[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A THREAT TO AMERICA'S CHILDREN:
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S PROPOSAL
TO GUT FAIR HOUSING ACCOUNTABILITY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 5, 2020
__________
Serial No. 116-87
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: http://www.govinfo.gov
oversight.house.gov
docs.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
39-656 PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Jim Jordan, Ohio, Ranking Minority
Columbia Member
Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Mark Meadows, North Carolina
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Harley Rouda, California James Comer, Kentucky
Ro Khanna, California Michael Cloud, Texas
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Bob Gibbs, Ohio
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Peter Welch, Vermont Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Jackie Speier, California Chip Roy, Texas
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Carol D. Miller, West Virginia
Mark DeSaulnier, California Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota
Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands W. Gregory Steube, Florida
Jimmy Gomez, California Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Deb Haaland, New Mexico
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Katie Porter, California
Deb Haaland, New Mexico
David Rapallo, Staff Director
Candyce Phoenix, Chief Counsel
Taylor Jones, Clerk
Christopher Hixon, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Chairman
Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Chip Roy, Texas, Ranking Minority
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Member
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Mark Meadows, North Carolina
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Michael Cloud, Texas
Columbia Carol D. Miller, West Virginia
Jimmy Gomez, California Frank Keller, Pennsylvania
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on February 5, 2020................................. 1
Witnesses
Mr. Jorge Andres Soto, Director of Public Policy, National Fair
Housing Alliance
Oral Statement................................................... 5
Ms. Ellen Lee, Director of Community and Economic Development,
City of New Orleans
Oral Statement................................................... 7
Dr. Megan Sandel, Principal Investigator, Children's Healthwatch,
MD, Boston Medical Center
Oral Statement................................................... 8
Ms. Ateira Griffin, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, BOND,
Inc - Building Our Nation's Daughters
Oral Statement................................................... 10
Mr. Michael Hendrix, Director, State and Local Policy, Manhattan
Institute
Oral Statement................................................... 12
Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are
available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document
Repository at: docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
Documents listed below are available at: docs.house.gov.
* Letter from the National Education Association.
* Letter from the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service.
* Letter from 24 faith organizations.
* QFR's from Rep. Roy to Mr. Hendrix at Manhattan Institute.
* QFR's from Rep. Roy to Mr. Soto at National Fair Housing
Alliance, and response.
A THREAT TO AMERICA'S CHILDREN:
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S PROPOSAL
TO GUT FAIR HOUSING ACCOUNTABILITY
----------
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Committee on Oversight and Reform
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:04 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jamie Raskin,
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Maloney, Raskin, Maloney, Clay,
Wasserman Schultz, Kelly, Gomez, Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley,
Haaland, Norton, Sarbanes, Roy, Massie, Meadows, Hice, Cloud,
Keller, Miller, Foxx.
Mr. Raskin. Chairman can declare a recess of the committee
at any time.
I now recognize myself for five minutes to give an opening
statement, but I want to welcome all of our guests and all of
our witnesses today. We really appreciate your coming and
everyone who has come to participate and to engage in this
proceeding.
We are going to waive on, by unanimous consent, if there is
no objection, Congressman Sarbane's, Congressman Gosar, and
Congresswoman Foxx.
Without objection, they will all be waived on for purposes
of participating in this hearing only and I will now recognize
myself for my opening statement. I want to thank you all for
coming to the second of the committee's hearings on the Trump
Administration's regulatory attack on the welfare of America's
children.
Last month, the Department of Housing and Urban Development
released a proposed rule that would demolish a meaningful
accountability for the Government's progress on Fair Housing
and would help trap children in a cycle of poverty, stifling
their growth and constricting their mobility and opportunities
in life.
The 1968 Fair Housing Act required HUD to, quote,
``Affirmatively further Fair Housing and remedy decades of
systemic housing discrimination.'' For decades, the Federal
Government engaged in deliberate discrimination to segregate by
race and advantage whites over African Americans.
Many people think that residential segregation just
happened in America, but it didn't. The Federal Government,
along with state and county governments, were integrally
involved in the process.
The New Deal and World War II gave birth to the systematic
use of redlining as the Federal Government refused to insure
mortgage loans in African American neighborhoods. The Federal
Housing Administration recommended building you highways to
rigidly segregate African Americans from white neighborhoods
and from desirable city resources.
The Government financed the construction of entire
communities on the condition that the houses built there could
not be sold to African Americans and other non-white citizens.
So, the 1968 commitment to remedy this disgraceful record was a
major and promising policy departure, but a 2010 GAO study
found that HUD had added, quote, ``only limited value'' in
terms of eliminating potential impediments to Fair Housing.
The Fair Housing Act's key provision, therefore, lay
essentially dormant for a half century until the Obama
Administration moved to enforce it, to desegregate our
communities and work toward fair housing.
The Trump Administration now proposes a radical u-turn,
choosing to return to the segregationist housing policies that
failed The American Dream for 50 years. HUD's proposed rule
eliminates consideration of race or segregation from HUD's Fair
Housing oversight. It eliminates the obligation of local
housing authorities to identify and address discriminatory
housing patterns. It destroys guaranties for community
participation that allow people to engage in formulating the
housing policies that shape their own experiences and it
prioritizes affordable housing in an isolated and abstract way,
rejecting consideration of the quality of the neighborhoods
that those affordable houses are in. In short, HUD is proposing
to rubber-stamp housing plans without serious accountability
and without any eye toward making Fair Housing a serious
national priority.
A child's zip code should not dictate his or her destiny,
but studies show that living in high-poverty areas has a
lifelong, detrimental effect on a child's educational and
employment prospects and long-term, mental, and physical
health. More than 8.5 million children in America, 12 percent
of the young people in the country, live in concentrated
poverty.
African American and American Indian children are seven
times more likely to live in poor neighborhoods than white
children and Latinx children are nearly five times more likely.
Reviving The American Dream for everyone requires a
deliberate commitment to equity and Fair Housing. President
Trump's abdication of Federal oversight means kids across
America are more likely to get trapped in a poverty cycle of
the Government's making.
Congress must push back against this dereliction of duty
and I want to remind my colleagues of the promise of all of
America's children. Our dear former Chairman Cummings spoke of
the difference that a change in a neighborhood made for his own
ability to reach his potential in life. He said that moving to
a high-opportunity neighborhood, quote, ``Opened my eyes to a
better world. I had the opportunity to attend integrated and
high-quality public schools, where I was inspired to excel. It
is not an exaggeration to say that the housing moves my family
made were critical to the tremendous opportunities I have had
in my life.''
And many sociologists say that integrated neighborhoods
create access to networks of social and economic opportunity,
which people may otherwise be deprived of. How many young
people who could be inspired, by our largest example, are we
failing by abandoning them and refusing our responsibility to
ensure that every neighborhood in America is a neighborhood of
real opportunity and diversity.
We owe it to America's young people to hold this
administration accountable for gutting the first Federal effort
in decades, aimed at meaningfully enforcing Fair Housing and
reversing decades of deliberate race segregation in how
Americans live.
I am now delighted to recognize the ranking member, who
today, is Mr. Keller, the gentleman from Pennsylvania. We are
delighted to have you sitting in, Mr. Keller.
Mr. Keller. Thank you, Chairman Raskin, for holding this
hearing today. Thank you to the people who are here to testify,
members of the testifiers here and also the public, to join us.
We all agree there shouldn't be any conditions in public
housing that would pose any kind of disadvantage of rift to
residence, including children. I agree that we need to work
toward solutions that empower state and local communities to
invest in housing choices for all residents at all levels of
income.
I am proud that The American Dream is alive and well,
thanks to the economic boom under President Trump. Employment
is near an all-time low and people across all incomes,
education, and skill levels, are able to secure high-paying
jobs. Now, we need to use the engine of capitalism to leverage
funding to create more affordable housing and choices; after
all, housing is part of The American Dream.
Burdensome regulations at state and local levels prevent
building affordable housing units. Our local communities need
to have a serious debate about how to create housing
affordability and choice for all residents.
The Obama Administration role was a burdensome paperwork
exercise with no enforcement that would have done nothing to
produce actual, affordable housing. Unlike the Obama
Administration rule, the Trump rule relies on state and local
governments as the driver to identify their own local barriers
to housing affordability and propose solutions.
The Trump Administration role recognizes that housing needs
in Pennsylvania are different than housing needs elsewhere. It
reduces regulatory burdens on communities while still holding
local governments accountable for housing affordability. If
local government continually fails to affirmatively further
Fair Housing, their Federal funding through HUD could be
reallocated to communities who are doing a better job of
providing affordable housing choices for their citizens.
The Trump Administration role strikes the right balance
between affirmatively furthering Fair Housing and allowing
local governments to set priorities for their constituents.
Thank you, Chairman, and I yield back.
Mr. Raskin. I thank the ranking member for his remarks and
I want to recognize that we have a new member to the
Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties,
Representative Deb Haaland from the First District in New
Mexico, and we are delighted to have you with us and look
forward to your participation and contribution to the work of
our subcommittee.
And with that, I want to recognize the chair of the full
committee, Chairwoman Maloney for her opening statement.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you.
I want to thank my colleague and friend, Representative
Jamie Raskin, chair of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and
Civil Liberties, for convening this important hearing on the
proposed affirmatively furthering Fair House Rule that guts
Fair Housing accountability.
This is the second in a series of four hearings, examining
the negative effects of the Trump Administration's poverty,
housing, hunger, and health regulations on children. As I have
said before, the Trump Administration is engaged in an attack
on children. The administration should be creating economic
opportunity and ensuring the health and well-being of our
Nation's children, but instead, they have been prioritizing
special interests.
It is our job in Congress to protect all children from
harmful regulations and ensure they have the resources to reach
their full potential. Today, we will examine how the Department
of Housing and Urban Development is completely abdicating its
duty to promote Fair Housing.
If this rule goes into effect, ongoing housing
discrimination and segregation will continue to be swept under
the rug and HUD will end up doing far less to reduce
segregation and expand housing opportunities for protected
groups, further trapping children in concentrated poverty.
In effort to address Fair Housing should actively fight for
a long legacy of a discrimination and promote access to
opportunity for our children and I yield back.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for those
excellent opening remarks.
And I now want to welcome our witnesses. Jorge Andres Soto
is the director of public policy at the National Fair Housing
Alliance. Thank you for joining us.
Ellen Lee has come all the way from New Orleans, where
she's the director of Community and Economic Development for
the City. Thank you for joining us, Ms. Lee.
Dr. Megan Sandel is at Children's HealthWatch, the co-lead
principal investigator, which is at the Boston Medical Center.
Thank you for coming.
Ateira Griffin is the founder and CEO of BOND, Inc.; BOND
stands for Building Our Nation's Daughters. Thank you for
coming.
And, finally, we have Michael Hendrix from the Manhattan
Institute. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Hendrix, as the
minority witness.
And with that, each of you is given five minutes.
And I am going to ask to swear you in. If you would stand
and raise your right hand, if you would.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Raskin. Let the record show that all the witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
Thank you, please be seated. Please be sure to speak
directly into your microphone.
And, without objection, your written statements will be
made part of the official record, and you are limited to five
minutes, but then, of course, we will be following up with
questions and I know that the members have a lot to talk to
you, about.
With that, Mr. Soto, you are now recognized to give an oral
presentation.
STATEMENT OF JORGE ANDRES SOTO, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC POLICY,
NATIONAL FAIR HOUSING ALLIANCE
Mr. Soto. Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member Keller, and the
Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Jorge Andres Soto, and
I am director of public policy at the National Fair Housing
Alliance. Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today
and for your engagement on this issue.
Where you live determines the opportunities you and your
family will have, the quality of school your children can
attend, whether they have safe places to play, whether they are
exposed to environmental hazards, whether they have access to
healthy food, and other important variables that affect life
outcomes.
With the passage of the Fair Housing Act, Congress made a
promise that every neighborhood would afford children all of
the opportunities that they need to succeed; regrettably, the
promises under--that promise is under attack, as the Trump
Administration works to undermine the protections under the
Act.
HUD's proposed Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule
fundamentally undermines and conflicts with the intent and
purpose of the Fair Housing Act. It will undoubtedly perpetuate
residential segregation, racially concentrated poverty, and the
harms to children that result.
Residential segregation and racially concentrated poverty
in the United States were, and still are, by design. The forced
displacement of American Indians and Westward Expansion
policies, the institution of slavery, Jim Crow policies with
the segregation of people of color in post-depression public
housing, and their exclusion from homeownership programs
created by the Home Owners Loan Corporation and the Federal
Housing Administration, the proliferation of deed restrictions,
restrictive covenants, exclusionary zoning ordinances and
redlining, the institutionalization of people with
disabilities, and the willful disregard of the Fair Housing
Act's AFFH provision, all created the segregation that defines
and limits our neighborhoods and communities to this day.
The Federal Government played a consequential role
throughout all of this history and the Act's AFFH provision was
explicitly written to right those wrongs. It states that
recipients of Fair Housing and community development funding
must use those dollars in a manner that furthers the Act's
policies.
In 1972, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the Act
recognized that where a family lives--where it is allowed to
live, is inextricably bound up with better education, better
jobs, economic motivation, and good living conditions; however,
it was not until 1995, 27 years after the Fair Housing Act was
enacted, that HUD adopted the first AFFH rule.
The 1995 rule required jurisdictions to conduct an analysis
of impediments to Fair Housing, take steps to overcome those
impediments and maintain records about both.
HUD provided little guidance, no actual oversight or
accountability measures, and no resources to jurisdictions to
ensure that the Federal dollars they use in their neighborhoods
were being spent to advance the goals of the Fair Housing Act.
The Government Accountability Office, HUD, local officials,
and Fair Housing advocates, alike, agreed that the 1995 rule
was a failure.
In 2015, HUD adopted an AFFH rule that addressed all of the
weaknesses that GAO identified and it included provisions to
ensure that jurisdictions could meaningfully advance their
housing goals. The 2015 rule provided a clearer definition of
what it means to affirmatively further Fair Housing, an
analytical framework for Fair Housing plans, a uniform set of
data to inform local analysis, a regular schedule, by which
plans were to be conducted, and required a robust community
engagement process to ensure that Fair Housing issues could be
brought to light and included in Fair Housing plans.
The rule for the first time ever required that Fair Housing
goals be incorporated into consolidated plans, PHA plans, and
annual progress reports. It also required that plans identify
and prioritize Fair Housing goals with metrics and timelines to
access programs--progress toward accomplishing those goals.
In diametric contrast, the proposed rule before us
eliminates any requirement for jurisdictions to assess local
residential patterns of segregation. It does not require a
data-driven approach and provides no planning tools to help
grantees tackle barriers to Fair Housing. It ignores the
intersection between housing and other key indicators of
opportunity that exist as a result of housing-and community-
development decisions, and it requires no meaningful community
engagement to give the public a voice in identifying and
prioritizing Fair Housing goals.
Simply put, the proposed rule does not satisfy the
requirement of the Fair Housing Act. It would allow
jurisdictions to certify compliance with the Act, even if they
fail to address discrimination or perpetuate residential
segregation and racially concentrated poverty.
This is not a Fair Housing rule; instead, it reflects and
endorsement of the segregation and racially concentrated
poverty that have produced harmful health, educational,
economic, and social outcomes. Our nation's children deserve so
much more.
Thank you, I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Soto, thank you for your admirably cogent
and concise presentation there.
Very quickly, when you say, ``AFFH'' rule, what does that
stand for?
Mr. Soto. Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.
It is not a fun phrase.
Mr. Raskin. Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule----
Mr. Soto. Yes.
Mr. Raskin [continuing]. Because when we say, AFFH, we are
talking about the rule which compels the Government to
affirmatively further the Fair Housing values.
Mr. Soto. That is right.
Mr. Raskin. OK. Very good.
Ms. Lee?
STATEMENT OF ELLEN LEE, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT, CITY OF NEW ORLEANS
Ms. Lee. Good afternoon, Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member
Keller, Chairwoman Maloney, and Members of the committee. Thank
you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
My name is Ellen Lee, and I serve as the director of
Community and Economic Development for the city of New Orleans.
On behalf of Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the City, I commend your
committee's leadership in undertaking this important issue, and
we appreciate your willingness to hear about our experience.
The 2015 AFFH regulation provided new and updated guidance,
as well as data tools for jurisdictions to use in the
production of an assessment of Fair Housing. Because the
regulation brought an issuance of new tools and new data, some
of which would be different to gather on our own to better
inform planning, the New Orleans experience implementing this
regulation was overwhelmingly positive.
The benefits of this process were realized in greater
efficiencies, better planning and mapping capabilities, and
enhanced decision-making for our local government.
The regulatory framework encouraged collaboration with the
Housing Authority and other partners, which doubled our
planning capacity, while also taking into deeper consideration,
the broader range of families being served through both
agencies; this partnership reduced redundancies, creating a
single plan to address affordable housing investments across a
broader income spectrum of need.
The process required not only local data, but local
expertise and robust citizen input, and who better experts on
the needs of their families and their communities than the
people who live there?
Through the data provided, we could take a more
comprehensive look at non-entitlement housing funding, tax
credits, FHA financing, and even private capital, giving us new
insight into our neighborhood makeup.
In 2016, New Orleans' neighborhoods were more racially and
socioeconomically segregated than they had been in the past 20
years. This surprising revelation--at least to me it was
surprising--helped change our mindset about the investments
that we make in housing; that is, it is equally important that
we invest in affordable housing as where we invest in
affordable housing, that preserving affordable housing is also
critically important.
Since receiving HUD-approve of our plan, we have
implemented a pilot program for voucher-based families to help
them move to neighborhoods of opportunity to better access the
services they need.
We have reprioritized our HUD entitlement funds, bringing
new rental housing opportunities to some neighborhoods, while
incentivizing homeownership in others.
We have also been more intentional in creating strategic
partnerships and leveraging HUD funding with additional public
assets, such as land and incentives.
We have worked more closely with other city departments to
increase non-housing investments in underserved neighborhoods,
expanding work force training, health and childcare services
into those neighborhoods, sometimes using existing facilities,
such as libraries and community centers.
Funding decisions for new housing developments are made, in
part, on a proposed developments proximity to transit and other
amenities.
The adjustments we have made are consistent with what
research tells us about how place matters. Economists have
performed statistical analysis of the effective place on
interrupting intergenerational poverty.
The infrastructure and fabric of a neighborhood can have a
profound impact on multiple generations. Children from low-
income families are able to live in resource-rich neighborhoods
tend to earn more as adults, are more likely to be college-
educated, are less likely to be single parents, and are more
likely to live in high-income neighborhoods as adults,
themselves. Mayor Cantrell's administration is especially
dedicated to making long-term decisions that positively impact
today's children, our leaders of tomorrow.
Are you familiar one quarter of New Orleans' renter
households include children. Studies demonstrate that housing
quality can significantly impact children's health and school
performance. Substandard housing conditions are often
correlated with respiratory conditions in children, leading to
hospitalization, missed school days, and lower school
performance.
Besides the physiological effects of hazards on health that
lead directly to lower literacy rates, health and learning
outcomes for children are also negatively impacted by
disruptions associated with frequent moves and often accompany
living in substandard housing. The decisions we make today are
the tomorrow we build for our children.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and
I am happy to answer questions.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Ms. Lee. I appreciate your
excellent testimony.
Dr. Sandel?
STATEMENT OF MEGAN SANDEL, PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR, CHILDREN'S
HEALTHWATCH, MD AT BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER
Dr. Sandel. Thank you, Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member
Keller, Chairwoman Maloney, and the distinguished Members of
House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Civil Rights and
Civil Liberties. Thank you for inviting me to speak today.
My name is Dr. Megan Sandel. I work at Boston Medical
Center and I serve there also as the co-lead principal
investigator of Children's HealthWatch and co-direct the Grow
Clinic for Children.
Throughout many more than 25 years of clinical practice and
research, I have documented the importance of how housing
impacts the health and development of children and their
families. But I am here today not only as a pediatrician; I
brought my 13-year-old daughter, Maeve, with me, because what I
want for my patients is the same opportunities that my children
currently enjoy.
I want this for all children because the scientific
evidences is clear: Children who live in quality, stable,
affordable homes in opportunity neighborhoods have better
health outcomes than those who do not.
Previous research documents these inequities operate
through four pathways: quality, stability, affordability, and
location. And those domains operate, predominantly, through
things likes segregation, in terms of the short-and long-term
health of children in their families.
Current efforts by HUD to weaken the Fair Housing Act by
changing the 2017 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule,
exacerbate these risks across all four domains by increasing
segregation, a strong predictor of health inequities.
My testimony today will focus on how clinical experience
and research indicate how changes to the rule will negatively
impact children and their family's health.
First, let me tell you about a patient of mine. For the
purposes of the testimony today, I will call him ``Anton.'' So,
I first met Anton when he was two years old, but he had not
outgrown his 12-month-old clothes yet; he was diagnosed with
failure to thrive, which is a commonly known disease for
children that don't grow as expected. He even met the World
Health Organization definition of malnutrition for age.
Anton and his family were living in a concentrated poverty
neighborhood in Boston. His family were consistently having
trouble making ends meet. His mom was working multiple full-
time jobs and wasn't able to get a long-term, full-time job,
because of lack of childcare.
Anton's mom confided in me, she was not only worried about
Anton, but she was worried about his older sister that wasn't
doing well in school.
After two years, Anton's family was able to convince a
landlord in a suburb outside of Boston, to accept their mobile
voucher. His mom gushed to me about the new neighborhood. She
said, ``My children can now sleep through the night because
they are not hearing gunshots. My kids can go to local parks
and now be able to play and my daughter is able to do better in
school, because she doesn't have to share a textbook.''
And so, Anton was then able to enroll in a local preschool
because there weren't miles-long waiting lists and then he was
able to grow and thrive and eventually be discharged from my
clinic.
This is the power that a stable, affordable home in a
neighborhood connected to opportunities, can have for kids and
their parents to reach their full potential. But, honestly,
Anton and his family weren't able to reach that until after two
years because of housing discrimination.
We need a stronger rule, not a weaker rule, to make housing
opportunities available to all families like Anton's.
The 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule was
specifically designed to strengthen the oversight of agencies
in communities. The rule provided evidence-based tools access
discrimination and develop concrete implementation plans and a
timeline to address those problems.
The current administration's proposal would undermine the
effectiveness of the rules by replacing this evidence-based
approach with a checkbox system that lacks sufficient detail
for accessing discrimination.
As a researcher and a physician, I know the import of
accurate measurement. It allows for the diagnosis of problems.
It allows for accurate judgments and treatment plans and it
allows for measurement of ultimate success.
The Fair Housing Act sought to address deep-rooted
inequities, preventing both, individual discrimination in
housing and addressing historic patterns of segregation. The
health inequities associated with residential segregation have
been extensively documented from mortality and education gaps
to differential access to green spaces and healthier foods.
Most American metropolitan areas remain moderately and
highly segregated with areas of concentrated poverty and fewer
opportunities. My own research emphasizes this in the city of
Boston. In 2016, we used a tool to assess opportunity in
neighborhoods and my colleagues and I found that three-year-old
children living in the lowest-opportunity neighborhoods, had a
higher prevalence of high blood pressure, a measure of biologic
health and stress, than children who lived in higher-
opportunity neighborhoods.
As a pediatrician, I can prescribe medical treatments that
respond to clinical symptoms, but in the case--the most
effective medicine from treating my patients' seasonality found
in a pharmacy. What my patients need for a healthier future is
a stable, descent, affordable home in a neighborhood of
opportunity. We need evidence-based tools to ensure that it is
systematically enforced and maintaining those tools are needed
for the 2015 rule.
We must actively promote opportunity and not check a box.
Mr. Raskin. Dr. Sandel, if you could just wrap it up.
Dr. Sandel. The children from Americans deserve that for
their health. Thank you.
Mr. Raskin. And thank you very much for your testimony.
Ms. Griffin, coming to you.
STATEMENT OF ATEIRA GRIFFIN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND
FOUNDER, BOND, INC., BUILDING OUR NATION'S DAUGHTERS
Ms. Griffin. Afternoon, Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member
Keller. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
Fourteen--the number of times my family moved throughout my
childhood, and now I am sure you are asking why. My mother,
like every parent in America, was determined to give her
children the best that she could afford. They didn't know this
would turn into a never-ending request for a safe, affordable,
resource-rich neighborhood, taking us across the city of
Baltimore, and even as far as Ohio.
Generation upon generations of black and brown families
have been left to chase opportunity, due to the Federal
Government's failure to keep one simple promise made in 1968--
access to Fair Housing.
Fourteen neighborhoods, 10 zip codes, and in each one, I
was a different child. My first neighborhood, where my great-
grandparents settled was, and still is, considered a black
enclave. I remember riding my big wheel down the tree-lined
street and playing in the park with my brother.
My school was well-funded, top-rated, and just a short walk
away. I excelled in school. I even won a dramatic reading
contest.
We were a tight-knit, cheerful, healthy, and thriving
community. Black neighborhoods and communities of color can
flourish, but how?
Our neighborhood was surrounded by predominantly white
neighborhoods in the top, middle portion of the White L, a term
coined by Dr. Lawrence brown, where better health outcomes,
transportation, schools, and food access are centered, due to
white concentrations of wealth. Our community benefited from
decades of investment and white communities only because of our
geographic location in the midst of them.
We need intentional investment. By the time I was 6, we
were priced out. We moved to what felt like a different world
on a block with two abandoned houses and no trees--different
neighborhood, different child.
Before, I fell asleep to the rhythmic sound of crickets;
now, I fought for sleep through the consistent pop of gunshots.
New rules came with our new neighborhood: no playing
outside; come straight home after school; stay away from the
windows.
I hated the food. Nothing was fresh. Everything was in a
can, a box, or a bag.
I began to struggle with courses, once easy for me. My
brother now needed learning supports. My mother was under
constant stress, depressed, and showing signs of hypertension.
I was diagnosed with asthma, due to pollution and higher heat
indexes.
My mother's salary was just high enough to disqualify her
from receiving housing support, but low enough to be priced out
in neighborhoods with better living conditions.
One summer, as I played with my dolls, our front door was
kicked open. I jumped to the other side of the living room and
hid behind a chair. A man rushed through the door, then a blue
blur a few seconds behind him. They ran through our home and
out the backdoor in our kitchen. I can still hear my mother's
screams.
No apology, no explanation, or even acknowledgment of what
happened. At eight, I learned our family, our neighborhood, our
community was invisible, dispensable, and often blamed for its
conditions.
We packed up our house and moved in with my grandparents--
different child, different neighborhood.
I learned a lot from my grandmother Veronica. She spent 24
years working at the Housing Authority of Baltimore City,
pouring over thousands of applications from families for
housing. She shared her frustration with the lack of clear
Federal frameworks and support to ensure all families could
thrive.
Even while battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer for these
families was still urgent for her. I wonder if my grandmother's
push to implement measures to disrupt racist housing policies
would have moved the needle forward in Baltimore;
unfortunately, her battle with cancer and fight for Fair
Housing ended in 2002.
I am here to carry my grandmother's legacy further. I give
voice to her experiences and those on the ground fighting for
solutions to prevent 14 moves in another child's life.
Inequity is baked into our national housing system and can
only be changed by reverse engineering the policies propping up
the system of oppression across America. We must proactively
evaluate how we invest in communities and in whose communities
we choose to invest.
It is easy to say these regulations cause too much
paperwork or cost too much. Those farthest from the pain have
the luxury of philosophizing about it. Today's children and
families do not have that luxury. My grandmother died not
having that luxury.
I leave you with a variation of the Maasai Tribe greeting
for grounding--I hope it will help you make the best decisions
for the children and families across America: How are the
children when no Fair Housing exists?
Thank you.
Mr. Raskin. Ms. Griffin, thank you very much, and I want to
thank you very much for your very detailed and moving
statement, written statement that you presented to us, as well
as what you just presented now. Thank you very much.
Mr. Hendrix, you are recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HENDRIX, DIRECTOR, STATE AND LOCAL POLICY,
MANHATTAN INSTITUTE
Mr. Hendrix. Good afternoon, Chairman Raskin, Congressman
Keller, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee on Civil
Rights and Civil Liberties. Thank you for inviting me to
participate in today's hearing.
My name is Michael Hendrix; I'm the director of state and
local policy at the Manhattan Institute, and I, along with
other colleagues, seek to advance solutions for the flourishing
of America's communities.
My central point today is that America's housing market is
neither, free nor fair. This burden often falls hardest on
those least able to bear them. I have historically
disenfranchised communities, working families trying to make a
living in pricey cities, and individuals facing prejudice and
poverty.
The result of this is an absence of realistic housing
options for millions of Americans that reinforces patterns of
discrimination. In 1968, when then-senator, Walter Mondale were
speaking in favor of the Fair Housing Act he helped to author,
he stated that simply prohibiting discrimination, quote,
``Would not overcome the economic problem of those who could
not afford to purchase the house of their choice,'' end quote.
Well while we cannot regulate or legislate the laws of
supply and demand, we can help roll back the exclusionary
regulations standing in the way of fair and/or free housing
choice in this country. We can do so for minority and low-
income Americans, and, indeed, for all Americans.
That is why the Department of Housing and Urban
Development's recently proposed AFFH rule is an important step
in the right direction. It aims--rightly so--to, quote,
``Promote and provide incentives for innovations in the areas
of affordable housing supply, access to housing, and improved
housing conditions,'' end quote, while avoiding one-size-fits-
all solutions.
We know that home prices nationwide are rising at twice the
rate of incomes and three times the rate of inflation. Renters,
meanwhile, have seen their rents rise for the second longest
streak since World War II. And as the price of these barriers
grow, so does the benefit of lowering them; disproportionately
so for America's racial minorities.
Reducing zoning regulations alone is estimated to lower
differences in racial segregation between neighborhoods by more
than a third. Artificially high housing costs also reduce
intergenerational mobility. Parents find it harder than ever to
move to be neighborhoods with more opportunity, better schools,
less crime, and higher-paying jobs.
Homes near good schools are nearly 2.5 times more expensive
than those near underperforming schools and those realities
have enormous costs on the life outcomes of children. With the
state of housing in America and the reasonably proposed AFFH
rule, it is reasonable to ask whether the Fair Housing Act is
achieving its goals 5 decades on.
The prior AFFH rule finalized in 2015 under President
Barack Obama, in reality, did little to loosen the grip of
restrictive housing policies that led to residential
segregation and disparate opportunity in the first place.
Rather than making housing more affordable and accessible, it
was often simply more paperwork for Cities and the consultants,
who authored hundreds of pages of toothless assessments; all
jurisdictions, no matter their size, shape, status, or
capacity, had to complete the same inflexible survey.
This one-size-fits-all requirement covering more than 3,000
jurisdictions, was, in turn, meant to be reviewed by HUD staff
that also lacked its own capacity; meanwhile, HUD staff were
asserting themselves into local governance through denial
letters. Many jurisdictions received far-reaching replies,
extending into issues well beyond HUD's expertise, such as
transit and education.
We can and must do better to affirmatively further Fair
Housing Choice in America. That is why the recently proposed
AFFH rule, put forward by Secretary Ben Carson, represents a
concrete improvement to his Department's enforcement of the
Fair Housing Act.
For instance, it updates and streamlines HUD's report
process. It requires jurisdictions to demonstrate concrete
progress in furthering for housing and righting the wrongs of
redlining. This result-based approach ideally allows for more
effective and less-burdensome reporting process for
jurisdictions, as well as for HUD, itself.
Simpler requirements should, in practice, not only help
jurisdictions better comply with their obligations under the
Fair Housing Act, but ensure HUD's scrutiny lands on the worst
offenders. And in turn, HUD funding can be scored to actual
progress. Mayors will be able to compete for Federal dollars
and national prestige, and ideally, such competition helps spur
innovation.
There are more reasons than ever for HUD to empower
jurisdictions, to affirmatively further Fair Housing Choice
with concrete reforms. Fewer and fewer housing markets depend
not only on encountering discrimination, but in removing the
barriers to more affordable and available housing for all
Americans.
By improving the AFFH rule, HUD is taking an important step
in the right direction of upholding this country's commitment
to the spirit and the letter of the Fair Housing Act. Thank
you.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Hendrix, thank you very much for your
testimony. We will now go to our five-minute questions.
I am going to begin, and Mr. Soto, let me start with you.
Is it fair to say that the new rule would include no
requirement that housing officials consider the effects that
housing policies adopted by a jurisdiction will have on
different groups?
Mr. Soto. I would say yes.
Mr. Raskin. And how does the new rule treat public
participation, vis-a-vis, what was taking place under the Obama
rule?
Mr. Soto. The proposed new rule essentially relegates any
community engagement to the consolidated planning process and
its community-engagement requirements.
Mr. Raskin. Community members will have a reduced voice
under the new regulation?
Mr. Soto. I think that is right.
Mr. Raskin. Does the new rule deal--require consideration
of how a housing plan would affect opportunity for people who
live in a particular community?
Mr. Soto. There is no requirement to do that.
Mr. Raskin. How does the prior rule and this rule handle
HUD oversight?
Mr. Soto. So, essentially, HUD would receive assessments of
Fair Housing, which is the plan that would be conducted by a
jurisdiction that would include community engagement. Those
plans would essentially be tied to the consolidated planning
process and then subsequent reporting requirements in the
consolidated planning process would essentially require
jurisdictions to say what they were actually doing and the
outcomes of their goals in the plans.
Mr. Raskin. Good.
Ms. Lee, let me ask you this: How did the public-
participation requirement and the affected-class analysis
requirement under the Obama rule work in New Orleans and was it
to your benefit or to your detriment to have those
requirements?
Ms. Lee. We believe it was greatly to our benefit. We got
perspectives from people living in neighborhoods that we would
not have otherwise had, had we not needed to engage them.
Mr. Raskin. And what about the requirement that you try to
consider what the effect would be of a particular plan on
different communities?
Ms. Lee. And, absolutely, we always want to strive for
outcomes for people and not just outputs, and so having that
perspective definitely made us focus more on the ``so what'' of
making our investments in housing.
Mr. Raskin. And were you able to put to use, the data base
that the Obama Administration provided to localities?
Ms. Lee. We would not have been able to produce that
locally, but we used it very effectively, and that is how we
determined, for example, that there was deeper segregation in
New Orleans in 2016 than had been in the past 20 years.
Mr. Raskin. So, that was useful information that will not
now be provided to you?
Ms. Lee. That is correct.
Mr. Raskin. OK. Dr. Sandel, if this rule goes into effect,
what will the consequences be for the health and well-being of
children, the kind of children you work with in Boston?
Dr. Sandel. Yes, I think that what we know is that
neighborhood segregation and housing discrimination are bad for
kids' health. And so, anything that doesn't change the
underlying inequities that we already have, right, like we
already see those health disparities playing out on the bodies
of kids, now we need to close the disparities and I don't
believe this rule will actually accomplish that.
Mr. Raskin. Very good.
And, Ms. Griffin, I was very moved by your statement and
the description of your childhood and growing up.
And a lot of people seem to think that housing patterns are
just natural--they just happen that way--but you seem to be
arguing that Government plays a real role here in shaping
people's experience of how they grow up, their neighborhoods,
and so on.
Tell us what you think about the proposed rule that the
Trump Administration is offering here.
Ms. Griffin. I think that this rule opens the window for
more discrimination and less plans that actually meet the
necessary outcomes for people living on the ground, like the
removal of or the decrease of community input in actually
planning how our communities are going to look and what our
community will look like once it is developed, what Fair
Housing looks like to us.
It reduces the impact. It reduces the way that we would
like our communities to show up. And it reduces our ability to
have good outcomes. It reduces good schools.
We would ask for, like, better trees, better schools,
better streets. And so, we are starting to create this
situation where we are increasing discrimination and decreasing
the ability to measure outcome and use data-driven approaches
and best practices to inform the way that we create
communities.
Mr. Raskin. Some people think that it really should not be
the role of the Federal Government to be advancing Fair
Housing.
Ms. Griffin. Uh-huh.
Mr. Raskin. What is your response to that?
Ms. Griffin. Working with my grandmother and seeing her
work in the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, I know that is
not the case. She tried to further implement some innovative
practices on the city level and they did not move forward
because of a lack of Federal support and frameworks.
Mr. Raskin. All right. Very good.
Well, I will turn now to the ranking member, I think. Are
you deferring to Ms. Miller?
Mr. Keller. Yes.
Mr. Raskin. OK. Ms. Miller, you are recognized for five
minutes.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Raskin, and thank you to
all of you all for being here today.
Housing is an issue that affects all Americans in districts
big and small, rural and urban. A lack of housing affects each
of our districts and our constituencies.
Unfortunately, over 50 years of Federal Government
intervention in the housing market and trillions of dollars
spent on ineffective programs, have failed to create the supply
necessary to house America's growing population, across all
levels of income.
Congress must come together to cut burdensome and
generalized Federal regulation, and instead, empower the local
communities who know the issues that their towns and cities
face, to make the decisions that are best for their own
citizens. My community in Southern West Virginia is drastically
different from my colleagues of New York City, Los Angeles, or
Miami, and, therefore, they have different solutions.
I have been an apartment owner and manager for over 35
years and I know the difficulties that come with management,
rent, and tenant concerns. We have all seen time and time again
that one size really doesn't fit all.
Let's work together and return this power to those who will
be able to do the most good in our United States of America.
Mr. Hendrix, what difficulties do rural communities have
when it comes to the housing supply, compared to more urban
areas?
Mr. Hendrix. Thank you, Congressman Miller.
As you said, every locality across America is different and
one-size-fits-all solutions from the Federal Government often
do not work to address the real problems that America's housing
market has.
I would agree with my fellow witness that who better knows
than the people who live there, I believe is what was said, for
what can be done in, say, a rural area, as much as New Orleans,
to provide affordable housing options for every person who
lives there.
Mrs. Miller. Why has a focus on promoting the construction
of only low-income housing failed to alleviate the housing
crisis across our country?
Mr. Hendrix. There are a number of regulatory burdens that
those who produce new housing face, and those regulatory
burdens--whether they are land-use restrictions or fees--apply
not only to market-rate private developers, but to those
providing affordable or moderate-income or even those providing
public housing.
So, unless we reduce the exclusionary rules that stand in
the way of providing housing for all Americans, we can't
provide more affordable housing in any form.
Mrs. Miller. So, then, why has apartment construction
focused more on higher-income developments, instead of housing
for families of all incomes?
Mr. Hendrix. Often, that is the only way that some
apartments can pencil out--in construction costs when it costs
hundreds of thousands of dollars when regulations add hundreds
of thousands of dollars onto the costs of the construction of a
single apartment unit.
Simply adding a parking requirement to an apartment in San
Diego could add $50,000 to that apartment unit. When that
occurs, it is difficult to construct any apartments that are
affordable for the common man or woman, and that is a
difficulty that we must reconcile ourselves to if we want more
affordable housing opportunities for more people.
Mrs. Miller. Well, I have even found that difference in
where I live. The people want to know if the parking is covered
or not covered and, here, it is how much does it cost; it is
just an entirely different thing.
How will the new Trump Administration rules alleviate some
of the burdens on communities and create more housing choice?
Mr. Hendrix. Ultimately, alleviating the burden standing in
the way of Fair Housing Choice is a responsibility that falls
on localities and that the states that oversee them. Those
localities are ultimately responsible here.
And I believe that a results-based approach to empower
those communities to provide more Fair Housing Choice would be
both, more effective and more streamlined.
I don't believe that there has been any proof that a small
number of HUD officials here in D.C. or an even smaller number
scattered around the country, would really know what each and
every one of the 3,000 communities that they would be engaging
with, would actually need to right the wrongs of redlining.
Mrs. Miller. Will Federal rent control actually create
affordable housing for Americans across all of the
demographics?
Mr. Hendrix. The desire for rent control in many
communities--even federally--does come from a real desire for
more affordable housing; that is certainly true.
But it is unclear that that will actually create more
housing. What most economists of all stripes do conclude is
that it will constrict housing supply, not add more housing,
and that the housing that is locked down be for incumbent
renters and not for newcomers, not for new immigrants.
It will tend to benefit older residents and not younger
ones. It will tend to benefit single renters and not families.
We can't have that as any sort of a solution for this country,
let alone for any city in America.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
I yield back my time.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Ms. Miller.
I go now to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, the vice chair of our
subcommittee.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Research has clearly communicated that segregated,
concentrated poverty has long-term, devastating effects on the
health and welfare of our Nation's children.
And when we fail to recognize the disparities in our
children's face by virtue of their zip code and by our
inability to act, we fail our kids. And for so often--you know,
my own life experience, the zip code that a child is born in
determines so much of that child's Destiny.
The Child Opportunity Index is a study that analyzes the
neighborhoods across America on the quality of their schools,
green spaces, food, air, health insurance--your quality of
life--and it ranked neighborhoods from 0 to 100, and a report
that was just released this month in January 2020 found that
the strongest predictor of child neighborhood opportunity was
race and ethnicity--not income, not zip code, not anything else
that people pretend it is, but the number-one predictor was a
child's--was raises and ethnicity in the predictor of child
income; that is across 100 of the largest Metro areas.
The score for neighborhoods where white children live is
you 73 out of a 100.
Where Hispanic children is--are, is compared to--that is 33
out of 100.
And for black children, it is 24 out of 100.
This is not a coincidence; housing issues are racial
justice issues.
Mr. Soto, from a historical perspective, how did we get to
a place of such drastic inequity for children of color?
Mr. Soto. I think that if you look at the entire history of
this country, you'll see that segregation and racially
concentrated poverty that results from that was very much by
design.
I mentioned earlier the history of segregation--the history
of slavery, the history of Jim Crow policies, the way that New
Deal and other programs that were intended to increase or
create homeownership and also create public housing were all
segregated and did not actually open to people of color in any
way.
And what you see is if you look around a number of
different places across the country and you look at a map of
today and you put it over a redlining map that were used by the
Home Owners Loan Corporation that were relied upon by the
Federal Housing Administration, and by the private market to
exclude those neighborhoods and those redlined communities,
you'll see that they are very similar from when the Fair
Housing Act was passed and forward.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Absolutely.
And Ms. Lee, can you share any conclusions that you came to
during your city's Fair Housing process, about how segregated,
concentrated poverty impacts communities and the children in
them.
Ms. Lee. When we were studying or communities and
identifying those racially and socioeconomically concentrated
areas of poverty, they all overlapped to areas where we had
high crime and violence and low-performing public schools. And
so, we see the direct correlation there in those low-income
areas to the other negative outcomes for children and families.
It really caused us to think differently about how and
where we should make investments to support children.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
And Ms. Griffin, how do these racial dynamics play out on
the ground in a community like Baltimore? You know, for so
often, people talk about statistics and you know, these
disparate outcomes.
But I think a lot of people don't understand what this
actually looks like. And I know how it looks in my backyard of
the Bronx, but I am interested in your lived experience.
Ms. Griffin. In Baltimore, this plays out. No. 1, a lot of
this started out in 1910 with the housing covenants that--with
the beginning of redlining in Baltimore City. And so, it
started with blocks and they blocked off each block, coloring
it a certain color to designate what race could live on that
block.
And then, they systematically moved each block together to
create neighborhoods clumped by race. So, now you have black
neighborhoods, white neighborhoods, Jewish neighborhoods, and
immigrant neighborhoods--which was how they categorized it
then--living together, which then gave them the ability to see
they were going to direct their actual funding.
So, we don't want to invest in black communities. We don't
want to invest in immigrant communities. We barely want to
invest in Jewish communities. We are going to put all the money
into white communities, which meant better schools were
developed there. We have better transportation and free
transportation in white communities. We also have a higher life
expectancy of 80 and above in white communities, where it is
barely 60 in black communities. Corner stores, where you cannot
even get fresh fruit or vegetables--no good grocery stores, as
well.
So, it just shows up in very different ways, in disparate
ways in the way that we live and we breathe in our communities
versus in white communities.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And to be clear, we have never pursued a
public policy audacious or bold enough to close or reverse that
gap, correct?
Ms. Griffin. Correct.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much.
Ms. Foxx, you are recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank our witnesses for being here today.
Despite having spent trillions of dollars of taxpayer money
on housing, it is not secret that America is still facing a
critical lack of access to affordable housing--that is
certainly true in my district--but a top-down approach favored
by the 2015 Obama rule was burdensome on localities, created a
massive bureaucracy, and proved to be an ineffective solution
to the underlying causes of affordable housing shortages.
And I applaud the Trump Administration for taking steps to
address this. It is my belief that we need solutions that
reduce--restrictive regulations that reduce the supply of
housing, and, instead, allow the free market to flourish.
Mr. Hendrix, what would you recommend the Federal
Government do to help local communities with common sense
approaches to housing, while avoiding a one-size-fits-all
overreach?
Mr. Hendrix. Thank you, Congresswoman Foxx.
I want to applaud you for supporting the YIMBY Act, which
recognizes that there is a tremendous shortage of housing in
America. We are underproducing housing by over 7 million homes;
that shortfall cannot be met by the Government. That has to be
met by the private sector.
And as the Federal Government, we can provide necessary
resources so that localities could have common sense approaches
to housing. That means recognizing their own role in the
housing shortage and that also means recognizing what they can
do to fix that shortage and leveraging the Community
Development Block Grant process to do that.
Similar to what AFFH is doing is something that a
bipartisan group of those in Congress, both Houses of Congress
have agreed on.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you.
Mr. Hendrix, are there reforms that states and localities
have been pursuing that we should be encouraging?
Mr. Hendrix. Absolutely. We see across this country, on
both coasts, in the middle of this country--no matter our
politics--we see incredible reforms to relegalized housing of
all shapes and sizes--California--we see Oregon, we see many
other localities allowing for backyard cottages to be
developed. We see North Carolina even imposing a 15-day
business limit for building permits involving small-family
dwellings--and not just single-family homes--duplexes, as well.
Those sorts of reforms are what we should be applauding and
what we should be encouraging, helping localities learn from
one another.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you.
Do you think--you think, I believe, that the private market
is able to address affordable housing shortages?
Mr. Hendrix. I believe that they are not only able, but
that they desire to. We see companies even now sprouting up
like PadSplit from Georgia that wants to allow people who live
in single-family homes to be able to rent out rooms there to
create mini apartment buildings in single-family home,
residential areas.
Now, maybe not everybody wants that, but if somebody
chooses that, we should be able to have the freedom to do it
and, unfortunately, you have local laws that stand in the way
of that; if persons are not part of the same family, they can't
live under a single-family home's roof. Those are the kind of
common sense reforms that I think we could make progress on.
Ms. Foxx. Well, in your expert opinion, how would the Trump
Administration's rule impact housing for children?
Mr. Hendrix. Partly what we have heard from everyone on
this panel is that by allowing free and Fair Housing Choice, we
can allow families and their children to not be stuck in
neighborhoods of low opportunity.
And right now, we have high housing costs--all too often,
areas of high opportunity--and there is no amount of HUD
overreach or forced displacement of individuals that will fix
that problem. We must make it more affordable for people to be
able to move and move in a neighborhood that they choose to
move into.
The Federal Government can play an important role in
informing families on where they could move to opportunity, but
if they are not lowering the regulatory barriers to introducing
more affordable housing, that doesn't do us much good.
Ms. Foxx. Well, I thank you.
I want to give you an example of something that is
happening--not in my district, but in a neighboring district,
and in a county that I would hope to be able to represent in
the future--I was at Western Piedmont Community College a
couple of weeks ago and they are planning to build a great big
building where they would work on teaching people to do
building trades and create affordable housing within those
buildings, at least the shells of those, that could then be
moved onto lots. And there is a huge shortage of housing in
that one county, and so the community college and the private
sector entities are working together to come up with ways to
solve that.
So, I see those kinds of things happening. I see tiny homes
being built and zoning ordinances changes, as you mentioned, to
allow those. So, I think a lot is going on and what we need to
do is to encourage the innovation that is happening all over
the country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Raskin. You bet, Ms. Foxx. Thank you.
And we now come to Representative Norton from the District
of Columbia.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, this is an important hearing to
be held.
We have had success from other equality acts passed;
largely, the ones in the 1960's and we remember that for
housing, in particular--perhaps more failure, than progress at
the time of reconstruction of it, with construction acts,
housing was included--Fair Housing was included, but, of
course, there was no enforcement mechanism at the time.
But look at the difference between, let's say, the Voting
Rights Act--and we are trying to reenact that now--but there is
no question that it had an enormous effect on the rights of
African Americans to vote, especially in the South.
Or look at the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was my great honor
to enforce the employment discrimination part of that Act, the
Equal Employment Opportunity Act. The work force looks very,
very different than it looked at the time of that Act.
So, you had two successful Civil Rights Acts, then we come
to the Fair Housing Act and tragically, we only got it in the
first place, because, remember, we are talking about 1964 Acts.
We finally got to 1968--Fair Housing Act--when there was
the great tragedy of the assassination of Martin Luther King,
Jr. It had a provision, much like the provision that I enforced
under the equal employment laws; it had a provision mandating
affirmatively furthering Fair Housing. I take that as the
functionally equivalent to affirmative action, which I enforced
as a part of the 1964 Equal Employment Opportunity Act.
So, my question--I suppose I should start with Mr. Soto or
any of you would be qualified to answer this question has there
been any evidence in whatever administration of affirmative
action to reaching out in and understanding that the Act means
don't just not discriminate but do something to eliminate
discrimination. Speak about the affirmative action, whether it
has ever occurred and whether it is occurring now.
Mr. Soto. I can start with that--thank you so much for that
question. I think it is important to recognize, you know, that
Fair Housing Act's AFFH provision had never really been
meaningfully even regulated until 1995 when there was the first
AF, Affirmatively Furthering for Housing rule.
Up until that point, jurisdictions we are not really
required to do any form of analysis or assessment of how they
would meet the mandates of the Fair Housing Act, and as I
mentioned earlier, the 1995 rule didn't actually have any
accountability measures in it that would tie the way that
jurisdictions would use the community development dollars that
they had to the way that they actually spent it and require any
sort of outcomes.
So, I would say that there is a long history in which the
Government was completely inactive in requiring enforcement and
implementation of the AFFH provision.
Ms. Griffin. I would add that in New Orleans, we were
required to complete the analysis of impediments to Fair
Housing Choice, but that was a very different analysis of those
impediments versus an affirmatively furthering Fair Housing and
assessment of Fair Housing and what are the actual steps,
strategies, and processes, that would be taken to overcome
those impediments and create more equal and fair housing
access.
Ms. Norton. The previous administration did have a Fair
Housing rule--that is in 2015.
Mr. Soto, or any of you, since then, is there any record of
anyone having lost Federal funding because of action or failure
to act?
Mr. Soto. So, I can answer that.
There is no record of that, since the proposed rule was
taken and the reasoning behind that is because HUD had a really
important understanding that this was a very new thing for
jurisdictions to have to undergo and it recognized there the
get-go that jurisdictions would need support and they would
need to have a series of maybe, back-and-forth, where an AFH
might not have met the standards necessary under the rule and
under the Act, but, nevertheless, the jurisdictions would be
able to improve upon those.
So, the intent behind the rule was to get jurisdictions to
start thinking about the ways in which their investments affect
opportunity; not to remove funding that would then actually
harm the communities that jurisdictions were trying to serve--
--
Ms. Norton. So, I don't understand.
So, you don't think there was an intent to remove funding?
Mr. Soto. I think that it was--it was always an option that
HUD could take if jurisdictions chose to not pursue their
required--their mandates under the Fair Housing Act.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I might add that until an administration--
some administration after all the preparatory action you have
taken has been done until some guts are put into this Act,
because something loses funding, I don't expect anything to
happen.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
[Presiding.] Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Keller of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Keller. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And, again, thank you to the witnesses for being here
today.
And as we talk about the Government's role to improve
affordable housing and the options and affirmatively further
Fair Housing, you know, I want to look back on some firsthand
experience I had growing up.
My family in today's standards, had we gown up today, we
would have been considered vulnerable or at-risk, because my
family struggled to make ends meet and I know there were some--
it is not easy for kids to move around a lot. It happened to
me. Probably by the time I was 4, I had probably moved a dozen
times, so I do understand the challenges facing families and
children. I certainly don't understand it as an adult,
thankfully, but as a kid, I understood that and I can't imagine
how my parents felt having to struggle to provide housing for
us.
So, Mr. Hendrix, I guess I just want to ask a couple
questions because I am--you know, the experiences that I have
are with affordable housing and so forth, but you may be aware
of or familiar with certain proposals, such as the Green New
Deal for Public Housing Act, which would use grant programs to
upgrade housing units into carbon-neutral communities.
Can you speak to the impact this hundred-and-eighty-billion
effort would have on the creation of new, affordable housing
options and overall economy?
Mr. Hendrix. Thank you, Congressman Keller.
The Green New Deal would, as you said, commit $180 billion
over 10 years to upgrading the federally administered public
housing units; that is, to say, would not necessarily create
more housing units, but it would upgrade them.
But I don't believe many have questioned how we would spend
$172,000 per unit to upgrade these units or, let alone, in New
York City, for my two units, spend $230,000 per unit or
question where we would how has individuals when we would move
them out of public housing units.
According to the plan for New York, we would move people
into newly constructed public housing towers and Warehouse
people there for up to a decade with, necessarily, no promise
of return; meanwhile, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars
per unit to, I guess, provide employment. That is one of the
biggest selling points for the Green New Deal is provide
employment for construction and labor unions.
I think our biggest focusing should be on housing, more
housing for more people that is more affordable. That does not
do that.
Mr. Keller. OK. Thank you.
And, alternatively, the Trump Administration's proposed
rule on affordable housing aims to reduce burdens for local
communities and hold underperforming ones accountable as they
address this issue.
From your perspective, how might this policy affect
children and families?
Mr. Hendrix. Well, as my fellow witness stated earlier, for
the Fair Housing Act and AFFH, in specific, we have never
affirmatively enforced it. We have never--no community has lost
funding for excluding individuals for exclusive regulations
that have often grounds in racism. We have never
affirmatively--we have, generally, affirmatively failed in
providing fair housing.
And so, I think that we have tremendous amount of
opportunity this time to hold communities to account, but to
also make sure there are communities that are reforming and it
is not HUD bureaucrats making the choices for localities.
I would trust those in your communities in Pennsylvania
more than I do those here in D.C.
Mr. Keller. Thank you.
And I guess it is just to make a point, I know there are
Opportunity Zones across the Nation where investment is being
made into the--in the communities that need that investment.
So, I think that would also--wouldn't you say that would also
be a benefit to attract affordable housing and let the
municipalities or local governments sort of decide how to best
do the affordable housing?
Mr. Hendrix. That is right. The Opportunity Zones has, in
its name, opportunity, and we need to provide that opportunity
for children, for families, for people of all backward, but
especially those who have been historically disenfranchised.
And if you look at the Opportunity Zones program, it is based
on communities working with their states to identify areas of
opportunity in low-income census tracks in surrounding
neighborhoods and continuing to invest in more housing in those
areas is something that the Opportunity Zones enable and
together with this new AFFH rule, we can prioritize that sort
of investment for more communities.
Mr. Keller. I appreciate that, and I just appreciate all
the opportunity that all Americans are enjoying in this great
economy that we have begun to realize over the past few years.
Thank you, and I yield back--oh, excuse me, if I could--I
have one thing. I do have some documents, if you don't mind,
Madam Chair, to be entered into the record?
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Without objection.
Mr. Keller. Thank you.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. The chair now recognizes Congresswoman
Wasserman Schultz of Florida for questioning.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Let me just point out for the record that, respectfully,
the ranking member is not correct that all--when he says that
all Americans have benefited from this robust economy. We have
an increasingly widening gulf between people who are doing
extremely well and people who are hanging by their fingernails,
for lack of a better way to express it.
So, to suggest that we can just whitewash the Federal law
on Fair Housing and essentially blanch it from acknowledging
that we need to make sure that we are taking care not to allow
discrimination based on race and racially concentrated poverty
is essential. And that is what we are here to discuss today,
because I really want to drill down on what Fair Housing really
means and how the Trump Administration's new rule seeks to
undermine the effectiveness and do just that, whitewash the
legacy of what was landlord mark legislation.
But I just want to clarify some terms first because, you
know, this is not a common everyday discussion for most folks.
So, Mr. Soto, if you would help us with the difference between
Fair Housing and affordable housing.
So, Mr. Soto, if you would help us with the difference
between fair housing and affordable housing and, also, why is
it essential that HUD have a deliberate focusing on Fair
Housing, rather than affordable housing?
Mr. Soto. So, thank you for that question.
The difference between Fair Housing and affordable housing
is really important. You could have affordable housing that is
not accessible to people of color, to people with disabilities,
to other protected classes. So, the simple--just the mere
existence of affordable housing doesn't mean that it is fair,
that it is accessible to all.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And what would make it not
accessible?
Mr. Soto. For example, if you limit the places that it can
be present in, if you only try and produce affordable housing
in one type of community that doesn't have the community assets
that help people succeed in them, and, also, if you only limit
investments in ways that only create housing in one place, but
don't necessarily help people move to different places that
they might be able to choose to, otherwise.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Is it super easy to place affordable
housing anywhere that it might be eligible to place it and if
you are someone who qualifies for, ``affordable housing'' or
``Fair Housing,'' are you freely able to just choose to move
anywhere you would like where you could access affordable
housing and how does the law impact that?
Mr. Soto. So, if you look at the usage of vouchers, housing
vouchers, what you find is that there is rampant discrimination
against people who have the voucher, who are trying to use the
voucher in neighborhoods that would be considered neighborhoods
of opportunity.
It is critically important to make sure that affordable
housing can be accessed to people of color and others that are
protected under the Act because of the history of the ways in
which our public investments have created neighborhoods and the
conditions that they result that result for children and
others.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. There is--this proposal restructures
the process that was meant to ensure that recipients of Federal
funds adhere to the mission of furthering Fair Housing and
under the Trump Administration's proposal, HUD would allow
grantees to choose 3 Fair Housing goals from a predetermined
list of 16 obstacles; 13 of which relate to affordability,
rather than Fair Housing.
Mr. Soto, could you first explain how that obstacles
analysis differed under the 2015 Obama rule and are there
inherent problems with this sort of checklist approach?
Mr. Soto. I will start off by saying that I think--so, the
2015 rule essentially required jurisdictions to conduct, the
assessment tool was a way for jurisdictions to be guided
through a process of analyzing different things that may occur
in their community.
So, the points were made earlier by a couple of
Congresspeople on this committee that not every jurisdiction is
the same, not every market has the same needs. And recognizing
that, the 2015 AFFH gave jurisdictions a host of different
options that they could consider the types of--and how that
affected opportunity.
In terms of--and I am sorry, the second part of the
question was the current list of the proposal?
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. What are the inherent problems in
this checklist approach?
Mr. Soto. So, you know, first of all, like you mentioned,
the overwhelming majority of those have nothing to do with
access for any of the protected classes under the Fair Housing
Act. Beyond that, there is nothing in the proposed rule that
compels jurisdictions to fix any of those problems.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And if I can just jump in, as my
time is expiring, essentially--and this is--please let me know
if you think this is accurate, it demands no accountability. It
does nothing to end the disparity and opportunity in our
neighborhoods. It can only be described as yet another attack
by the Trump Administration on civil rights, one that will have
a detrimental impact on children, on child poverty, housing,
hunger, and health.
And, Madam Chair, I will tell you, I am fortunate to
represent a district that really has a higher, middle-to-upper-
middle class and even wealthier population. I mean, the cold
reality is that the chances of locating affordable housing and/
or Fair Housing in most places in my district are somewhere
between slim and none. I have watched it happen.
And if you further gut--if you gut and further and make it
harder than it already is because of the anymore by attitude of
far too many people, because there, but for the Grace of God go
I, it will be nearly impossible--and it is extremely difficult
already for people who are struggling--to find an affordable
place to live that is not discriminatory in nature.
And thank you for your indulgence. I yield back the balance
of my time.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes and welcomes to the subcommittee
for the first time, Ms. Haaland of New Mexico.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you all so much for being here this afternoon.
As a career-long community organizer, I understand the
value of ensuring everyone in any community has a chance to
participate in our government. My concern, along with my Fair
Housing advocates is that this new rule diminishes the level of
public participation guaranteed to people seeking to influence
Fair Housing in their neighborhoods.
And my first question is for you, Ms. Lee: Whose voices are
most likely to be lost in the process, without a robust public
participation requirement?
Ms. Lee. It is the voices of those most directly impacted
by the discriminatory practices, by the segregated
neighborhoods, the neighborhoods that are isolated from
opportunity.
Ms. Haaland. And so, I feel like if those people don't have
a representative or an advocate to speak on their behalf, it is
basically up to them.
Ms. Lee. They are on their own.
Ms. Haaland. Yes.
As a practitioner, how did engaging participation, as
required in the 2015 regulation, impact the community?
Ms. Lee. I think the community in New Orleans really felt
empowered to be participating. We had--we partnered with other
Fair Housing advocates and agencies to really get a broad group
community stakeholders, and sometimes people don't want to talk
to the Government, you know?
Ms. Haaland. Uh-huh.
Ms. Lee. So, we were able to partner with other advocating
organizations to do a couple of things. One, help to break down
what was going on into more relatable topics so that people
felt more informed.
It is like when people say, it is one thing to say you can
come and sit at the table; it is another to provide me with a
knife and fork to actually eat and participate in the meal.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you, Ms. Lee.
Ms. Griffin, do you believe that community members care
about their housing situations and if afforded the option would
engage with local Governments to provide valuable, direct input
into the plans?
Ms. Griffin. Absolutely. And I have seen it happen in
Baltimore.
I have been in meetings where there were over 100 residents
come because this was when the 2015 rule had been passed before
it was taken away in 2018--so, this was 2016--two separate
communities, hundreds of members in the room talking to folks
who were going to redevelop that community, about the steps
that were going to be taken, and they came several times.
So, not only will they come, but they will come and
participate and ask questions and inform the process.
Ms. Haaland. That is excellent.
Ms. Griffin, if the mothers in your program were able to
attend a Fair Housing public participation meeting in Baltimore
like the one required in the 2015 rule, what would they be
asking for in terms of fair housing.
Ms. Griffin. I am so glad you asked that question and so
are they. First, they would ask for quality buildings that do
not look like military barracks. Second, they listed out that
they would like to have a space--because I have asked my mom
this before--they would like to have a space, a community that
is developed holistically--so, a park.
Investing in the school is a part of the requirement to be
able to redevelop this area. Figuring out how to make sure we
bring good grocery stores to the area that have fresh produce.
Making sure that they also have access to a community center
with a pool, a fitness center, community rooms used for classes
that have STEAM, language-development, career-development,
academic supports.
A transportation upgrade, because transportation is a huge
issue when you talk about fair housing and where we locate our
people, and making sure that they are not split up in a
neighborhood that is underneath of a bridge or through highway
development.
And, also, ample street lighting and ensuring that at least
50 percent of the apartments or houses in that area are
actually affordable and having an ability to have a rent-to-own
program for an on-ramp to homeownership. Because we are not
just talking about getting into a house and renting it, we are
talking about ownership and creating generations of wealth
within communities who have been locked out of it.
Ms. Haaland. Absolutely. Thank you so much.
I come from a community warehousing was an afterthought.
Native Americans went through eras of assimilation where they
were essentially uprooted from their communities and sent
somewhere else because the Federal Government felt that they
needed to break up their communities.
My mother, as a result, was raised in the Indian camp in
Winslow, Arizona, in a boxcar. So, when they assimilated
Indians to work on the railroad, they didn't necessarily think
about the housing they would have, so they took a group of box
cars, lined them up, put a chain link fence around it, and the
funny thing is that my mother and her parents, they made that
work.
But, continually, communities have been an afterthought;
that is evident in your communities, my communities for--and
you can ask the descendants of The Long Walk and The Trail of
Tears, whether the Federal Government thought about the housing
they would have when they got to the other location.
So, I thank you for all the work that you are doing to help
people to find a way to have safe and affordable housing for
their families. And I just want to say that all citizens have a
right to participate in this process and the President's rule
effectively silences the very communities that the Fair Housing
Act was enacted to protect and that is shameful, in my opinion.
We must push back on the abdication of Fair Housing process
and stand up for families' rights to have a voice in their
housing community.
And thank you all, again, so much for being here.
Madam Chair, I yield.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
And the Chair now recognizes Ms. Pressley of Massachusetts.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair--thanks to you
and the chair for convening this fortunate hearing today, and
thank you to aware esteemed panelist experts, both, based upon
lived experience in areas of study and research.
A special shout-out to Dr. Megan Sandel who is here with us
today. She's an esteemed pediatrician at Boston Medical Center,
which sits in the heart of my district, the Massachusetts 7th.
Make no mistake about it: Housing is health. Where you
live, the air you breathe, the food you eat, how much money you
earn, all factor into your long-term health outcomes. This is
perhaps no clearer than in my district, the Massachusetts 7th,
one of the most diverse and vibrant districts in the country
and one of the most unequal.
Travel three miles from back bay to Roxbury, the blackest
part of my district, and life expectancy drops 30 years, 3-0.
For most people in this country, your zip code quite
literally does determine your Destiny. Black and brown babies
born into poverty in Boston are twice as like lie to die
prematurely than white babies and three times as likely to be
hospitalized for asthma.
Last May, I questioned HUD Secretary Carson, who refused to
say if safe housing is a human right and that all people in
America deserve stable, safe, and affordable housing. He would
not even affirm, given his former role as a surgeon, that it is
a critical determinate of health.
Poverty is not a character flaw; it is a result of failed
and often cruel policymaking. As far as I am concerned, this
is, how HUD is currently conducting itself, is completely
contradictory to its mission, and these proposals are punitive
and abusive.
This is child abuse. This is elder abuse. This is abuse,
period--par for the course of this administration, where the
cruelty is the point.
Ms. Griffin, I want to say that you honor your grandmother,
Veronica, very well with your acumen, your grace, and your
conviction. I want to commend you for the organizations that
you have founded.
And I know you spoke earlier about some of the health
disparities and things that you and your family faced, and I
was wondering if you could elaborate for the families you
serve, have you noticed similar health difficulties to the ones
that you and your family experienced?
Ms. Griffin. Yes, I do.
We have quite a few of our moms and daughters who suffer
both, sometimes, from asthma, and we also have a lot of moms
who are suffering with high blood pressure and also increased
waiting--struggles with weight-management, because of the poor
and processed food that is in their neighborhoods.
Ms. Pressley. OK. And what about trauma? How do you see
trauma manifesting and showing up? I think this is concentrated
poverty and given that you--well, anyway, I will let you answer
that first.
Ms. Griffin. Yes. So, trauma shows up in so many ways. And
in BOND, we actually have an instituted purchase of, like,
restorative circle, because we cannot even begin to start to
help our moms and daughters process how to have positive
relationships and how to move toward economic mobility without
facing the trauma they face in their neighborhoods, which
includes violence.
When we live in these low-opportunity neighborhoods,
unfortunately, we are impacted heavily by violence. Over-
policing is another experience of trauma that we often have to
help deal with.
Also, rejection, because our moms are struggling every
single day to try to provide for your children, and if they are
looking for a new house, if they are trying to get another job
to help support what they want their girls to have and they are
often rejected, that causes that mom to have a dejected,
depressed personality.
So, we deal with depression. We deal with low self-esteem
in our girls. Just because of the generational impacts of
living in poverty and being forced to live in those areas
without having access to fair and equitable housing.
Ms. Pressley. That is right.
And that is why the work that you are doing, that is--and
the visioning, in partnership with the community is holistic.
Ms. Griffin. Yes.
Ms. Pressley. What we are seeing is really
intergenerational trauma, poverty, and poor health outcomes.
Dr. Sandel, you have said before that the best prescription
you can give kids in your care is a healthy place to live. Can
you expand on that? How does equitable Fair Housing in a high-
opportunity neighborhood compare to the medications you are
able to prescribe to your patients.
Dr. Sandel. Yes. I think one of the things we do is we
measure medications for how much money they may save or whether
or not they have an impact on health. And what I will tell you
is that over and over, you see having that stable, decent,
affordable home in a neighborhood of opportunity will do things
like reduce severe, morbid obesity. It will affect your
hemoglobin A1C and diabetes. It will reduce healthcare costs.
It will improve your asthma outcomes, and we have seen that
over and over.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
And the chair now recognizes Mr. Sarbanes of Maryland for
five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thanks very much, Madam Chair, and thank you
to the panel. The testimony today is very compelling.
Obviously, Fair Housing and ensuring Fair Housing in this
country is a challenge. It is a complicated problem to solve,
but the goal in the end is very simple. It is to make sure that
every child in this country lives in a safe neighborhood with
clean air and clean water and good schools and access to all
the basic things that provide kids with full opportunity, which
you spoke about, Ms. Griffin, as you described moving through
different stages of your life and having to kind of adjust your
horizons each step of the way.
You know, the Trump Administration has essentially said
that Fair Housing is too expensive, like, we can't do itself.
He claims that the 2015 rule that we have been speaking about,
cost HUD $3 and a half million to placement--$3 and a half
million to implement--a huge sum.
Not really. That is less than 1 percent of HUD's Fair
Housing budget.
The other thing you could compare it to is a GAO report in
2019 that found that just one of the President's trips to Mar-
a-Lago cost taxpayers $3 and a half million. So, the President
could pay for this Fair Housing program by skipping just one
trip to his private club, but, apparently, it is too expensive
to do the right thing in terms of that rule.
Ms. Griffin, you talked about moving through many different
zip codes. You are from Baltimore. I am from Baltimore. And we
certainly know the challenges that that poses, based on your
testimony, and other good work that has been done in research.
You alluded to the fact that your health and your family's
health was impacted by these moves and I thought maybe you
could elaborate a little bit more on that.
I met, today, with American forest, which is an
organization that is, you know, trying to plant a lot of trees
and I asked them about the fact that in a lot of urban areas
there is no tree canopy and what the impact of that is, and so
the environmental injustice that it represents, and they pulled
right out of their folder, a report called ``tree equity,''
which actually details this and, in fact, tied it back to
redlining, because they said that the redlining footprint which
you talked about, could also be correlated to where you find
tree canopy or the essence of it and then all the problems that
go with it, and you opened your testimony by talking about it
as, you know, getting on your bike and going down to the park
and being surrounded with sort of the greenness of that
environment.
So, talk a little bit about the health impacts--physical,
for sure--but potentially psychic impacts, mental health
impacts that come from having to constantly revise your
aspirations and ambitions and limit your horizons because of
the housing situation that you are in.
Ms. Griffin. Absolutely. And thank you for also talking
about trees. Some people don't understand why trees are so
important.
But the health impacts that I experienced and my family
experienced, one, I was diagnosed with asthma when I was young,
and it was after we moved to a low-opportunity neighborhood,
because there were like, few and far in between trees. It was a
massive load of housing density, and because of that, the heat
index rises and you also have pollution on top of the rising of
the heat index, which causes more asthma occurrences in
children in areas like that.
In addition to that, I also saw that we all gained weight,
so we also were dealing with being borderline obese at certain
times, because we were eating highly processed foods and
because of the food we were also eating, there was an impact on
our education. So, my brother and I started to do poorly in
school because we didn't have the right nutrients in our
bodies. We were malnourished, essentially.
In addition to that, I know my mother was depressed for
many reasons. The fact that we had to live in a neighborhood
like that, trying to find a good home, trying to keep her
household safe. So, you are thinking about this fight-or-flight
mode that people go into when you live in spaces like that on a
day-in and day-out basis; it puts you in high stress levels,
which causes also, heart conditions and then you have high
blood pressure that can also come from that, so hypertension.
And we saw this throughout our family, so not only did my
mother have those issues, my grandmother, my grandfather, and
then my brother was diagnosed with diabetes, as well. And so,
it is just rampant throughout many generations in our family,
the health impacts of living in low-opportunity neighborhoods.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thanks very much.
I yield back.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
And, you know, I think as we close out this hearing, we
truly would like to thank all of our witnesses for the
expertise that you have offered today.
I would be remiss if I didn't address earlier legislation,
critique a legislation that I had introduced regarding the
Green New Deal for Public Housing, and I would simply like to
say that housing is not just an ability to sleep somewhere. It
is the ability to be safe, the ability to be healthy.
There are a lot of people--you know, as I go home to my
district, there are children that are coughing up blood in
their public housing facilities because they are being poisoned
by lead and asbestos.
And there are a lot of folks here that will tell us that it
is too expensive for them to live their lives justly. It is too
expensive for them--for their buildings to be cleaned. It is
too expensive for them to breathe healthy air and drink clean
water.
But those are the same folks who are often saying that it
is too--that it is, rather, you know, we will pay ourselves
back by giving the corporations that are often poisoning our
families a tax cut.
And justice has no price tag. I think it is important that
we internalize that because the depravity of those conditions,
as you had stated so eloquently, Ms. Griffin, we are
internalized in our self-worth. When you have black mold on
your walls and you go to sleep with a draft because there are
holes in your walls, when you are virtually sleeping outside,
you start to think that it is because you are less than, but it
is just simply untrue.
But our Government has treated and discriminated people as
less than and we have never made up for that injustice and it
is time that we do that and it will be expensive, but guess
what? The cost of that injustice has already been borne by
black communities, native communities, and communities of
color. So, it is about time that we square that debt.
I'd like to thank, again, our witnesses for their testimony
today. Without objection, all members will have five
legislative days within which to submit additional written
questions for the witnesses to the chair.
In addition, the public comment period for these policy
changes will end March 16 and any and all people interested in
weighing in publicly have that opportunity.
I'd ask our witnesses to please respond as promptly as you
are able to any member questions.
This hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:39 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]