Advancing the Mentor-Protégé Program for Small Financial Institutions Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 6644) a bill to increase the supply of housing in America, and for other purposes.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.

America is facing a housing supply shortage that has been years in the making. For too many of our families, the consequences are felt every day through higher home prices, rising rents, and fewer opportunities to achieve homeownership.

Over the last several months, I have worked with our colleagues in both the House and Senate and on both sides of the political aisle to advance practical legislation that addresses this pressing challenge for our American families.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act represents one of the most significant bipartisan housing reforms in recent memory, bringing together commonsense policies to expand housing opportunities and improve affordability for our families.

Mr. Speaker, it cuts unnecessary barriers to new home construction. It modernizes Federal housing programs. It streamlines development processes. It helps create the conditions necessary to build more homes and increase housing supply.

The bill also strengthens the roles of our Main Street community lenders by modernizing outdated banking regulations and allowing banks to more effectively deploy capital in the communities that they serve. These reforms will help community banks focus on what they do best: providing loans to families seeking to purchase a home and financing the construction of new housing.

Importantly, the Senate adopted several key House priorities, including House language that limits institutional investors from outcompeting with American families looking to buy a home. At a time when too many of our families are struggling to purchase a home, this provision helps to ensure that American families have a fair opportunity to achieve that American Dream of homeownership.

Importantly, the House worked with the Senate to ensure that feedback was incorporated to other provisions added in the Senate amendment.

These provisions were the VALID Act, introduced by my great friend in the Senate across the Capitol, Arkansas Senior Senator John Boozman; edits from Ranking Member Waters on the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program; Senator Kennedy's groundbreaking initiative on the Build Now Act; and, importantly, sunsets to the programs offered by the Senate: CDBG-DR, Community Development Block Grant Program for Disaster Recovery, and the PRICE Act.

We focused on improving HUD accountability to benefit both our residents in our districts and taxpayers. This final product advances practical bipartisan and bicameral solutions to modernize Federal housing programs, reduce regulatory burdens, streamline the development process, and help build more homes to meet that growing demand and keep the American Dream within reach.

This bicameral, bipartisan bill before us today reflects ideas from both Chambers and demonstrates what can be accomplished when Congress focuses on solving problems for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, this is Congress working at its best, tackling the challenges of the American people, offering solutions, and having those enacted into law. I am proud to support this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Flood), who is the chair of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee and has been the leader on building consensus on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga), the vice chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lawler).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Kim).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. De La Cruz).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Haridopolos), who is our vice chairman and whip of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Moore), who is a distinguished member of our committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the work has been extraordinary between the majority and the minority in this House in answering the call for solutions from the American people. I think Mr. Cleaver said it best talking about his own experience within his own family in east Texas: We always had a home, but we just didn't always have a house to put it in.

Let that hang in this room, Mr. Speaker, because that is the spirit in which both sides of the aisle have worked to find solutions today.

We couldn't do it without our staff. I thank the majority and the minority staff from both sides of the aisle who helped us get to where we are today.

Mr. Speaker, as referenced in the previous colloquy that I had with the ranking member when we were on the floor a few weeks ago, we believe there are several points the Treasury should consider as it evaluates the congressional intent in implementing section 1001 of this bill, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.

Entities organized as nonprofits under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code that are exempt from taxation under section 501(a), as well as community land trusts, as defined in the Cranston- Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act and amended by our bill today, should not be included in the definition of a large institutional investor.

It is also Congress' intent that nothing in the act should be construed to require a large institutional investor to divest or sell any home purchased before or after enactment.

The term, Madam Speaker, ``single-family home'' was also not intended to include property that when occupied is rented to a member of the Armed Forces or a member of the National Guard as defined in section 101 of title 10 of the U.S. Code.

Similarly, section 1001 should not reduce the supply of essential rental housing in our communities and should exclude student housing leased by bedroom to unrelated individuals under separate agreements.

Similarly, homes purchased by mortgage servicers for loss mitigation reasons following a foreclosure, not as long-term investments, should remain permissible when the mortgage is federally backed, as defined in section 4022(a) of the CARES Act, and the servicer first offers a first-look period to the owner-occupant or a nonprofit approved by the relevant Federal agency.

However, the bill prohibits large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes by participating in homeownership programs that do not meet the criteria under the act.

For build-to-rent programs, this exemption should apply when an investor purchases, constructs, or constructs and retains a single- family home for rental use, whether in a community comprised entirely of renter-occupied single-family homes or in a mixed community of owner- and renter-occupied homes. Clarifying this distinction is essential to carrying out the intent of the House and Senate in this bill.

Additionally, purchases of homes used to provide residential care for individuals with disabilities or developmental disabilities or in senior living communities should be exempt as these are unrelated to the problem being addressed by the act.

The same is true for the exemption of homes purchased with support from programs described in section 42 of the IRS code or participating in Federal or other affordable housing programs where rents are restricted.

Congress also intended exemptions for homes acquired as a part of a community of five or more contiguous rental units, and homes planned, permitted, financed, and constructed as a part of a unified rental community on a single platted parcel that are not intended for individual sale, as well as properties that are made up of multiple rental homes or units constructed on a single parcel of property that cannot be legally sold as individual homes or the units without further subdividing the property.

The ranking member and I recognize that these regulations issued by the Treasury will be necessary to implement various aspects of the act that we debate today.

The overall reaching goal of section 1001 is to expand the number of single-family homes available for purchase by individual households.

Regulations that do not meet that objective will fall short of congressional intent and risk reducing, not increasing, the availability and affordability of housing across our great country.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank the ranking member for her partnership on this housing bill that is groundbreaking, historic, and that is the first time in decades that the two Chambers have come together to make measurable, accountable changes that will benefit the American people in both accessibility, the construction of more units, and the affordability that our families so richly need and deserve over these past years of recently high inflation, particularly. I thank her for her partnership.

Madam Speaker, I will also say that I have talked to community development and housing refinancing people in Little Rock, and they all tell me that this is so overdue. I thank the gentlewoman for her passion in getting this done. Whether it is in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, or Helena, Arkansas, or St.

Louis, Missouri, or Los Angeles, California, or Little Rock, Arkansas, we are also, in this bill, holding HUD accountable.

HUD has a responsibility for safe, clean, and effective housing for the tenants dependent on their programs. Not only are we building supply and improving affordability, we are also in a bipartisan, bicameral basis holding the Department of Housing and Urban Development accountable.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6644, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, sponsored by Chairman Hill and myself.

This bill represents the most significant housing reform package in decades and will finally get America back on track to building affordable housing.

Our bill includes dozens of bipartisan provisions to build new housing, lower mortgage and rental costs, expand homeownership, modernize Federal housing programs, prioritize home buyers and renters over corporate landlords, and support community bankers that finance affordable housing development and mortgages each day.

This final bill marks the culmination of numerous hearings, markups, votes, creative input from committee Democrats, and tough negotiations across both sides the aisle and the Capitol.

This bill speaks to the real change that our constituents have been demanding, where everyone can afford a dignified place to call home, where tenants are protected, and where working Americans can finally get ahead.

As a reminder of who we are trying to help and what is at stake, let's review the facts. The average cost of a single-family home has skyrocketed, and wages have not kept pace. The median age of a first- time home buyer is 40 years old. Rents have soared by nearly 47 percent since before the pandemic. Not surprisingly, 42 million American households are cost-burdened, and most shamefully, 800,000 people experience homelessness on any given night. Our country must do better, and today we will do better by passing H.R. 6644.

I have said since day one that housing must be a national priority. That is why I thank Chairman Hill for his partnership. This will be the third time this Congress has passed housing reform legislation, and each time, the bill has gotten better and better.

I also commend Housing and Insurance Subcommittee Ranking Member Emanuel Cleaver, Chairman Flood, along with our committee Democrats and Senators Warren and Scott for coming together on this historic bipartisan and bicameral bill.

By working together, we will deliver a stronger, more impactful legislative package to be signed into law, one with more practical solutions and affordable housing opportunities for American families than before.

This comprehensive package incorporates over 50 housing and banking provisions championed by House Democrats. It will lay the groundwork for the development of new, affordable homes all across America and create new pathways to homeownership. The bill will reduce unnecessary barriers to housing development, expand financing for housing and community investment, and support the development of innovative housing like modular homes and accessory dwelling units. It creates databases for available publicly owned

lands so communities know where they can build.

The bill provides a range of new protections for renters, including a hotline to file complaints with HUD and corporate landlords. The bill increases access to smaller-dollar mortgages under $100,000, and the bill, finally, codifies the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery Program, which will help expedite flexible funding to communities seeking to rebuild homes after major disasters like hurricanes and wildfires.

H.R. 6644 also supports thousands of community lenders, including community development financial institutions and minority depository institutions, so they can more affordably finance home buyers and housing developers.

Importantly, this bill includes the House language to responsibly rein in corporate landlords by banning large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes but without halting construction of new rental housing or evicting families in the middle of a housing crisis. Tenants will have a national resource center to file grievances about corporate landlords, to which HUD will respond, and large institutional investors will be publicly named in an annual report along with the number and location of their properties.

I am very proud of this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to join me in this first step to finally addressing our Nation's affordable housing crisis.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver), who authored several bills in this legislation, including H.R. 1981, the Choice in Affordable Housing Act; H.R. 5878, the HOME Reform Act; and H.R. 5938, the Innovation Fund Act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch), who is a strong advocate for affordable and public housing.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green), who authored several bills in this legislation, including H.R. 8291, the Reforming Disaster Recovery Act, and H.R. 3716, the Systemic Risk Authority Transparency Act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Beatty).

Mrs. Beatty authored H.R. 2031, the HOME Investment Partnerships Reauthorization and Improvement Act, and H.R. 3709, the Advancing the Mentor-Protege Program for Small Financial Institutions Act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib), who authored H.R. 6768, the Housing Our Communities Act, which is included in this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford), who is a strong advocate for affordable housing and a former member of our committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Hill for working with me to clarify the intent behind this section. I agree with what Mr. Hill has described on the congressional intent for section 1001.

Madam Speaker, for years I have fought hard to make housing affordable, but for many years, it was hard to prioritize housing in both Democratic and Republican-led Houses.

It is for that reason, I am deeply grateful for Chairman Hill who worked so closely with me to write H.R. 6644 and prioritize it in our committee and in this House. Together, we found compromise that had previously proven so difficult. I hope that this partnership can continue to deliver for America because we still have a lot of work to do.

Madam Speaker, I also thank both of our staffs on the committee because without their hard work, this bill would not likely be here before us today.

This legislation must serve as a foundation for continued action, not the final step in addressing our Nation's housing crisis. We must build on this progress and continue to advocate and secure the resources our communities critically need.

Madam Speaker, I dedicate our work to some of the people in public housing who will have an opportunity now to help understand how their communities can be improved. In my district, Nickerson Gardens, Jordan Downs, Gonzack Village, Imperial Courts, and Avalon Gardens, I thank them for what I have learned. To my home in St. Louis, Missouri, where I was born, I thank those who lived and died in bond projects in Pruitt-Igoe and those projects where they had a difficult time many years ago. We are now leading to a point where we will be able to make all of those projects more livable. We will be able to have the constituents in those projects understand how their lives can be bettered.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3709) to amend the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 to establish a Financial Agent Mentor-Protege Program within the Department of the Treasury, and for other purposes, as amended.

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

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

I rise in support of Congresswoman Joyce Beatty's bill, the Advancing the Mentor-Protege Program for Small Financial Institutions.

Small financial institutions, as we have discussed this afternoon, play a vital role in providing financial services to our families and our small businesses across our communities that often lack robust access to financial products and services, particularly outside our urban areas.

Yet, over the last few decades, we have seen a steady decline in the number of these vital smaller institutions threatening access to mortgages for American families and important capital access for small business development or agricultural loans for our family farmers.

Representative Beatty's bipartisan legislation helps ensure that smaller banks and credit unions remain viable by formally codifying the Financial Agent Mentor-Protege Program within the United States Department of the Treasury.

Since 2018, the Department of the Treasury has launched the program to strengthen partnerships between the Nation's largest banks and some of our smallest financial institutions across our land. This program pairs small and rural financial institutions with larger banks and credit unions, giving them access to resources, training, and technical assistance so that they can better serve their communities and better position themselves to qualify to serve as financial agents to the Treasury.

By codifying this initiative, we strengthen community banks, credit unions, and rural banks, expanding access to responsible financial services and ensuring that more small institutions have the capacity to partner with the Federal Government on crucial financial operations.

I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Beatty), for her leadership on this critical issue. I would encourage Members on both sides of the aisle to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the CBO estimate for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members on both sides of the aisle to support Congresswoman Beatty's good bill. It really helps so many of these small institutions that just don't have the capacity building to cope with some of the things that we have talked about on the House floor today in terms of the compliance burden and requirements they have to be successful.

If we really want to help our smallest institutions do that, they have to have a peer network. They have to have expertise in some select areas to enhance their ability to serve not only the Department of the Treasury's needs but just to run a more successful financial institution and to be able to grow it and serve their communities.

This peer mentorship program is one that, since 2018, we have seen support for and seen success with. I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Beatty) for urging that it be codified.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage Members on both sides to pass Mrs. Beatty's bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my bill, H.R. 3709, the Advancing Mentor-Protege Program for Small Financial Institutions Act, which supports small banks, credit unions by codifying the Financial Agent Mentor-Protege Program at the Department of the Treasury.

This program, as you have heard from our chairman and our ranking member, pairs up small rural financial institutions with large banks and credit unions providing resources, training, and technical assistance to help them better serve their communities and become financial agents to Treasury themselves.

Small financial institutions include, as you have heard from both our chair and the ranking member, they include MDIs, Minority Depository Institutions. I am very proud to take this moment and personal privilege to say, like Adelphi Bank in my district in Columbus, Ohio, president and CEO, Jordan Miller, and the founder, Kevin Boyce, every day in this bank they are helping low-income, underserved constituents and the community at large.

These institutions know the financial needs of their communities best, and they provide essential financial services like mortgage credits, small business, and auto loans, investment banking and more. Mr. Speaker, these are all the things that we talk about in this very Chamber when we talk about working folks and jobs.

The chairman mentioned housing. Great point. But if you aren't financially able to do it, and if we could only have our larger banks participate in this program, which this legislation would do, it would help accomplish all of the things that we have heard today.

Mr. Speaker, MDIs, small banks, and credit unions, and rural financial institutions generally have higher expenses and are often forced to merge with other institutions to survive.

Codifying the Mentor-Protege Program at the Department of the Treasury will go a long way toward preserving and strengthening these institutions and ensuring that they can continue to survive and provide the critical banking services that the community needs.

Mr. Speaker, why should we do this? Who supports this? Those are great questions if you were asking that. I am proud that this bill, which has passed on suspension twice before, has the support of the Independent Community Bankers of America, or ICBA; the American Bankers Association, ABA; the America's Credit Unions, ACU; and the National Bankers Association, or NBA.

Mr. Speaker, I have been working on this bill for the entire congressional session because it is so important, and I am so proud that it is a bipartisan piece of legislation.

Let me also just share this: My bill has been endorsed by Ohio regional banks like Huntington Bank, which is headquartered in the capital city of the great State of Ohio, Columbus, Ohio; Fifth Third Bank, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio; and KeyBank, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, on this, I am sure we can all agree: Supporting small, mission-driven credit unions and community banks directly benefits American consumers and the economy overall.

Mr. Speaker, again, I thank Representative Beatty for her steadfast work on this important bill. This is one of the several bills today that I am glad we are considering to strengthen MDIs, CDFIs, community banks, and credit unions.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I start by thanking our chairman, French Hill, who has shouldered the burden of helping us get this through Congress, together with our Ranking Member Waters, my colleague Emanuel Cleaver from Kansas City, myself, and all the staff that have made this happen.

At this hour, across our land, the mayor of San Diego is celebrating as is the executive director of the Huntsville, Alabama, Habitat for Humanity; the mayor of Columbus, Ohio; and plenty of folks in Nebraska and everywhere in between, because what we have here is a comprehensive, bicameral, bipartisan solution.

When I started in this role in the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee, I knew this was the number one issue in my district. Housing supply is not keeping up with demand. Tara Vasicek, the city administrator from Columbus, a city of approximately 25,000 people in Platte County, Nebraska, testified in our first Housing and Insurance Subcommittee hearing that the lack of affordable housing directly impacts economic growth, workforce attraction, and retention.

The mayor of the largest city in my district, Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird, 300,000 people strong, believes so strongly in the need for affordable housing and supply that she set an ambitious goal of 5,000 units by the end of this decade.

As we wrote this bill, we thought about them and everybody else; and Mr. Cleaver and I welcomed literally hundreds of suggestions from across the country. They weren't blue ideas or red ideas. We have a lot more in common than we have opposite.

I want to read you something from the Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton. This is from No. 70. This really talks about the process. Now mind you, we had Republicans and Democrats united in the House working with Republicans and Democrats, a different version, in the Senate. Alexander Hamilton wrote: ``In the legislature, promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit. The differences of opinion, and the jarrings of parties in that department of the government, though they may sometimes obstruct salutary plans, yet often promote deliberation and circumspection, and serve to check excesses in the majority.''

This bill was a product of the process that Hamilton described. There were differences of opinions and jarrings of parties, I would say jarrings of Chambers, but the final bill is stronger as a result of this long and deliberative process.

It is my honor to have been a part of it. I thank again our chairman, our ranking member, and my counterpart, Emanuel Cleaver, for their work on this bill. I thank President Trump for identifying this as a major issue in September of 2025. I also want to send a special thank you to the leadership of this Chamber: our Speaker, our majority leader, and our whip. Without them, this would not be a bicameral, bipartisan bill.