. However, this provision excepts homeowners over the age of 65. The bill would transfer such funds to CDBG, to expedite the availability of such funds.

The bill eliminates an unduly restrictive ``duplication of benefits'' provision that has resulted in homeowners in Louisiana receiving less than the funds they need to rebuild under the Road Home Program, while instating a prohibition against any person receiving a ``windfall gain'' from assistance under that program.

The bill eliminates a provision from a previous CDBG appropriations bill that prohibits CDBG funds from being used as a match for other Federal programs, a change that could help cash strapped communities without a tax base that are unable to meet these other match requirements.

The bill provides that $15 million in CDBG funds made available to the State of Louisiana shall be transferred to the New Orleans Redevelopment Agency, for a pilot program to leverage private capital to assemble, redevelop and resell parcels of land in New Orleans.

Finally, the bill expedites the handling of loss claims for lenders in the case of FHA insured 1- to 4-unit properties where there are problems with the conveyance of title.

Preservation of Affordable Housing

H.R. 1227 includes a number of provisions designed to preserve the supply of rental housing that is affordable for low income families. The bill requires HUD to give timely approval of all feasible requests to restore project-based rental assistance or transfer such assistance to another site, in the case of damaged or destroyed federally assisted housing developments. The bill authorizes 4,500 new housing vouchers for the purpose of project based assistance for supportive housing units for seniors, disabled persons, and the homeless. The bill requires HUD to provide replacement vouchers for every public housing and assisted housing unit that is not brought back on line.

Similarly, with respect to public housing, the bill provides resident protections and preserves the availability of public housing units in hurricane affected areas by preventing the transfer of such units without preserving long term affordability requirements. It also conditions demolition of public housing units on providing alternative housing units for residents of the units being demolished and on replacing such units either with other public housing or with comparable units providing comparable affordability for low income residents.

Specifically, with respect to the Housing Authority of New Orleans, the bill also requires the Authority to survey pre-Katrina residents to identify which residents want to return and when, and to provide public housing or comparable units to those residents that want to return, but in any case no less than 3,000 units by August 1st. Funding is also authorized for repair, rehabilitation, and development of HANO public housing units.

The bill also authorizes $5 million in each of the next two years for Fair Housing activities, to ensure that housing activities in areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are carried out in a manner that furthers fair housing.

Rental Housing Assistance

Faced with a looming September deadline for the cutoff of some 12,000 families currently receiving Disaster Voucher Program (DVP) assistance, H.R. 1227 extends this deadline through at least the end of the year, and authorizes replacement vouchers to affected families when the program terminates, which will continue as long as the family is eligible for voucher assistance.

These vouchers are attached to each individual and family and will ``disappear'' when the individual or family is no longer eligible for the assistance. The bill also provides a clarification that HUD should make adjustments in the voucher formula funding allocation changes made in the Continuing Resolution, so that Gulf Coast housing agencies will not be adversely impacted by the hurricanes.

The Continuing Resolution provided such authority for HUD to make such adjustments, and this bill requires the adjustments be made. Finally, the bill requires HUD to make a good faith effort to identify families that are eligible for Disaster Voucher Assistance but are not receiving such assistance, and make such assistance available.

oversight

H.R. 1227 includes a number of provisions to ensure that Federal funds are used efficiently, effectively, and legally. The bill requires the State of Louisiana to submit monthly reports on the progress of the Road Home program in making funds available to homeowners. The bill requires the General Accountability Office (GAO) to complete quarterly reports identifying any waste, fraud, and abuse in connection with the program. And, the bill requires a GAO study to examine methods of improving the distribution of Federal housing funds to assist states with hurricane recovery efforts.

Finally, the bill requires that any funds used under Title II with respect to public housing construction or repair must have verification that all workers have an immigration status that allows them to be legally employed.

Reimbursement for Communities and Landlords that Assisted Evacuees

A number of communities and private sector landlords throughout the country played a critical role in providing housing assistance to evacuees in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. This assistance was critical at a time when housing was in short supply and hundreds of thousands of families were displaced. It is important to encourage such actions in future disasters.

Therefore, H.R. 1227 authorizes funding for reimbursement of localities that used their own CDBG funds to provide rental housing assistance to such evacuees. The bill also authorizes reimbursement to landlords who participated in the FEMA Section 403 program under which local communities co-signed private lease agreements--but who suffered financial losses arising from FEMA subsequently breaking their agreement to provide reimbursements under this program.

For all these reasons, I am proud to rise in strong support of H.R. 1227 and I urge all members to vote in favor of this important and much needed legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Chairman, let me, first of all, thank the chairman of the full committee Mr. Frank, and the chairwoman of the subcommittee Ms. Waters, and then my colleague from Texas Mr. Green, who eloquently laid out for us the reason for this particular amendment.

Might I say, having not listened to all of his statement, I know that one of the elements of his offering of this amendment is firsthand personal experience, because I walked with him through the cots of the Reliance Center on a regular basis, over and over again. I was on the telephone as the buses started leaving the convention center and leaving the Superdome coming into Houston in the middle of the night.

We have seen the actual results of massive, long-term evacuation. It is well-known that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security were not prepared for long-term evacuation.

This is an amendment that extends the deadline to December 31, 2007, for several reasons. First of all, might I say that it might have been the executive branch that extended it, but it really was the Director of FEMA being pounded upon, and I must say Director Paulison, the newer Director of FEMA, is very sensitive and concerned about this issue. He is putting his nose to the grindstone, along with, of course, the White House that has said to him you can do that. But each time these deadlines come, they are disruptive.

I went to a set of apartments, to my good friends on the other side of the aisle, in apartments where evacuees were holding eviction notices because they are coming up against each time a set of deadlines with nobody seeming to be able to respond. The reason why the thousands of people did not go out on the street is because the good citizens of Houston, Salt Lake City, Atlanta or Los Angeles, the nonprofits stood up to the case. In Houston today, we have people meeting every week, nonprofits, led by the United Way, trying to prepare for the inevitable, which is people out on the street.

This amendment gives several things an opportunity to happen. One, first of all, let me celebrate this bill because it gives section 8 vouchers over and beyond the ones that should be assigned to the city of Houston for Houstonians. That has been a conflict. ``I need a section 8 voucher. I live in Houston. Why are you overlooking me?''

Now we have a pathway so that we recognize that we have failed in our long-term evacuation. My friends, accept it. You have done a horrible job. This is a long-term evacuation that we had no solutions to.

Particularly I want to thank the author of this amendment and this bill, because now you also give an opportunity for us to go back into public housing. Just using Houston as an example, the predominant number of those who came to Houston were out of the city center there, the civic center, and, of course, the Superdome. They were the people displaced out of the housing projects. Isn't it ridiculous that they want to go back to their city and that we are blocking them from getting into their housing projects?

So these section 8 vouchers that will come about in this bill will be helpful while they are trying to get home. This extension that Mr. Green is offering will help them while they are trying to get home.

You go to these individuals. Some of them have made a commitment to live in Houston. I guess they made a commitment to live in Atlanta, maybe in New York. But many of them you talk to say, I just want to get home. But they are being blocked by this administration in not being able to get in their public housing, and they are coming up against one deadline after another.

You can't get yourself together. We have the elderly and disabled. We don't know if they will ever be able to go back, but they certainly need these resources being offered by Mr. Green in this amendment.

I enthusiastically support this concept of an extension to December 31, 2007, Mr. Chairman, and I support the voucher projects of this bill. I ask my colleagues to vote for this bill.

When FEMA's temporary housing programs expire on August 31, 2007, over 120,000 families housed across the country through FEMA-funded trailers, mobile homes and rental assistance could be displaced a second time.

Housing assistance is critical for the many low-income, elderly, and disabled evacuees displaced by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. An estimated 35,000 families currently receive Section 408 rental assistance from FEMA; the vast majority of these families reside in Houston. The average income of surviving families now in subsidized Houston apartments was less than $20,000 in Louisiana. While more than 60 percent of families were employed before Katrina, less than 20 percent are currently employed.

Families continue to face numerous challenges while rebuilding their lives in new communities, including finding affordable housing, health care, child care, and employment. The scarcity of housing in the Gulf Coast disproportionately hurts lower-income households, making it difficult for evacuees to find affordable housing and reducing the likelihood of their return home. Of the units destroyed or damaged by the hurricanes, 71 percent were affordable to low-income families and 30 percent were affordable to very low-income families.

This amendment would extend FEMA housing assistance until December 31, 2007, and then transfer income-eligible households to HUD's tenant- based rental assistance program when FEMA assistance ends, so that displaced families will have a place to stay while they wait for housing in the Gulf Coast to be rebuilt. Tenant-based vouchers would also be available to households currently living in FEMA trailers and mobile homes. This is important because conditions in many trailers are deteriorating and deadlines in many local communities for trailers and mobile homes are rapidly approaching. This amendment puts into law the deadline that I have worked on through negotiations and letters to

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, before I begin, I want to thank Mr. Barney Frank, chairman of the committee, and Maxine Waters and other members of the Committee on Financial Services for doing such a fine job in crafting this bill.

I rise in support of H.R. 1227, the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act. I truly believe this bill is a tremendous victory for the gulf coast that was affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I once again want to commend my colleagues.

Before I start talking about my amendment, let me talk about what happened during the hurricane because I saw something during Hurricane Katrina that I have never seen in the 25 years I have been an elected official and certainly the 15 years I have been a Member of Congress. I saw something in the government that I have never seen before. I saw a government that was not just incompetent, but I saw a government that did not care about its people. I thought I was in a third world, and I have got to take a moment to commend my community because we all watched it on television and were horrified. We came together.

I represent the Jacksonville area, and we came together as a community and we sent over 16 tractor-trailers full of goods and services to New Orleans. We came together as a community. It was the business community. It was Democrats; it was Republicans. It was students, and we filled those tractor-trailers and sent them in there until the government could kick in.

What we saw was a government that was not capable of responding. Well, when you look at the top 20 positions, and one police officer told me that you don't put people in positions over disasters that have public relations backgrounds. You make them ambassadors. But you put people in to head up disasters that are life and death to your communities that have the background and experience to do the job. That certainly was not the position of FEMA or Homeland Security. I want to put that on the table before I begin.

Now, this particular amendment would allow that residents returning would have the opportunity to include their utility bill into the payment for their rent. This is something that was taking place prior to, and this would be something that would be permitted under my amendment.

Many public housing residents are being forced into deeper debt because of utility bills. Public housing residents that lived in the areas of Rita and Katrina had their monthly rent included in their utilities. Currently, their vouchers do not include utilities, and many public housing residents are forced to make tough choices.

I have three such examples. Bobby Jennings lived in C.J. Peete for 34 years prior to Katrina. She paid income-based rent in the amount of $167 per month, which included utilities. Now she lives in another part and she pays $1,050 in rent which is not covered by her rent voucher, and she must pay $429 per month out of pocket. Well, her average income, she is a senior citizen on a fixed income, is $655 per month. So $300 per month she has to come up with.

And that is the same for Mrs. Gloria Williams who was paying $185 per month. Now she pays $1,128 per month and she must come up with $406 per month.

The last person is Mrs. Wright. She lived in public housing for over 20 years. She was paying the amount of $290 per month. She is in Houston, Texas. She now pays $625 a month, and she has to come up with an average of $250 a month for utilities. So utilities impose a disproportionate burden for the poor. And for the average American, utility bills only comprise 6 to 10 percent of household income. In this area it is 32 to 53 percent. Those receiving vouchers have already demonstrated their great need for assistance, and they are being shortchanged. We can't allow this to continue, and we must provide proper funding to those receiving this voucher.

This amendment would ensure that utilities are part of the housing voucher for residents returning to New Orleans. The Congressional Budget Office said that it would have no direct impact as far as spending is concerned.

I urge the adoption of this amendment to help people like Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Wright receive the assistance they greatly deserve.

I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Thank you.

As you said, I have been to New Orleans and the region, really, some eight times. I tell them they've got a Member-at-large in me because I feel a great passion because you saw an example of a government that did not work, but I hate to say is not working and still is not working. Eighteen months later, we have a government, and you can say it's the local government, you can say it's the State government, but I am saying the Federal

Government, shame on all of us because the people don't care why it's not working. The point is the government is not working for them.

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

Will the gentlewoman yield?

That is correct. Before the hurricane, the utilities were a part of their vouchers, yes, ma'am.

Let me clarify my statement.

Let me clarify my statement.

First of all, let me say that during the time of the hurricane, what I saw was a government that didn't care. It wasn't working. Everybody in the whole country, in fact, in the whole world saw that. It was a real serious indictment on the Bush administration that was in charge.

But I said since that time people have blamed the local government, the State government and the Federal Government. Yes, we have done our part, but perhaps we could have done a better job in spelling out how that money is to be used, because regardless of how much money we have appropriated, and we have appropriated and we have done a good job with that, the money has not gotten down to the people that we intended for it to get to.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Before I decide whether to withdraw my amendment, I have some questions for Ms. Waters about the present status of the deadlines that are in the bill, and maybe she can clarify it for me. I have a concern that we have certain dates and deadlines in this bill. And, of course, this bill, when it passes the House, has to go to the Senate, and we have certain deadlines in that bill, and then the President has to sign it. I am concerned that when it is signed, that the residents won't have an adequate amount of time to respond.

As you well know, in the hearing that took place 18 months ago, HUD and Public Housing said of the residents that they had surveyed that they had only contacted about 25 percent. And so I want to make sure that those people are not disadvantaged and we are all on the same page. We all care about the same people.

Can you clarify for me the status of that situation?

I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. Frank, I have an additional question for you, then, before I withdraw

this amendment, and that pertains to the Road Home program.

Are you prepared to answer questions about that program?

My question, and it is from going down to New Orleans and talking to the residents, their concern is that, as someone said earlier, we have appropriated billions of dollars for that area. I want to know to this date how much money has been spent on the Road Home program; how much money has been expended for administrative costs; and then, what kind of fees have been attached?

I have one last question on this program before I withdraw my amendment.

My understanding is if a person lives in their house and is eligible for $50,000, that we can charge fees up to $30,000 if that person is not coming back to the New Orleans area.

I am going to withdraw my amendment at this time, Mr. Chairman. I will be talking to both Chairs of the committee.

I want to let you know that I sincerely thank both of you for the leadership that you have shown in this area. And just remember, they do have a Member-at-large.

Thirty percent of money. In addition, my understanding is that, for example, if that person didn't have insurance, and even though the insurance told them that they were not in the area, and they have that in writing, they weren't in the flood area, they were penalized 30 percent. So that is $30,000. So then a person could end up with $20,000 for their home, and they cannot rebuild with that.

I want to thank both of you.

I rise in support of H.R. 1227, the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act. I truly believe this bill is a tremendous victory for the Gulf Coast and those affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I commend my colleague Congressman Barney Frank, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and the other Members of the Committee on Financial Services for the fine job crafting this bill.

I also rise in support of my amendment that would give Katrina public housing residents more time to return home.

Eighteen months after Hurricane Katrina, more than 4,000 families have not returned to New Orleans because most public housing remains closed. Public housing residents want to return and rebuild their city and their lives. If Congress is serious about the slogan ``Bring New Orleans Back,'' HUD and HANO must re-open public housing and make repairs, where necessary. Everyone should be permitted to return--not just the rich.

HUD and HANO have been doing everything they can to make sure public housing residents don't return. HUD planned to demolish 5,000 units with no clear plan or timeline for bringing back these families. These public housing developments are some of the most durable housing in New Orleans. Given the solid infrastructure of these buildings and the minor damage incurred, it is clear that renovation is more cost- effective than demolition. Instead of families moving back into their affordable housing units to get back to work, and help rebuild their lives, their communities, and their city, HUD contributes to the dearth of affordable housing in New Orleans, and keeps these families displaced and scattered across the country with no hope of returning.

HUD has dropped the ball on keeping contact with displaced families. At a February 22, 2007 field hearing in New Orleans for the House Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, Chairman C. Donald Babers of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) told the subcommittee that out of 978 residents they recently tried to contact, they only made contact with about 237 residents. Mr. Babers said that they were unable to reach about 740 residents. Given that HUD and HANO only one month ago could not reach over 75 percent of the displaced public housing residents, Congress must ensure that residents do not lose the opportunity to move back to their homes simply because HANO and HUD cannot find them in a timely manner.

Residents want to come home to be closer to their families and neighbors, to return to jobs or get new jobs in the reconstruction industry. HUD reported in October 2006 that an estimated 65-70 percent of families want to return to New Orleans. Congress must give these families every chance to come home.

My amendment provides two deadlines of August 1, 2007 and October 1, 2007 for residents to declare their intent to return. The reoccupancy deadlines are October 1, 2007 and December 1, 2007. It also extends assistance to those who ask for help with early termination of leases.

I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment so that we can Bring New Orleans Back.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my amendment.