[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                                                          


                    A STRONG FOUNDATION: HOW HOUSING
                      IS THE KEY TO BUILDING BACK
                            A BETTER AMERICA

=======================================================================

                             HYBRID HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                    COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            OCTOBER 21, 2021

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

                           Serial No. 117-55
                           
                           
                           
                           
 [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]      
 
 
 
                           
                           

                A STRONG FOUNDATION: HOW HOUSING IS THE

                 KEY TO BUILDING BACK A BETTER AMERICA





 
                    A STRONG FOUNDATION: HOW HOUSING
                      IS THE KEY TO BUILDING BACK
                            A BETTER AMERICA

=======================================================================

                             HYBRID HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                    COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            OCTOBER 21, 2021

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

                           Serial No. 117-55
                           
                           
                           
                           
 [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                          
 
 
 
 
 
 
                          ______                       
 
 
              U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
46-198 PDF           WASHINGTON : 2022 
 
 
 
                           
                           

                 HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                 MAXINE WATERS, California, Chairwoman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York         PATRICK McHENRY, North Carolina, 
NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York             Ranking Member
BRAD SHERMAN, California             FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York           BILL POSEY, Florida
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia                 BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
AL GREEN, Texas                      BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri            ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              ANDY BARR, Kentucky
JIM A. HIMES, Connecticut            ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                FRENCH HILL, Arkansas
JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio                   TOM EMMER, Minnesota
JUAN VARGAS, California              LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey          BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas              ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia
AL LAWSON, Florida                   WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio
MICHAEL SAN NICOLAS, Guam            TED BUDD, North Carolina
CINDY AXNE, Iowa                     DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana
AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts       ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
RITCHIE TORRES, New York             JOHN ROSE, Tennessee
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts      BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin
ALMA ADAMS, North Carolina           LANCE GOODEN, Texas
RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan              WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania         VAN TAYLOR, Texas
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York   PETE SESSIONS, Texas
JESUS ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas
NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia
JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts

                   Charla Ouertatani, Staff Director
                   
                   
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on:
    October 21, 2021.............................................     1
Appendix:
    October 21, 2021.............................................    87

                               WITNESSES
                       Thursday, October 21, 2021

Chetty, Raj, William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics, 
  Harvard University.............................................    54
Crawford, Symone, first-generation homeowner, and Director of 
  STASH and Homeownership Operations, and incoming Executive 
  Director, Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance............    10
del Rio, Carlos, MD, FIDSA, Distinguished Professor of Medicine, 
  Epidemiology and Global Health, Emory University School of 
  Medicine.......................................................    55
Dickerson, Matthew, Director, Grover M. Hermann Center for the 
  Federal Budget, The Heritage Foundation........................    60
Edmonds, Michael, resident, Tucson House, City of Tucson 
  Department of Housing and Community Development, and Secretary, 
  Tucson House Residents Council.................................     7
Galindo, Fernanda, cost-burdened renter, District of Columbia....     9
Harrison, John, formerly experienced homelessness, and Speaker/
  Advocate, National Coalition for the Homeless, and Street 
  Outreach Navigator, Prince George's County Department of Social 
  Services.......................................................     6
Lee, Jan, New York City rental property owner, on behalf of the 
  Small Property Owners of New York (SPONY)......................    12
Rice, Lisa, President and CEO, National Fair Housing Alliance....    57
Shahyd, Khalil, Managing Director, Equity, Environment and 
  Justice Center, National Resources Defense Council.............    59

                                APPENDIX

Prepared statements:
    Chetty, Raj..................................................    88
    Crawford, Symone.............................................   100
    del Rio, Carlos..............................................   104
    Dickerson, Matthew...........................................   110
    Edmonds, Michael.............................................   116
    Galindo, Fernanda............................................   120
    Harrison, John...............................................   122
    Lee, Jan.....................................................   123
    Rice, Lisa...................................................   126
    Shahyd, Khalil...............................................   147

              Additional Material Submitted for the Record

Waters, Hon. Maxine:
Statements for the record from:
    Catholic Charities USA.......................................   161
    Community Solutions..........................................   165
    LeadingAge...................................................   169
    National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community 
      Development................................................   173
    National Homelessness Law Center.............................   180
    UnidosUS.....................................................   183
Letters of support for the Build Back Better Act from:
    AARP.........................................................   188
    American Institute of Architects.............................   190
    The Arc of the United States.................................   193
    Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding.......   196
    Children's Defense Fund......................................   198
    Children's Health Watch......................................   200
    Community of Hope............................................   204
    Corporation for Supportive Housing...........................   207
    Enterprise Community Partners................................   209
    Hon. Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles.....................   212
    Habitat for Humanity.........................................   214
    Healthcare Anchor Network....................................   225
    HoUSed Campaign..............................................   227
    Housing Assistance Council...................................   257
    Justice in Aging.............................................   259
    LeadingAge...................................................   261
    Local Initiatives Support Corporation........................   264
    Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) and Los 
      Angeles Continuum of Care (LA CoC).........................   266
    Mayors & CEOs for U.S. Housing Investment....................   269
    Mortgage Bankers Association.................................   273
    NAHRO, PHADA, MtW, and LHAC..................................   276
    National Alliance to End Homelessness........................   278
    National Center for Healthy Housing..........................   280
    National Coalition for Housing Justice.......................   282
    National Council of State Housing Agencies...................   286
    National Housing Law Project.................................   288
    National League of Cities....................................   290
    National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund........................   292
    National Network to End Domestic Violence....................   293
    National Rural Housing Coalition.............................   295
    National Women's Law Center..................................   297
    NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice....................   302
    NHRC et al...................................................   306
    Opportunity Starts at Home...................................   310
    Philanthropy Member Organizations............................   313
    Prosperity Now...............................................   315
    Public Housing Authorities Directors Association.............   319
    RESULTS......................................................   321
    ROC Association..............................................   326
    RTTC et al...................................................   339
    San Diego Housing Commission.................................   342
    Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future................   344
    United Native American Housing Association...................   346
    Various undersigned organizations............................   349


                    A STRONG FOUNDATION: HOW HOUSING

                      IS THE KEY TO BUILDING BACK

                            A BETTER AMERICA

                              ----------                              


                       Thursday, October 21, 2021

             U.S. House of Representatives,
                   Committee on Financial Services,
                                                   Washington, D.C.
    The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in 
room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Maxine Waters 
[chairwoman of the committee] presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Waters, Velazquez, 
Sherman, Scott, Green, Cleaver, Perlmutter, Beatty, Vargas, 
Gottheimer, Gonzalez of Texas, Lawson, Axne, Casten, Pressley, 
Torres, Lynch, Adams, Dean, Ocasio-Cortez, Garcia of Illinois, 
Garcia of Texas, Williams of Georgia; McHenry, Lucas, Posey, 
Luetkemeyer, Huizenga, Wagner, Barr, Williams of Texas, Hill, 
Emmer, Zeldin, Loudermilk, Mooney, Davidson, Budd, 
Hollingsworth, Gonzalez of Ohio, Rose, Steil, Gooden, Timmons, 
Taylor, and Sessions.
    Chairwoman Waters. The Financial Services Committee will 
come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any time.
    As a reminder, I ask all Members participating remotely to 
keep themselves muted when they are not being recognized by the 
Chair. The staff has been instructed not to mute Members, 
except when a Member is not being recognized by the Chair and 
there is inadvertent background noise. If you are participating 
remotely today, please keep your camera on. If you choose to 
attend a different remote proceeding, please turn your camera 
off.
    Before we begin, I will call up the two resolutions noticed 
for today's hearing reauthorizing the committee's Task Forces 
on Artificial Intelligence and Financial Technology and ask 
unanimous consent that the resolutions be adopted.
    Without objection, it is so ordered.
    I am so very pleased to continue the work of this 
committee's two task forces. The Task Force on Financial 
Technology, led by Mr. Lynch, and the Task Force on Artificial 
Intelligence, led by Mr. Foster, have done exemplary work thus 
far this Congress in assessing the impact of new technologies, 
products, and services in our financial and housing markets.
    Recent FinTech Task Force hearings have focused on consumer 
data, sharing between fintechs and banks, central bank digital 
currencies (CBDCs), and the rise of new fintech products and 
services. Recent AI Task Force hearings have focused on 
algorithmic bias, digital identity, and ethical frameworks of 
AI. I believe I speak for all of our committee members in 
saying that we look forward to what other emerging areas these 
two task forces will cover in their next round of hearings.
    And I now recognize the ranking member of the committee, 
Mr. McHenry, for any remarks he may have about the 
reauthorization of our task forces.
    Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. On the Republican 
side, these task forces are led by Ranking Members Gonzalez and 
Davidson, and by Ranking Members Hill and Emmer before that. 
The opportunity with these two task forces is to have some 
bipartisan consensus on emerging technologies. My hope is that 
we can actually get to bipartisan legislating in these areas 
now and in the future. I think it is really important for us to 
figure out the ways that we can work together so that we can 
embrace innovation, so that we can ensure that we are a step 
ahead of our global competition, and focus on ways that we can 
incorporate innovation in such a way that we actually bring the 
cost structure down for average consumers and average Americans 
and increase opportunities. I think there are huge 
opportunities here for consumer protection and economic 
opportunity, and ways to root out unintended consequences for 
bad regulations here in Washington.
    So, I am encouraged that they have been reauthorized. My 
hope is that we can actually get to the point of driving 
consensus around a basket of legislative ideas that are 
bipartisan in nature. And with that, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Today's hearing is 
entitled, ``A Strong Foundation: How Housing is the Key to 
Building Back a Better America.''
    I now recognize myself for 4 minutes to give an opening 
statement.
    Right now, choices are being made about what investments 
will be cut back or cut out of the Build Back Better Act. Last 
month, this committee passed historic legislation to invest 
$327 billion in long-overdue housing investments. These funds 
would create or rehabilitate more than 3 million affordable 
homes, provide up to 750,000 Housing Choice vouchers to house 
up to 1.7 million people, and help close the racial wealth gap 
through a $10-billion investment in down payment assistance to 
first-time, first-generation homebuyers. The housing 
investments provided in the Build Back Better Act should be 
robust and reflect the fact that housing is infrastructure. 
Absent access to safe, affordable, and accessible housing, far 
too many families cannot make ends meet in a way that enables 
them or our economy and our nation to thrive.
    As our two panels of witnesses will discuss today, there is 
no way to build back better without investing in housing. Our 
first panel consists of experts who have lived with the 
experience and who have struggled to afford, find, or secure 
housing. These witnesses will talk about their experiences with 
homelessness, public housing, and achieving the dream of 
homeownership.
    Our second panel of policy experts will discuss how robust 
investments in housing will promote positive health outcomes, 
mitigate climate change, strengthen the middle class, address 
longstanding racial inequities, and give children the 
foundation they need to perform well in school.
    Every day, we are paying the cost for decades of 
disinvestment in housing. We pay for it through increased 
healthcare costs when people face life-threatening health 
hazards in their homes, when they are forced to live in unsafe 
and unhealthy conditions on the streets, or when they defer 
medical attention to pay their rent or mortgage. We pay for it 
through diminished life outcomes and economic mobility, when 
parents must forego investments in their childrens' education, 
or when students' studies are disrupted by constant moves or 
because they do not have a safe place to do their homework. We 
pay for it through trillions in lost economic activity due to 
worsening segregation and ongoing discrimination that locks 
millions out of equal housing opportunity.
    Simply put, we cannot build back better without investing 
in our nation's crumbling housing infrastructure. Housing is 
not a miscellaneous afterthought, just something that is nice 
to have, or something that can wait until later. Housing is 
foundational, and America has waited long enough. We spent the 
last 4 years watching the previous Administration prioritize 
the wealthiest among us and demonize the least fortunate among 
us. We are here today with an opportunity to put everyday 
Americans first by putting housing first. We have to be bold in 
order to be successful. Failure is not an option.
    Before I yield back, let me ask unanimous consent to insert 
into the record a collection of letters signed by over 1,000 
groups and diverse stakeholders, including child, education, 
and health advocacy groups.
    Without objection, it is so ordered.
    I now recognize the ranking member of the committee, the 
gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. McHenry, for 4 minutes for 
an opening statement.
    Mr. McHenry. Madam Chairwoman, today marks the second 
housing hearing in less than a week. Since Democrats took 
control of the House, our committee has held 31 hearings on 
housing, 13 of which were Full Committee hearings. Look, we all 
know that housing is an important issue. I will remind the 
Chair that it was Republicans who raised the alarm about the 
Biden Administration's mismanagement and incompetence in 
delivering emergency rental assistance. Republicans gave the 
legislative solution, and then Democrats attempted to follow, 
but Democrats rejected our efforts to help struggling renters 
every step of the way. Instead, they have been busy working on 
President Biden's partisan Build Back Better Agenda, so let's 
talk about how that is going.
    This summer, Chairwoman Waters released a statement 
announcing she had secured a commitment from President Biden to 
include her housing provision in the Build Back Better Act. 
This was followed up by a package of bills expanding Federal 
housing programs to the tune of $600 billion. Then, the 
committee met to produce the actual legislative package for 
President Biden's agenda. The amount spent on housing was $325 
billion, so where did the $300 billion go? Why did some ideas 
get left on the cutting-room floor? I do not know. Actually, it 
was not said publicly. Republicans have not been included in 
any of these private meetings that Democrats are having amongst 
themselves on this, nor have we had hearings about that cutting 
of $300 billion. So, with no explanation as to why the 
Majority's housing proposal was cut in half, Democrats reported 
the bill out of committee on a partisan vote.
    Now, after Chairwoman Waters and Senator Sherrod Brown held 
a press conference yesterday demanding more money for housing, 
today, there is a report that the Administration has cut it to 
$100 billion overnight. I do not know if that is a result of 
the press conference. I do not know if it is a result of this 
hearing. I do not see other committees having hearings like 
this about Democrat provisions being cut by Democrats. So, 
let's see if I have this straight: A Democrat-controlled White 
House is cutting Democrat provisions from a Democrat bill 
written by Democrats to try and wrangle enough Democrat votes 
to pass it. You cannot make this stuff up.
    Let's just be honest about where we are today. You are 
worried about getting your priorities axed. I cannot imagine 
how frustrating that is. Wouldn't it be helpful for us to hear 
from the people actually running this show? Instead, we are 
having good people here telling us compelling stories, and not 
to be disrespectful to any of the witnesses, your stories are 
important for us to hear, and the struggles you face are real 
and deserve answers, but we should invite the people who are 
actually making this decision here, not my Democrat colleagues 
on the committee.
    By the way, at gavel, Chairwoman Waters was the only 
Democrat here in the room. That is how much of a priority this 
seems to be. Now, we have a few Democrats on the screen. But 
why don't we invite the people making the decision? Why not 
invite Senator Manchin to tell us what is going to be in this 
bill? Why not invite Senate Budget Committee Chair Sanders to 
tell us what is going to be in this bill? We know it is being 
written on the fly. We know you are not interested in 
Republican votes. We know that your provisions are being cut 
left and right and you are angry about it. But why are you 
inviting Republicans to this family food fight you are having 
amongst yourselves, and why are we not focused on the 
priorities of the American people rather than shoveling out 
more government spending?
    Chairwoman Waters said earlier this month, ``This is our 
once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in our housing 
programs. If we do not expand our housing programs in this 
budget reconciliation bill, we never will.'' I am not going to 
share my opinion about that, but I want to make sure that it is 
in the record today. And with that, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. I now recognize the gentleman from 
Missouri, Mr. Cleaver, for 1 minute.
    Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. We are having 
this hearing today at a time when housing has historically 
never been more expensive. The median sale price of a new 
residential home in the United States is now just under 
$400,000.
    And we are having this hearing at a time when we have never 
built fewer homes in this country. In the last decade, we saw 
fewer housing starts than any decade on record, and the share 
of smaller or entry-level starter homes, which used to account 
for about 40 percent of new homes built, now accounts for close 
to 7 percent of new homes built. When housing is built in this 
country, it is becoming increasingly unaffordable to those who 
are lucky enough to even be housed. So today, access to 
affordable housing is central to every other indicator of well-
being for Americans. There is no such thing as building back 
better without robust investment in housing and human-level 
capacity.
    I hope our witnesses will speak to why the solutions this 
committee has put forward are so critical. Thank you, Madam 
Chairwoman, for the work you are doing on housing.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman 
from Arkansas, Mr. Hill, for 1 minute.
    Mr. Hill. I thank the chairwoman, and I have to ask my 
colleagues, why are we here? Five weeks ago, my friends on the 
other side of the aisle passed out of this committee $300 
billion of spending on housing on a partisan-only basis. And 
now, that same $300 billion is on the chopping block, my 
friends, not by Republicans, but by other Democrats. The 
testimony we are going to hear today belongs in the Democratic 
Caucus meeting, not in this room today. If the Majority wants 
to hold press conferences and send letters to the White House, 
please, that is absolutely your right. But while our committee 
is holding yet again another hearing, as the ranking member 
said, on housing as infrastructure, we are turning a blind eye 
to so many other important issues under our jurisdiction.
    Why have we not heard from the Biden Administration and the 
Treasury Department? Why did they cancel the hearing yesterday 
which was to help us understand why the current IMF managing 
director continues her service, or to understand Treasury's 
views about sanctions? Instead of using the committee today as 
a prop, we should be doing our businesses of oversight.
    I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. I would now like to welcome our first 
panel of witnesses today: Mr. John Harrison, a program 
coordinator with Nick's Place, who has formerly experienced 
homelessness; Mr. Michael Edmonds, a resident of Tucson House 
in the Tucson Public Housing Authority; Ms. Fernanda Maria 
Galindo, a cost-burdened renter from the District of Columbia; 
Ms. Symone Crawford, a first-generation homeowner, and the 
director of STASH and Homeownership Operations, and also the 
incoming executive director with the Massachusetts Affordable 
Housing Alliance; and Mr. Jan Lee, a New York City rental 
property owner, who is testifying on behalf of the Small 
Property Owners of New York.
    You will each have 5 minutes to summarize your testimony. 
You should be able to see a timer on your screen on the table 
in front of you that will indicate how much time you have left 
in your testimony.
    And without objection, your written statements will be made 
a part of the record.
    Mr. Harrison, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to 
present your testimony.

STATEMENT OF JOHN HARRISON, FORMERLY EXPERIENCED HOMELESSNESS, 
AND SPEAKER/ADVOCATE, NATIONAL COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS, AND 
STREET OUTREACH NAVIGATOR, PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF 
                        SOCIAL SERVICES

    Mr. Harrison. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks 
for the opportunity to speak today.
    My name is John Harrison. I began working as a young man in 
the early 1980s. I had not gone to college. I thought I was 
ready to take on the world right out of high school, I suppose. 
At that time, though, houses cost about $70,000, and the 
interest rate was about 15 percent, so I put off the decision 
to try and save up a down payment to buy a house because most 
of my income and the house payments would have gone to interest 
then. Ten years down the road, my circumstances had not 
improved, and some of my skill sets were eroding, and not 
having gone to college was starting to catch up to me. It was 
difficult to save. Providing for my family took most of my 
income, and my family eventually broke apart and my marriage 
ended in divorce.
    I moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where housing 
costs were lower, but decent work was more difficult to find. 
The first episode of homelessness that I experienced was 
actually by choice. I lived in an abandoned warehouse while I 
was working at a job in order to not spend so much of my income 
on rent, and in about 6 years, I was able to buy a home. I 
bought a for-sale-by-owner property, but I was kind of naive 
about that process, and a number of things happened in 
succession.
    I worked at a company that was sold, and its new owners 
came in and made some changes. One of those changes was to 
eliminate my position there, and so I got laid off. While I was 
looking for my next job, my house burned down, and I did not 
receive any insurance settlement, partly because I had not 
really done my homework on all of the paperwork when I signed 
the mortgage papers. And I would have been homeless right then, 
but I had some kind neighbors who let me stay in a shed behind 
their house. Eventually, their landlord said I had to go.
    I made a personal decision that I needed to go to college 
if I really wanted to improve my situation long term, and so I 
enrolled in a community college, but I had not stabilized my 
housing. I would sleep in the woods on campus, and sometimes I 
would sleep in my car, but that effort turned out to be 
unsuccessful, and I also began to get discouraged because my 
family life had not worked out, my career had not really worked 
out, my education was not successful, and I eventually became 
literally homeless, living on the streets. And that experience 
began to take a toll on my health and also on my sense of self, 
and the longer I was homeless, the less likely I thought I 
would be able to escape or overcome my homelessness.
    But I did have the support of a number of great people, and 
one of the organizations that was helpful to me was the 
National Coalition for the Homeless, in helping me restore a 
sense of purpose at that time. And I was able to return to 
college. I achieved an associate's degree, and that helped me 
employment-wise. I did work as a program coordinator for Nick's 
Place, but now I have moved on, and I work for the Prince 
George's County Department of Social Services as a street 
outreach navigator. In my work for them, I talk to people 
experiencing homelessness, and try to build a rapport with 
them, and make an effort to connect them to resources that 
might be available. But, again, as my personal circumstances 
are improving, the cost of housing is again rising so quickly 
that at least homeownership is still certainly out of reach for 
me.
    A couple of things I would like to say quickly before I 
wind up is that in our continuum of care, we use a coordinated 
entry process. We use rapid re-housing, transitional re-
housing, and we also have permanent supportive housing. While 
many people are in need of that, none of those have openings 
right now. Thank you very much.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Harrison can be found on 
page 122 of the appendix]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you, Mr. Harrison. Mr. Edmonds, 
you are now recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.

 STATEMENT OF MICHAEL EDMONDS, RESIDENT, TUCSON HOUSE, CITY OF 
  TUCSON DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, AND 
           SECRETARY, TUCSON HOUSE RESIDENTS COUNCIL

    Mr. Edmonds. Thank you very much. My name is Michael 
Edmonds. I am a resident of public housing in Tucson, Arizona, 
and I currently serve as the secretary of the Tucson House 
Residents Council, where I live. Tucson House is a 17-story 
public housing building which is home to over 400 households, 
most of whom are older or disabled adults. I am begging on my 
behalf and for those who are in similar situations as myself 
and my neighbors that you provide all of the funding that is 
necessary towards housing in the Build Back Better Act.
    Growing up, I became conditioned to expect housing to be 
very unstable. I was a child of a teenage mother. I lived in a 
household which was abusive and never financially stable. Many 
times, my family was forced to survive in shelters that were 
deteriorating. I specifically remember a trailer and a shack on 
an alley a few feet away from railroad tracks. My second 
stepfather was in the Air Force, and we were assigned to West 
Germany, where I lived in school dormitories. After returning 
to the United States, all I could afford to rent was a 
converted storage shed in Arizona that had a shower and a 
toilet with no cooling and no heating. I saved enough money for 
an old Ford Galaxy 600, and I lived in that.
    After couch surfing amongst bouts of homelessness for over 
a decade, I was offered the privilege to live here in Tucson 
House in 2019. After moving into Tucson House, I immediately 
began to investigate my options to get a job, return to 
college, or begin a business, and to get involved in my new 
community. I became actively involved in the THRIVE in the 05 
Initiative in my neighborhood. It is a community-driven 
collaboration that involves crime reduction, neighborhood 
improvements, and workforce and economic development, including 
a Choice Neighborhoods Planning and Action Grant from HUD 
focused on Tucson House. I was appointed secretary of the 
Tucson House Residents Council. I am a member of the THRIVE in 
the 05 Steering Committee. I volunteer as a street ambassador 
for the City's Transportation Department, and I was appointed 
by Tucson's mayor and council to their Commission on Equitable 
Housing and Development, of which now I am Vice Chair.
    When the COVID-19 pandemic began, my role in the Tucson 
House Residents Council changed, because the older and disabled 
residents needed daily assistance and attention, including 
food, personal care items, and other requests. My neighbors 
were suddenly isolated, scared, and extremely vulnerable to the 
deadly disease. I put my own healthcare and job search on hold 
to answer the call from my neighbors for assistance. When I 
take time for myself, my neighbors do not know whom they can 
turn to and rely on for assistance. The stable housing that 
Tucson House provides has been life-changing for many residents 
during the pandemic, especially those who were formerly 
homeless like me.
    However, the physical needs of our 60-year-old building 
have created additional stress and uncertainty for residents 
during this time. With the elevators routinely breaking, 
residents who cannot take the stairs can be forced to wait for 
long periods for an elevator, which creates conflicts and 
fighting. I believe I have experienced the longest wait time 
for an elevator at 45 minutes. Tucson House lacks building-wide 
internet, without which many residents were suddenly cut off 
from contact with their neighbors, service providers, and 
friends and family. Entire systems, like water or cooling, 
occasionally fail and require emergency response and repairs.
    Public housing, like my building, is in dire need of 
attention and support. Repairs have not been completed, and the 
lack of maintenance has caused the cost of repairs to become 
increasingly more expensive. Without full funding for the needs 
of Tucson House, over 400 people would need to be permanently 
relocated to housing that can accommodate them. This should 
include support services, internet access, modern amenities, 
enough large elevators to move hundreds of people, and hallways 
wide enough for motorized wheelchairs and scooters to be able 
to pass by each other, et cetera. However, funding to support 
the development of such new public housing or rehabilitation of 
existing buildings to integrate modern, environmentally-
friendly design does not meet the need. Existing programs like 
Choice Neighborhoods are not enough and also add barriers to 
eligibility for implementation funding that Tucson House may 
never meet.
    Housing is a primal necessity. The citizens of this country 
will never be able to grow, thrive, and prosper until we 
provide stable and safe shelter from which they can feel 
strength and begin to feel hopeful. Housing allows for 
increased physical and behavioral health. Tucson is 
experiencing a housing crisis, with the cost of rent rapidly 
increasing recently. We must preserve, maintain, and increase 
our public housing as one ongoing solution to our housing 
shortage. I urge you to fully fund the housing component of the 
Build Back Better Act so that myself my neighbors and I can 
live in safe, high-quality housing that meets our needs. 
Starting with housing, from which all other objectives could 
follow, is the proper and logical way to successfully support 
the citizens of the United States of America.
    Thank you for this opportunity to testify today.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Edmonds can be found on page 
116 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Edmonds.
    Ms. Galindo, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to 
present your testimony.

 STATEMENT OF FERNANDA GALINDO, COST-BURDENED RENTER, DISTRICT 
                          OF COLUMBIA

    Ms. Galindo. Thank you. My name is Fernanda Galindo. I am 
32-years-old. I have a 5-year-old son with learning 
disabilities. We live in Washington, D.C. We have lived here 
for 6 years in a studio apartment. Through those years, I have 
always struggled to afford to pay rent. I have worked as a 
nanny, an assistant teacher, a maid, and a line cook. I have 
worked 3 jobs at the same time just to make ends meet, over 70 
hours a week to afford to pay rent and care for my son, yet I 
still faced the risk of eviction on several occasions.
    With time, I was able to start making more money with only 
one job, but I still struggled many months to afford rent. On 
occasion, I had to choose between paying rent on time or buying 
food. When the pandemic hit, I was lucky enough to have 
employers who continued to pay me even though I could not come 
to work. When the lockdown was lifted, I was not able to return 
to work because my son needed care, and there was no one else 
to watch him. I was lucky to find another job where I could 
bring my son. However, I was always worried about money. If any 
unexpected expense occurred, I would be unable to maintain 
housing for me and my son. I could not and still cannot even 
entertain the idea of saving money to buy a house one day.
    After this school year was over, the families who employed 
me no longer needed care for their kids. I searched for another 
job and placed my son in summer camp. It was closed after a few 
weeks because of several cases of COVID, so I could no longer 
go to work. I could not find care for my son, and I had no idea 
how to pay for rent anymore. I found out about a program called 
STAY DC, which is run by the D.C. Government, to help families 
who owe rent or could not afford rent anymore. I reached out, 
and the next morning we submitted my application. I was told to 
wait 6 weeks to hear back, and I hope that you never experience 
the amount of stress I felt while waiting for a response. I was 
granted money to pay for 3 months of rent in advance. When I 
read the email, I cried because I could breathe again.
    Some people claim that such help is a handout that creates 
dependence on government services. This is not true. The 
support I have received is a critical bridge to self-
sufficiency. It gives me peace of mind and provides me interim 
financial stability. I mentioned at the beginning of my 
testimony that we live in a studio apartment. I have tried to 
find a bigger place. I do not care about luxurious. I just 
think that a kid should have his own bedroom. There are limited 
options for us with year-long wait lists. The need for 
affordable housing in this area is an urgent matter.
    My son was also accepted in one of the best schools in D.C. 
As exciting as that is, I worry that I am not going to be able 
to make this sustainable for us. He can only attend if he is a 
D.C. resident, so if we cannot find affordable housing where my 
son can have his own room, I may have to give up the good 
school to meet my housing needs. This may cause us to relocate 
and lose the opportunity that my son has to receive the quality 
education that will open doors for him in the future, and 
potentially end the cycle of never-ending financial hardship.
    But there is also another option, which is why I am here 
today. Congress needs to include robust funding for housing and 
rental assistance in the Build Back Better Act.
    Throughout my life, I have worked very hard to build a 
dignified life for my son. I have played by the rules, yet the 
struggle that I have experienced, alongside millions of other 
moms, is often overwhelming. If Congress does not ensure that 
people have access to safe, reliable, affordable housing, it 
will undermine my and others' ability to hold down a job, pay 
rent and bills, and build a better life for our families. It 
will, in effect, undermine our nation's recovery.
    Thank you again for inviting me to speak with you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Galindo can be found on page 
120 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. Ms. Crawford, you are now 
recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.

   STATEMENT OF SYMONE CRAWFORD, FIRST-GENERATION HOMEOWNER, 
 DIRECTOR OF STASH AND HOMEOWNERSHIP OPERATIONS, AND INCOMING 
 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MASSACHUSETTS AFFORDABLE HOUSING ALLIANCE

    Ms. Crawford. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member 
McHenry, and members of the House Financial Services Committee. 
My name is Symone Crawford. I am here today as the incoming 
executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing 
Alliance (MAHA) based in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and as a 
first-time, first-generation homeowner. We are a Statewide 
organization singularly focused on breaking down barriers for 
first-time and first-generation homebuyers and closing the 
racial homeownership and wealth gaps. We have graduated 40,000 
Massachusetts residents from our homeownership education 
programs and have negotiated a mortgage program that has made 
it possible for over 23,000 low- to moderate-income, first-time 
homebuyers to purchase their first home.
    That was me in 2004. As an immigrant from the Island of 
Jamaica who migrated here in 1998, I was a renter in Boston 
experiencing an unstable housing situation in a high-cost 
market. An extended family member was kind enough to offer us a 
small temporary space to live, but it was not a long-term 
solution for our family of five. My husband and I realized that 
we needed to buy a home and stabilize the living environment 
for our three growing daughters.
    I took a first-time homebuyer class at MAHA in 2004. They 
assisted as we found an affordable mortgage that MAHA had 
negotiated with an area bank, thanks to the Community 
Reinvestment Act (CRA). We bought a three-family home in 
Mattapan where we still live today. We garden in the backyard 
and benefit every day from the fixed cost of owning our home.
    Now that our daughters are grown, we are happy to report 
that our oldest daughter bought her first home, less than a 
mile from where we live, and the two younger ones are each on 
their path to owning a home as well.
    We are experiencing a crisis in the United States where 
buying a first home is out of reach for many of our working 
families, particularly first-generation homebuyers, those 
without the bank of mom and dad. Investments in homeownership 
from our Federal Government will stabilize individuals and 
communities and benefit our economy. We desperately need funds 
for first-generation homebuyers in order to address racial and 
economic inequities that existed before COVID-19 struck and 
then worsened over the course of the pandemic.
    Communities of color that were hit the hardest by COVID-19 
have been deliberately and systematically excluded from 
homeownership opportunities for generations. We can use housing 
funds in Build Back Better at this moment of racial reckoning 
to begin to repair the harm that has been done.
    Homebuyers like Akilah, who is now a first-generation 
homeowner in Taunton thanks in part to MAHA's STASH Program, 
and the innovative first-time homebuyer product, ONE Mortgage, 
from the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and participating 
lenders. Akilah completed a 7-year journey to homeownership in 
July 2020 after being forced, due to high rents, into a living 
condition where her young son could not stay with her full-time 
because the landlord had pets that triggered his allergy and 
asthma.
    And Dafany, another first-generation homeowner that we 
worked with. She enrolled in the MAHA STASH Program in 2019 and 
worked closely with me as she began her journey towards 
homeownership. After many twists and turns, not to mention 
being outbid 5 times by homebuyers with more resources, Dafany 
was able to close on a single-family home in the Boston 
neighborhood of Mattapan last summer thanks to the assistance 
and encouragement she received during our First-Generation 
Homebuyer Program, and the ONE Mortgage. As she states, ``STASH 
kept me on track and motivated me to complete my dream of 
homeownership.''
    The Urban Institute estimates that a national first-
generation down payment program of $25,000 would cover 5 
million households that are disproportionately Black, but also 
include millions of White, Asian, and Hispanic households. This 
is a necessary part of Build Back Better, and there is no time 
like today to significantly invest in our nation's first-
generation homebuyers. Homeownership is generational. Children 
of homeowners tend to be homeowners. Children of renters are 
more likely to stay renters throughout their lifetime. We can 
and we need to break this pattern.
    We thank Chairwoman Waters, my own Congresswoman, Ayanna 
Pressley, and all those who are fighting hard to include 
housing and first-generation homebuyers in this legislation. 
Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Crawford can be found on 
page 100 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. Mr. Lee, you are now 
recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.

  STATEMENT OF JAN LEE, NEW YORK CITY RENTAL PROPERTY OWNER, 
 TESTIFYING ON BEHALF OF THE SMALL PROPERTY OWNERS OF NEW YORK 
                            (SPONY)

    Mr. Lee. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member 
McHenry, and members of the committee. My name is Jan Lee, and 
I am a third-generation property owner from New York's 
Chinatown. I am also a board member of SPONY, the Small 
Property Owners of New York, an all-volunteer advocacy 
organization representing a unique, but important, sector of 
the real estate industry.
    Just before the turn of the 20th Century, my grandfather 
came to New York City. He was a young man, who, upon his first 
visit to America, developed such a love for this country that 
he would do everything he could to partake in the American 
Dream of homeownership, this despite an avalanche of laws that 
barred many Chinese from both coming to the country and from 
settling here permanently. My grandfather, Lee Si Fun, would 
start a family and put down roots here. He was here to stay.
    At around the time that Rodgers and Hart would write a song 
that would become a part of the American song book, entitled, 
``We'll Take Manhattan,'' in 1925, the song that has the famous 
phrase, ``And what street compares to Mott Street in July.'' My 
grandfather by then would have worked for some time as a 
bookkeeper, and, as fortune would have it, he would be putting 
a down payment on two tenement buildings on that very famous 
street in the heart of what is known as Chinatown.
    And after 96 years of owning these small rental properties, 
I look back at my grandfather's life since that song was 
written, and how he shoveled the snow and swept the halls and 
struggled as the only Chinese family in the building at the 
time. The building's income after paying maintenance, taxes, 
and mortgages has never been enough for any member of my family 
to just sit back and collect rent. In fact, there is nothing 
lord-like about being landlords for us. We find this phrase 
laughable when it comes to us and many Americans who own small 
rental properties. We are hardly lords. We are just small 
property owners.
    The ownership of property has meant so much to us that we 
kept holding on. Through the Depression, World War II, 9/11, 
hurricanes, blackouts, and recessions, we kept hoping for an 
eventual breaking point where we could finally turn a profit, 
but that day never seems to come. Our savings are spent on the 
building's taxes and expenses year after year after year. As I 
sit before you, the third generation to manage our family 
properties, which are old buildings built when Ulysses S. Grant 
was President, I am here to tell you that it has only gotten 
more difficult since my father and my grandfather's time.
    Policies that are created to supposedly help housing 
providers have actually kept us from being able to renew our 
century-old buildings and left us with no choice but to leave 
some apartments vacant. What has been created are regulatory 
statutes that are so onerous that only the largest corporate 
owners who have the funds can comply, leaving the rest of us 
small owners in a perpetual tailspin as we try to manage taxes, 
and insurance, and maintenance, and that was before COVID-19. 
Family funds and emergency savings have been tapped out long 
ago because of this pandemic, and loans are okay, but they need 
to be paid back, and often those loans are piggybacked on top 
of other loans, compounding the burden of recovery. Mortgage 
deferments are mortgage forgiveness, and it would be unwise to 
defer payments for too long. Interest never stops.
    In New York City, the penalties for late tax payments are a 
staggering 18 percent, and since the global pandemic started, 
not one tax deadline has been rolled back. We are reminded that 
lien sales are on the horizon again this December, and yet we 
hope upon hope that our government will find solutions that 
will keep us in our homes and in our neighborhoods. As minority 
owners, we serve as the gateway for many immigrant families 
like ours, and we are proud to contribute our part in taxes, 
but we need to be able to make a profit at the end of the day.
    Stable housing relies on stable income. Providing robust 
and stable housing that is fully compliant with ever-changing 
building codes, and health codes, and every other regulatory 
statute that seems to crop up like weeds, can only happen when 
our income is also robust and stable. We cannot provide the 
best housing for our tenants if we are expected to do so while 
we are hobbled, and blinded, and muted, and starving. We are 
humans in the care of humans, but we are not magicians. We need 
to be made stable and made whole, and time is running out for 
us.
    To sum everything up, the message I want to leave with you 
today is that small property owners are not the bad guys out to 
take advantage of others, as some of you may have heard. We are 
hardworking small business owners who have our own bills to 
pay, and who struggle in tough economic times just like 
everyone else. Small property owners provide an important 
service in every city and every town in America. We take pride 
in providing it. Our voice deserves to be included in these 
conversations and we stand ready to help with the solutions.
    Thank you again for this opportunity to tell my story. It 
is an honor to testify in front of this committee today, and I 
look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lee can be found on page 123 
of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. I now recognize 
myself for 5 minutes for questions.
    Mr. Harrison, thank you so much for being here today to 
share your story with us. Your voice is such an important part 
of this discussion. You talked about how one mishap cost you 
everything--your home, your possessions, your stability. Before 
losing your home, did you ever, ever imagine you would someday 
experience homelessness?
    Mr. Harrison. Thank you for the question. No, I could not 
imagine becoming homeless, and beyond that, I really was not 
immediately able to recognize the desperate level of my 
circumstances even after it happened. I could not really 
process how so much had changed so drastically, and that in 
itself was difficult to adjust to. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. While you are no longer experiencing 
homelessness, are there any ways in which the housing 
affordability crisis continues to affect your housing options?
    Mr. Harrison. In escaping homelessness, I first shared a 
dwelling with nine other people, and then I was able to move 
from there and share with four other people, so there were five 
of us. And after that, I was able to share with two other 
people, and now I have a good situation where I share with one 
person, but we each have our own private living space. But I 
still have not been able to have, ``my own place,'' because 
even with an okay job, renting my own place would take way more 
than half of my income, and it would also kind of crush my last 
hopes of saving to get my own place one day. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Let me just ask 
another question. In your testimony, you also talked about how 
you now work to connect people experiencing homelessness with 
housing resources. What does it mean for your clients when they 
receive a housing voucher? Why are vouchers such a critical 
tool in addressing the affordable housing crisis?
    Mr. Harrison. A voucher is financial support from a public 
housing authority that enables a person with a small, but 
insufficient income to have the costs of their own place 
subsidized. As an example, in the continuum of care where I 
work, I have a client whose income is $694, and they received a 
voucher, and I am helping them find a place that would cost 
about $1,300 a month. But the other thing I would like to 
quickly mention is that it is difficult, because housing is 
rising so quickly, for the amount of the vouchers, which are 
actually different in every ZIP Code, to hopefully have a good 
ratio to the cost of housing. They have slipped in just this 
year to making it difficult to turn a voucher, which is a great 
thing, into actual housing because the amount of support is 
just barely able to afford a place of which there are not 
enough in the first place.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Crawford, I would like to ask you, in recent years, the 
share of renters in the U.S. has increased, with the overall 
national homeownership rate projected to decrease by 2040. One 
of the most restrictive barriers that keeps people from 
attaining homeownership is the down payment and other upfront 
costs. This is especially true for people of color, whose 
families have historically been excluded from homeownership 
opportunities due to redlining and ongoing housing and lending 
discrimination, and who, therefore, do not have family wealth 
to rely on for help with those upfront costs. There are first-
time homebuyer programs all across the country, but Boston is 
the only City that we are aware of with a first-time and first-
generation program. Why did your organization choose this 
approach?
    Ms. Crawford. Thank you for the question. We have been 
doing so many things over the decades trying to close the 
racial and homeownership and wealth gap. And after the stark 
reality that came out last year about the inequities for people 
of color, targeting first-generation homebuyers or potential 
homebuyers was one of the best ways we see to actually deal 
with those who have been systematically redlined out of the 
process of owning their own home. But it is also Fair Housing 
Act-safe, so that all who need help with housing, and 
homeownership, in particular, who are first-generation buyers 
are included. So, it is an inclusive policy. Thank you for the 
question.
    Chairwoman Waters. And thank you very much. The gentleman 
from North Carolina, Mr. McHenry, who is the ranking member of 
the committee, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. McHenry. In 2020, in the midst of a health-induced 
shutdown of our economy, Congress, on a bipartisan basis, 
passed legislation, not once, not twice, but three times, in 
order to support our economy and keep households stable as best 
we could in the midst of the COVID-induced shutdowns. It was 
bipartisan. Let me repeat that: It was bipartisan. As a result 
of those efforts, we stabilized the economy.
    But in January of this year, with unified Democratic 
control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, they 
decided to go it alone. They had a $2-trillion bill that they 
passed on a partisan basis in the name of COVID, but we said at 
the time that it was going to raise the price of things. It was 
going to raise the price of things for average Americans and 
create inflation, and inflation pressures were going to be bad 
for American families.
    On Monday of this week, the San Francisco Federal Reserve 
released their findings on the impact of that bill at the 
beginning of this year. Now, this is not from a right-wing 
group. This is from the left-leaning San Francisco Fed. The 
report restates what economists told us at the beginning of 
this year. As of March, the economy had, ``at least partially 
recovered from the pandemic,'' and was in the midst of, ``a 
strong rebound.'' The report goes on to say, ``Our analysis 
suggests that the American Rescue Plan is projected to cause a 
transitory increase in the vacancy-to-unemployment ratio, which 
translates into a core inflation rate that is about .3 
percentage points higher per year through 2022.''
    Let me just translate what that means. Economists are 
predicting higher inflation through 2022 because of this 
Democrat bill, Democrat spending. So, Democrats have already 
impacted core inflation. Now, they want to throw more fuel on 
the fire. That is what this whole thing is about. That is the 
reason why we have two panels today because the Democrat Chair 
is trying to talk to her Democrat colleagues try to get them to 
pass her legislation. That is what it is about. You are going 
to hear other defenses today, that inflation is transitory, 
that it is based on supply chain issues, but the fact of the 
matter is that the San Francisco Fed pins higher prices of 
things on Democrat policies.
    So, we see core inflation going up. What does that mean? 
The things that families buy are more expensive, and they are 
more expensive than any wage gains we are seeing in the 
economy, so people are going to see higher prices. At the same 
time, we see 10 million jobs that are open right now, 10 
million jobs that are unfilled. We hear from the National 
Federation of Independent Business, which represents small 
businesses, that 50 percent of small businesses still have job 
openings to fill.
    Yet at the time, the whole debate here in Washington is, 
how do we spend more money because the economy is in peril? The 
economy is not in the peril that my Democrat colleagues are 
saying. It is, in fact, their policies that are driving up the 
cost of everything families buy, including the housing concerns 
that we have here from this panel. So, you can pin this back on 
bad policies and high spending out of Washington right now. 
That $2-trillion spending spree back at the beginning of the 
year is going to look small compared to what the Democrats are 
debating amongst themselves today.
    So, what happens as a result of these bad policies? We are 
going to see the economy not grow as strongly as it otherwise 
should. We are going to see families left worse off than had 
they not spent this additional money and put us further into 
debt, and that erosion is going to be real. Just try to go to 
the grocery store now and compare your prices from 6 months ago 
or a year ago. Look on the shelves and see the availability of 
things on the shelf. Why? Because we have jobs that are 
unfilled, which is limiting the production of the things that 
we buy, and the things that we are trying to buy are more 
costly as a result of the Democrats' spending policies in 
Washington. So spending more money, a $3-trillion bill, or a 
$2-trillion bill, or whatever they are debating right now, we 
read in the press, is not going to make things better. The data 
shows that, in fact, it is going to make things worse.
    The outrageous part of this whole hearing is that it is not 
in keeping with the needs of the American people. More money 
out of Washington is not going to fix the problem and the 
challenges that we hear from the panelists today. And, in fact, 
it is the very people that they say they are trying to help, 
whom they are hurting in raising the price of everything you 
buy, and at the same time, not enabling you to make more money.
    Let's get back to basic principles here. What we see from 
my Democrat friends over the long run is they are going back to 
their traditional liberal policies that make things worse for 
the average family. And as I have said time and time again, my 
Democrat colleagues recognize this. They have learned nothing 
from history, and yet they have forgotten nothing. I yield 
back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
    The gentlewoman from New York, Ms. Velazquez, who is also 
the Chair of the House Committee on Small Business, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Ranking 
Member McHenry, for holding this important hearing.
    I guess that this is the time, this is the moment where we 
need to increase the Federal minimum wage that hasn't been 
increased for decades now, and you will have workers who are 
concerned about the impacts of COVID-19 coming back to work. 
One of the segments in our economy where we see the highest 
numbers in unemployment is among women. Maybe this is the time 
to fund childcare so that they could join the labor workforce.
    Mr. Edmonds, for years I have led the charge for additional 
resources to preserve public housing. This committee's plans of 
the Build Back Better Act dedicates $80 billion to HUD's Public 
Housing Capital Fund, which is enough to eliminate the capital 
repair backlog for all public housing nationwide. Can you speak 
to how this money could improve the conditions in your 
development and upgrade your standard of living?
    Mr. Edmonds. The first thing that comes to my mind is pest 
control. We have pest problems.
    The second would be, as I said before, the elevators. We 
have over 400 people in here with scooters and wheelchairs. We 
have two elevators that, let us say, reasonably would hold four 
people each. We have one loading dock elevator, which has been 
out of commission for over a year.
    We have been looking at the renovation of the building, 
looking at some different plans, putting elevators at the end 
of the building. If you would like more information about 
Tucson House, you can do a search, and there is an article on 
it in Wikipedia, as well as on thriveinthe05.com. That is t-h-
r-i-v-e-i-n-t-h-e-0-5.com.
    Outside of that, well, security would be great. We could 
also use office space renovation, because it is difficult, we 
are working out of the basement. We are just trying to make do, 
just the Residents Council as well as administration.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you.
    Mr. Edmonds. I apologize. Go ahead.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Edmonds.
    Mr. Edmonds, again, my home City of New York has the 
largest public housing authority in the country. Federal 
disinvestment in public housing has forced New York City 
Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents to suffer from a consistent 
lack of hot water, insufficient heat during the winter months, 
rodent infestation, and a widespread and recurring lead and 
mold problem.
    These conditions have caused many residents to develop 
respiratory and other health problems. Have residents of the 
Tucson Public Housing Authority developed health conditions 
because of their unit situation?
    Mr. Edmonds. Yes. I will speak on their behalf. I wish they 
would be given the opportunity to speak for themselves. But, 
yes, I hear it from them. And as mentioned before, the cooling 
system has gone down. It is old. It is in need of repair.
    I was scrambling to try to get fans and those portable 
cooling units that you could put in a room, like a bedroom or 
something, just to try to keep people cool. I was worried.
    Ms. Velazquez. So, you obviously think that the additional 
money to improve the living conditions of public housing 
residents will also help improve their health outcomes?
    Mr. Edmonds. Absolutely. It is logical.
    Ms. Velazquez. Yes. Mr. Edmonds, public housing is an 
important asset to New York City, Tucson, and countless other 
communities around the country. Without an investment in public 
housing, this asset will be lost forever.
    Can you explain why preserving public housing is important 
for our communities, and as a resident of public housing, how 
has public housing supported you and your community, especially 
in areas like New York and Boston, where we are facing an 
affordability crisis?
    Mr. Edmonds. I don't have enough time to tell you 
everything I would love to right now. But when you give someone 
safety, security, a place to start from, they can start from 
zero, and you can build from there. Without it, there is 
nothing to build from. You are just trying to survive hour by 
hour.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentlewoman from 
Missouri, Mrs. Wagner, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Wagner. I want to thank the witnesses for taking time 
out of their schedules to appear before this committee and for 
sharing their very moving and personal stories with us. But 
sadly, today's hearing is purely political, an egregious misuse 
of time and resources by the Majority. After dozens of hearings 
and multiple markups on housing policy, the Democrats on this 
committee still cannot sell their own agenda to the American 
people or to their own colleagues, as we have seen in recent 
days and weeks.
    Since taking office, President Biden's actions have led to 
rampant inflation that is on track to hit the highest rate in 
40 years. We are in the middle of a growing supply chain 
crisis. Our gas prices at the pump are now 42 percent more than 
last year and heading higher. And on top of that, there is an 
unprecedented labor shortage, hurting millions of American 
small businesses, even though we have over 10 million job 
openings across the country.
    While the Majority debates whether to spend an additional 
$3 trillion or $4 trillion or $5 trillion in taxpayer money, 
instead of solving our growing economic problems, the hard-
working Missourians in my district are paying the price at the 
grocery store, the gas pump, and on everyday essentials. The 
more the President spends, the faster Missourians' family 
budgets are pushed to the breaking point.
    Our safety net should be designed to provide temporary 
assistance and invest in helping individuals prosper on their 
own. This type of cradle-to-grave social spending cannot and 
does not address the underlying challenges that families face.
    While Americans work to provide for their families, and 
save for retirement and their childrens' education, this 
Administration's and Democrats in the House's proposal would 
force them to report their private, personal banking 
transaction data to the government. The Majority has said that 
this surveillance scheme would only target the wealthy, but any 
account threshold will still target the middle class, small 
businesses, and the farmers of America.
    With cyberattacks on the Federal Government occurring more 
and more frequently, and the IRS' history of politically 
targeting Americans, why should Americans trust the IRS to 
safely store their personal banking information? The best way 
that we can help American families is with good-paying jobs, 
and the jobs are out there. And the businesses are offering 
competitive wages, well above the Democrats' mandates, but the 
incentive to work will not come back unless we change course 
now.
    In my congressional district, Balducci's, a beloved 
restaurant in our community, permanently closed this week after 
4 decades because of the labor shortage. This business had been 
seeking more employees for months. They needed more managers, 
cooks, and servers. And while they would receive applicants, 
the applicants would never show up for an interview. This is 
the same sad story again and again and again from other 
businesses in the area, and I can only imagine all of the 
Members in this room have similar tragic examples.
    What President Biden and the Democrats in the House are 
proposing will not strengthen our economy. It will not get 
Americans back to work to provide for their families, and it 
will not help our small businesses like Balducci's. Americans 
cannot afford another massive spending bill while their 
families are falling behind financially, as trillions in 
wasteful government spending are forcing them to spend hundreds 
of dollars extra per month on everyday essentials.
    I cannot and I will not support this massively-partisan 
spending bill while hard-working families are facing the 
economic consequences of this Administration.
    I thank you all for being here today, and I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentlewoman from 
Massachusetts, Ms. Pressley, who is also the Vice Chair of our 
Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions, 
is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters, for your 
vigilant and steadfast leadership. I appreciate that you have 
held--I think the number was 31--hearings in the Full Committee 
on housing. That is because it is fundamental. Housing is 
infrastructure.
    I also want to thank our witnesses. Certainly, I am biased 
here. So, a special thank you and my gratitude to my 
constituent and partner in housing justice, Ms. Symone 
Crawford. We are excited about your new leadership role. I 
appreciate you being here to share your experience as a first-
generation homeowner and, again, thank you for your work on 
behalf of prospective homebuyers throughout Massachusetts.
    Ms. Crawford, you immigrated to Boston from Jamaica in 1998 
and found yourself in an unstable housing situation in a high-
cost market. Thousands of people in Massachusetts certainly can 
relate to your experiences. You are now in a position to help 
many of them to purchase their homes, just like you did. Can 
you unpack for us a little bit how exactly down payment 
assistance has helped you and other first-generation homebuyers 
purchase a home?
    Ms. Crawford. Thank you so much, and I appreciate the kind 
words.
    High home prices and high rent make it very hard to save 
for a substantial down payment. If you have a small down 
payment, you are at a disadvantage competing against other 
buyers. And a down payment assistance grant gives you immediate 
equity in the house and helps you build wealth. So, you are 
starting with equity as you think about the down payment 
assistance.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Pressley. And just building on that a little bit more, 
Ms. Crawford, what are some of the ways that being a homeowner 
has benefited you and your family?
    Ms. Crawford. Thank you for the question.
    Can I invite you over to see my garden? It is called, ``the 
oasis in the city.'' It is life-changing. My daughters have a 
safe place to play. We have family cookouts and barbecue in our 
backyard. We make repairs, and we don't depend on a landlord. 
We have beautiful, bold colors on our living room walls. The 
list goes on and on.
    And of course, we have built equity over the last 17 years, 
equity that will benefit my family for the next generation to 
come.
    Ms. Pressley. Building wealth and building community. I 
look forward to having the opportunity to visit with you.
    The Massachusetts Seventh Congressional District is one of 
the most unequal in the country, and certainly the most unequal 
in the Massachusetts delegation, and that has everything to do 
with the disparity in homeownership, more specifically, Black 
homeownership. In Massachusetts, only 35 percent of people of 
color own their homes, compared to 69 percent of White 
families.
    The Massachusetts STASH program is the first of its kind. 
It helps eligible first-generation homebuyers buy a home. STASH 
has made real strides in closing the racial homeownership gap 
by helping 23,000 low- to moderate-income first-time homebuyers 
purchase their first home. Ninety-seven percent of STASH 
participants are people of color.
    This is the kind of targeted, race-conscious housing policy 
that we need to scale up. Nationwide, Black homeownership is 
the lowest it has been since 1968 when the Fair Housing Act was 
passed.
    I know folks are perhaps fatigued with our enumerating this 
sobering stat. We are just as tired of living it. Today's 
housing market is extremely competitive, and the cost of homes 
is skyrocketing.
    Ms. Crawford, yes or no, do you believe that without down 
payment assistance, the racial homeownership gap will go away 
on its own?
    Ms. Crawford. No.
    Ms. Pressley. I agree. From Massachusetts to West Virginia 
and Arizona, Black homeownership lags far behind White 
homeownership. This has locked generations of Black Americans 
in economic disadvantage. Every elected official should stand 
ready to fix this.
    If we are truly in the midst of a reckoning on racial 
injustice, the only receipts that matter are budgets and 
policies, and it is possible to enact policies that advance 
equity. That is exactly what the Build Back Better Act can do 
if we ensure that it includes the funding for down payment 
assistance that Chairwoman Waters and I have been fighting so 
hard for.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Crawford. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from 
Florida, Mr. Posey, is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you for holding this hearing on housing, 
Chairwoman Waters.
    Mr. Lee, I am a REALTOR by profession, and like all 
REALTORS, I am very sensitive to the many benefits of people 
being able to purchase a home if they desire to do so.
    Now, currently, hundreds of thousands of people are being 
invited to enter our country illegally at our Southern border. 
Of course, they will have to be housed somewhere. The word is 
that they are being flown all over the country to find homes. 
Do you believe that helps anyone, except the people here 
illegally, of course, afford the American Dream of 
homeownership?
    Mr. Lee. I can't speak specifically about immigration into 
the United States, Representative, but I can certainly talk 
about the fact that the regulatory laws here in New York City 
have made it so difficult for us to even renovate homes that we 
are actually facing what I would call an artificial shortage. 
If we look at the rent-regulated homes in New York City, and 
the passing of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act 
(HSTPA) in New York State in 2019, we have such onerous laws 
that restrict us from reasonable compensation to make major 
renovations when someone moves out of a rent-regulated unit.
    Mr. Posey. Excuse me, but--
    Mr. Lee. And that is really what is keeping our housing 
shortage that way.
    Mr. Posey. --I have limited time here. So, do you think 
this increased demand is going to affect the housing market in 
New York or anywhere else?
    Mr. Lee. Our demand in New York City is ever increasing 
based on a number of different factors, but we can release a 
number of apartments onto the rent rolls immediately if we are 
able to work with our small property owners, allow them the 
time that they need, but also the reasonable compensation to 
make reasonable repairs to upgrade our units so that they are 
fully compliant. And what we have today in New York City are 
laws that are so onerous that only the really big, big 
corporate providers can do that, and those apartments 
eventually become so expensive that they are not within reach 
of many people.
    Mr. Posey. Yes. Again, I hope all of us can agree that 
housing assistance from the Federal Government should deliver 
high-quality, safe, and sanitary housing at affordable prices. 
No doubt about that. And small property owners are regulated 
differently than public housing projects on quality. Can you 
tell us how the small property owners fit into meeting our 
housing objectives in terms of quality and price?
    Mr. Lee. I am glad you brought up that question. It is such 
a great question.
    The way that New York City controls its own housing is very 
different than how it regulates us in the private industry, the 
small property owners. There is a double standard that really 
needs to change.
    In public housing, you have to have a criminal background 
check done on you. You are also means-tested. You also have to 
check in every year with regard to your income; if you make too 
much money, you cannot live in public housing.
    That is not the case in New York City's rent-regulated 
units. You can own two or three homes. You can have expensive 
cars. You can accumulate wealth, and your rent is subsidized by 
the private owner. And that also is very unfair to all 
Americans.
    We need to be able to test people as they gain tremendous 
wealth and have them pay reasonable rent so that small property 
owners like us can actually maintain our centuries-old 
buildings. That is a reasonable ask. I think it needs to 
happen, and it will free up many, many apartments if we were 
able to do that.
    Mr. Posey. One of our challenges today is trying to reduce 
the cost of building and providing quality housing. How do 
small property owners add innovation to reducing housing costs 
and increasing supply?
    Mr. Lee. I'm sorry. Could you repeat that question?
    Mr. Posey. Yes, one of the challenges we have is trying to 
reduce the cost of building and providing quality housing. I 
wondered if you had any idea how small property owners add or 
could add innovation to reducing housing costs and increasing 
supply?
    Mr. Lee. Absolutely. One of the things that is wrong with 
New York City is that we have something called rent 
stabilization and rent control. We are looking toward a system 
based on vouchers called tenant stabilization, whereby the 
voucher will follow the tenant, and that adds mobility to 
people. It doesn't lock them into apartments that are not 
suited to them. It gives them the ability to move closer to 
their loved ones in other parts of the City.
    As long as the tenant is stable, the apartment rents can 
rise commensurate to the market. And that is really what we 
need to survive in this market. Otherwise, small property 
owners are going to be a thing of the past, and no one wants 
that. We are very important to the economy of New York City.
    And it was mentioned earlier about minority owners. I 
cannot stress to you enough the importance of minority owners 
in New York, and in all the cities of America. We add the 
character and the soul to many cities across this great 
country.
    Mr. Posey. Thanks. I see my time has expired.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from Colorado, 
Mr. Perlmutter, who is also the Chair of our Subcommittee on 
Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thanks for 
having this housing hearing.
    Obviously, we have had a lot of them, but that is because 
we know that housing is infrastructure, that by building 
housing for seniors, the disabled community, and low- to 
moderate-income people, we are providing something that our 
vulnerable populations need and can use, but it also, to some 
of Mr. Posey's question, releases and relieves some of the 
pressure on the other housing markets that we face.
    And so, I just think it is lots of jobs, and it is 
something that is long overdue. So, I thank you for holding 
this hearing.
    Let me ask a couple of questions. According to the Center 
on Budget and Policy Priorities, the average wait time to get 
housing assistance is nearly 2\1/2\ years. And for many 
families and individuals, it is even longer, or they can't even 
get on the waitlist.
    And I want to share a story about a constituent of mine 
that was covered by a local paper recently. In 2015, Jane, a 
45-year-old Arvada resident--I live in Arvada--applied for a 
Section 8 voucher after a severe illness and then a brain 
injury prevented her from working. Jane was able to get food 
stamps but didn't reach the top of the Section 8 housing 
assistance until 2018.
    When the Housing Authority finally had a voucher for her, 
they had trouble contacting her because she had been forced to 
move in with a family member, and they didn't have a current 
address. By the time she got in touch with them, they had given 
the voucher to someone else. Jane finally received her Section 
8 voucher in January 2020, about 5 years after she first 
reached out for help.
    Colorado, like most of the country, is facing a housing 
affordability crisis. And unfortunately, stories like Jane's 
are not outliers.
    So, Mr. Harrison, in Jane's story, she had a family member 
she could go to for temporary housing. What happens to people 
without a support network when they need housing assistance but 
have to wait for years to get that assistance?
    Mr. Harrison. Thank you, Congressman.
    The cumulative effects of living without stable housing 
take a pretty serious toll, and over the space of a couple of 
years, it is possible that a person's health would decline, 
their mental health would decline. It is a challenge to stay in 
touch and to be able to bring the voucher to fruition. It is a 
long wait time, and then usually a voucher may only be viable 
for 60 days before it is at risk of being given away.
    Mr. Perlmutter. And during that time, the individual is 
also out of the workforce, may be in a healthcare facility. So, 
the faster we can provide a voucher and get them into safe and 
sanitary public housing, as Mr. Posey said, we are in good 
shape.
    Let me follow up. Five years is a long time to wait for 
housing assistance, and for many others, they have to wait 
longer. For a lot of folks, trying to get benefits turns into a 
full-time job itself.
    And this is to anybody on the panel. Can you comment on 
your experience in searching for resources and trying to find 
assistance, and has this limited other opportunities for you?
    Mr. Edmonds. This is Mike Edmonds. May I speak?
    Mr. Perlmutter. Sure.
    Mr. Edmonds. There should be some information about my 
experience in my biography that I submitted, as well as my 
written testimony.
    Jumping through hoops--I will tell you about this one 
experience. There are various agencies that said, ``Hey, Mike, 
we can get you into a place.'' Great. Minutes before, I mean 
literally minutes before, they said, ``And we need $150 for the 
deposit.''
    This happened multiple times. It happened before I got into 
Tucson House as well. I wasn't able to obtain the money for the 
deposit, but they let me in, and they said, we will give you 2 
or 3 months.
    There are surprises at the end, just unexpected surprises.
    Mr. Perlmutter. When you were having to search for housing, 
did it stop you from other things that you could do that would 
be more profitable and productive?
    Mr. Edmonds. Absolutely. To summarize, I was couch surfing, 
living in places on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, not near 
any public transportation. There was drama in every household, 
violence. I had to call the police myself. And so, trying to 
find a job and another place to stay was rough.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Okay. Thank you for your testimony.
    And Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from Missouri, 
Mr. Luetkemeyer, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Luetkemeyer. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    I thank the witnesses for being here today. I appreciate 
your personal stories and congratulate you on the successes of 
overcoming some of your hardships.
    It's disappointing to be here again for the umpteenth time 
with regards to having another housing hearing today. I 
understand it is an important issue, but there are a lot of 
other important issues out there that this committee needs to 
be working on.
    Again today, I had somebody approach me with regards to the 
problems with Current Expected Credit Losses (CECL). We need to 
be going out and talking about the overreach by the Financial 
Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Where are we? No hearings.
    And what about Bitcoin? The other day, we had a great 
hearing with SEC Chairman Gensler, and he talked about the 
digital currencies, and what we need to do is have him come in, 
and Fed Chairman Powell come in, and talk about where we are at 
with that with regards to China and their digital currency and 
all of the things going on around that issue. Crickets. Still 
not there.
    We have businesses being choke-pointed off again, still 
being choke-pointed off by these new boards being taken over by 
the woke group who are cutting off financial services to all of 
our folks, and where are we on this? Crickets. While businesses 
suffer.
    And now we have the latest problem, which is this $600 
going through people's accounts. At that level, they become 
something that the IRS wants to be able to snoop around in.
    Let me give you some numbers really quickly on that. The 
amount of money you are talking about taking in if they do this 
$600 transaction with number of accounts that go through there, 
is $460 billion they think they can raise over 10 years. The 
shortfall on taxes over 10 years is $7 trillion. That is 6.5 
percent of that amount.
    This isn't about finding tax dollars, ladies and gentlemen. 
This is about a socialist takeover of our government and the 
government snooping on your daily activities in your accounts, 
whether you are a small business person or an individual. This 
has to stop. This is nonsense. Do we have a hearing on that? 
No.
    By the way, the average person, if you really want to go 
this way, has $61,000, according to Senator Crapo, that goes 
through their account on an annual basis. So, the average 
person has $61,000, and we are trying to find people with less 
than $400,000. We are going to talk about taxing them and 
trying to find money from them. This is nonsense.
    In the meantime, what we have done is to have hearings on 
having bank accounts at the Fed, a national credit bureau, Post 
Office lending, which I guarantee you if those issues are 
brought up in the form of a bill in this committee, would not 
pass. They would not pass. There is not enough support on that 
side of the aisle to even get that done. So, here we are today 
for the umpteenth time talking again about housing.
    I am also the ranking member on the House Small Business 
Committee, and yesterday, we had a hearing, and we had a 
gentleman from the National Association of Home Builders 
testify. His comment was that so far this year, lumber prices 
have increased $36,000 per house, for an average home. His next 
comment was that for every $1,000 of increased cost, 150,000 
people no longer had access to a home. They couldn't afford a 
home mortgage.
    You multiply 36,000 times 150,000, you get 5.4 million 
homes that can't be bought because of inflation. And where does 
inflation come from? Guess what, we have been talking about it 
this morning. The Biden inflation bills of the past continue to 
roil our economy and continue to feed the fires of inflation, 
and it is unbelievable that we continue to go down this road.
    My question is for Mr. Lee. You are a small business guy. 
Have you looked at the tax plan that the President is 
proposing, the Democrats are proposing with regards to--I don't 
know whether you are an S corp or a C corp, but have you looked 
at the tax plan to see how it is going to affect you?
    Mr. Lee. To be honest, I have not. I am trying to get by 
month to month here, Representative. We are living in very, 
very trying times, as are many homeowners in New York.
    Mr. Luetkemeyer. I appreciate that comment, because your 
Representative should be watching out for you and making sure 
that you don't get taxed out of business. But here is just a 
little bit of a deal for you. Are you an S corp or a C corp?
    Mr. Lee. We are an LLC.
    Mr. Luetkemeyer. LLC, okay. Okay, did you understand that 
you are probably going to lose your 20 percent deduction 
upfront? Are you okay with that?
    Mr. Lee. Oh, no, I am certainly not okay with that.
    Mr. Luetkemeyer. No, you are not. That is great. What about 
increasing taxes? Because you are an LLC, your individual rate 
is actually going to get bumped up a little bit. Are you okay 
with that?
    Mr. Lee. No. Absolutely not.
    Mr. Luetkemeyer. Absolutely not. What is that going to mean 
in increased costs to you and to the people who rent from you 
in your building?
    Mr. Lee. We are in a situation, Representative, that my 
rents are locked. We are heavily regulated here in New York 
City with rent stabilization and rent control.
    Mr. Luetkemeyer. Okay. So, if your rents are locked, what 
does that mean for you then?
    Mr. Lee. We are on the verge of--
    Mr. Luetkemeyer. You have to eat those costs, right?
    Mr. Lee. Absolutely.
    Mr. Luetkemeyer. Absolutely. That is all I need.
    Thank you very much. I yield back.
    Mr. Lee. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from 
California, Mr. Vargas, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I 
appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I really want to thank 
all of the witnesses who are here today.
    Listening to my good friends on the other side of the 
aisle, my Republican friends, it sounds like they don't care 
about housing at all. It really is fascinating to me that they 
ask, why are we talking about housing? It seems that they might 
not be talking to their constituents.
    Housing is a huge issue. Not only for my constituents, but 
I am confident for their constituents, too. I can't believe 
that they don't want to talk about housing. It is so important. 
Housing is infrastructure.
    And Madam Chairwoman, that is why I think it is so 
important that we talk about it and we get something done. Now, 
I guess they think, too, that it is so easy to buy a home. Just 
have mom and dad give you the down payment. We are all 
millionaires, I guess, huh? Just let mom and dad do it. I think 
they think that way.
    Well, the real world is not like that. It doesn't work that 
way. I really am impressed, in a negative way, by how they have 
been approaching this.
    Talking about inflation, yes, we do have inflation, but you 
forget we are coming out of a pandemic. You want to talk about 
facts, these are the facts. Trump gave us the worst jobs record 
since Herbert Hoover, literally the worst jobs record in modern 
history. He is the one who was responsible for that, if you 
want to put blame on someone. You want to blame Biden, why 
don't you blame Trump?
    And of course, yes, because we are coming out of this 
pandemic, we are going to have inflation because people are 
buying like crazy. I am from California, and I can tell you 
that our ports are backed up because so many people are buying 
now. There is all of this pent-up demand, and now people are 
buying. So, yes, we are going to have a problem with inflation.
    Now, the kind gentleman just spoke about lumber and how 
lumber has added so much to the cost of housing. I guess he 
hasn't been to Home Depot recently. I have, and I bought 
lumber.
    And it is interesting that a 2x4x8 used to cost about $3.15 
for an 8-foot piece in California. That is a 2x4x8 feet long. 
It went up to $8.95, $8.95 under Trump. Now, it is back down to 
about $3.45. So, it is still up a little bit, $3.15 to $3.45, 
but it is no longer at $8.95. The inflation is transitory. It 
is coming down, and I think that is important.
    But housing isn't coming down, and I think there are a 
whole bunch of things--I agree with some of the things that Mr. 
Lee has said. In fact, Mr. Lee, I think that we have made it 
overly hard in some of our cities for small business owners.
    Now, I am tempted to ask you--they they tried to drag you 
into immigrant bashing there, and you didn't take the bait. I 
was going to ask you, why didn't you take the bait on immigrant 
bashing, but I won't ask you that. But I do agree with you that 
there are a lot of issues there that make it very, very hard 
for small business owners when it comes to renting, and I 
appreciate that. I really do.
    But again, I find it amazing that housing, one of the 
biggest issues in our country, that the Republicans say there 
is nothing here. Don't worry about housing. Mom and dad will 
take care of it. We are all rich. That is not the case at all. 
The government has to be involved.
    I have to say there is a place for everything in our 
country. You have people, unfortunately, who are on the street, 
and you say it is a disgrace. If you go to Europe, you can't 
find a homeless person, because they take care of their people, 
everybody. We don't. We should.
    The government should be more involved with people who have 
a hard time trying to pay their rent, to make sure they are not 
homeless. It is a national disgrace. And for those of us who 
are Christians, to find people on the street like this is a 
scandal. What would Jesus say to see all these people living on 
the street and all of the good Christians passing by and saying 
there is no problem with housing? It really is shocking to me.
    I heard all of the personal stories today, and I appreciate 
each and every one of you. I know that some of you have made 
it. You have your home. You have a beautiful oasis, I guess, in 
Massachusetts. I congratulate you for that.
    But all of the people who are struggling, I tell you, the 
government should be with you. We should be with you. Madam 
Chairwoman, you should be with them, and you are with them. You 
are pushing for this.
    The last thing I want to say is, everybody talks about how 
$3.5 trillion is so much money, and it is. But it is only about 
1.2 percent of the gross domestic product if you take a look at 
our economy. That is what a number of economists have said, 
including Paul Krugman.
    The Congressional Budget Office says that during that time, 
2022 to 2031, our economy will produce $288 trillion against 
1.2 percent. What is it of our budget, of a Federal budget? 
About 4 percent, that is all it is. We ought to pass this 
thing.
    Thank you again, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate it.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from 
Michigan, Mr. Huizenga, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Huizenga. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    And I do want to address my friend, my brother in our 
faith, who was just speaking, who has a background--I believe 
he almost went into the ministry. Here is what Christians need 
to do: Get involved. Don't turn it over to the government. 
Don't just expect the government to do it. We, as people of 
faith, need to step into that breach. And here is the problem: 
We are expecting the government to do everything for everybody. 
This is a big government socialist spending spree.
    I am going to move on to some of the points I want to make, 
but I have to tell you, keep telling yourself, keep lying to 
yourself and your radical base that this inflation is just 
transitory.
    My family has a long history in construction, dating back 
to the 1930s with my grandfather, and our family is still 
involved in construction. So, I know exactly what has been 
happening with lumber. I know exactly what has been happening 
with concrete. I know exactly what has been happening in the 
labor market.
    Talk about a crisis. We have a crisis of the labor market, 
which is causing inflation under this Administration. And this 
is an important, important issue. As I said, for 3 generations, 
my family has done nothing but housing. In fact, when I 
graduated, I went into real estate full time as a REALTOR, a 
self-employed REALTOR.
    And as important as these issues are, having 13 Full 
Committee hearings on housing issues without working with the 
other side to do anything actually productive is not the goal 
of this committee. I happen to be the ranking member of our 
Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets 
Subcommittee, and I think that happens to be an important issue 
that we ought to start tackling.
    There are other subcommittees that have not had nearly the 
attention, that are just as important. And instead, my friends 
on the other side have just clearly been focused on passing a 
massive spending bill on their own side. And as the gentleman 
from Arkansas noted, this hearing would be better as a Democrat 
caucus meeting rather than utilizing a Full Committee hearing.
    Everybody knows the real goal of today's hearing is to 
publicly convince your fellow Democrats what should be included 
in the final reconciliation package, and I am not going to play 
along with that. Instead, I am going to use my remaining time 
to highlight clearly what all of this spending actually means.
    If President Biden's plans all get enacted, this country 
will go from $17 trillion in publicly held debt before the 
pandemic to over $40 trillion in publicly held debt 10 years 
from now. Under Democrat control of the House, there has been 
$6 trillion in deficits over the last 2 years from the 
pandemic, plus $12 trillion in baseline deficits from our other 
government programs, plus as much as another $6 trillion in new 
deficits from all of these different Democrat bills.
    According to the Congressional Budget Office, over the next 
30 years, we face a baseline deficit of $112 trillion--
``trillion,'' with a, ``t''--$112 trillion. That is just the 
baseline.
    That assumes the expiration of the stimulus spending, 
expiration of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, no more wars, no 
economic downturns, no terrorist attacks, no natural disasters, 
and no new spending programs. Plus, the Fed must maintain the 
easy money policies and artificially low interest rates it has 
been facing and has been promoting over the last number of 
years. That is not going to happen.
    At the end of this 30-year period, the debt is projected to 
be over 200 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP). Yes, I 
said that correctly, 200 percent. And again, this is all in a 
low-interest-rate scenario, which again, isn't going to be 
happening.
    So for every 1-percent increase in interest rates, that 
will mean an additional $1 trillion in cost per year, for a 1-
percent hike. And since it has been artificially held low, we 
know that it is going to rise naturally.
    In 2016, a particular Senator criticized the indifference 
of Congress to, ``the price our children and grandchildren will 
pay to redeem our debt when it comes due.'' Something has 
clearly changed. Now that a Senator is President of the United 
States--amid cratering poll numbers, I might add--Democrats in 
Congress are attempting to ignore the debt crisis altogether 
and kick their reckless spending spree into overdrive in an 
attempt to not build back better, but to buy back voters.
    With that, my time has expired.
    Chairwoman Waters. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Torres, 
is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Torres. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    The Republicans have said that the American Rescue Plan has 
led to permanent inflation, and the ranking member cited as 
proof a report from the San Francisco Fed. I actually want to 
read an excerpt from that report.
    ``Our analysis suggests that the ARP is projected to cause 
a transitory increase in the vacancy-to-unemployment ratio, 
which translates into a core inflation rate that is 0.3 
percentage points higher per year through 2022.''
    So, it is disingenuous to cite the report to support your 
argument but then neglect to mention the transitory nature of 
the inflation as identified by the same report.
    I find it striking that the Republicans on the committee 
have spent more time speaking about process and partisanship 
rather than actual policies that will address the affordability 
crisis and the people who would benefit from those policies. 
Several Republicans have said that this hearing is a waste of 
time. The ranking member said that we should focus on the 
priorities of the American people, as if to suggest housing is 
not among those priorities.
    So I am going to ask each of the panelists, and I will 
start with Ms. Crawford, as an American, is housing a priority 
for you?
    Ms. Crawford. Yes, definitely.
    Mr. Torres. Mr. Edmonds, is housing a priority for you, as 
an American?
    Mr. Edmonds. Housing is key to America, not shelter, 
housing.
    Mr. Torres. Ms. Galindo, is housing a priority for you?
    Ms. Galindo. Yes, it is.
    Mr. Torres. Mr. Harrison, is housing a priority for you?
    Mr. Harrison. Yes, sir. Yes, it is. Thank you.
    Mr. Torres. Mr. Lee, is housing a priority for you?
    Mr. Lee. Housing is my family's business. Yes, it is.
    Mr. Torres. Okay. So, clearly, housing is a priority of the 
American people. It turns out the talk of political insiders is 
insulated from the priorities of the American people, as 
demonstrated by the witnesses of the committee.
    Republicans often claim to support equality of opportunity 
rather than equality of outcome, but I ask myself, what exactly 
does it mean to have equal opportunity in America? It is one 
thing to preach it as an abstraction, but it is something else 
to make it a reality for every American.
    And I would submit to you that an essential element of 
equal opportunity is access to safe, decent, affordable 
housing. If you are homeless, can it be said that you have 
equal opportunity in America? If you are so rent-burdened that 
you cannot afford the bare necessities of life such as food, 
can it be said that you have equal opportunity in America? If 
you are a child who has been poisoned by lead in your own home, 
who is brain-damaged for the rest of your life, can it be said 
that you have equal opportunity in America?
    We, as Members of Congress, are privileged members of 
society, and we experience the centrality of housing in our own 
lives. And yet, inexplicably, there are Members of Congress who 
would deny to our fellow Americans the housing and stability 
that those same Members would take for granted in their own 
lives.
    I have a question for you, Mr. Edmonds. You are a resident 
in public housing. In New York City, our public housing stock 
houses a population of about half-a-million people, which is 
larger than most large cities in America.
    And most of those people would be homeless without public 
housing. Public housing is a safeguard against catastrophic 
homelessness. If you did not have access to public housing, 
what would happen to you?
    Mr. Edmonds. If I had not been able to get into Tucson 
House, I would have been on the street with everybody else, and 
who knows what would have happened to me? I don't even know 
what would have happened to me.
    Mr. Torres. And is the same true of your neighbors?
    Mr. Edmonds. Yes. Absolutely.
    Mr. Torres. And do you feel that if you were homeless, you 
would be more or less productive as a citizen?
    Mr. Edmonds. There is no way I could be more productive.
    Mr. Torres. And Ms. Galindo, I think you reminded us that 
housing is not only about where you live, but it is about the 
opportunities you can access, the quality of the schools that 
you can attend. Right? Housing is a factor in securing the best 
possible education for your child. Is that correct?
    Ms. Galindo. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Torres. Do you want to speak more about that?
    Ms. Galindo. Yes. The opportunity of him receiving a great 
education, that he could be raised with those who have access 
to better education would not be given if I have to give up on 
the little space that we have here.
    Mr. Torres. In your case, the denial of affordable housing 
would mean the denial of a quality education for your child, 
which is not a story unique to you, but it is true of Americans 
across our country, right? Where you live determines your 
access to opportunity. And so, for me, there is no issue more 
important for this committee to address than housing because it 
is foundational to everything else.
    I am ending with that.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from Kentucky, 
Mr. Barr, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Barr. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    And thank you to our witnesses for being here today. 
Unfortunately, I am not quite sure why you are here. From what 
I can tell, this is less of a hearing of substance than it is a 
lobbying exercise in the middle of an internal battle between 
my Democrat colleagues.
    Should the blowout housing spending be included in 
President Biden's big government tax-and-spend socialism bill, 
or will it be left on the cutting-room floor after the 
negotiations come to a conclusion? I think it is the latter, 
and I think we all know it.
    I think it is clear by the fact that Senator Manchin and 
Senator Sinema have made it clear that they are not interested 
in this, that this is an exercise in internal Democrat 
squabbling, and there is an effort to reduce the size and scope 
of this socialism package. And as a result of that, some of 
these housing priorities that the chairwoman is pushing are not 
going to make it into the final bill, if there is a final bill.
    So, why are we having a hearing? Why are we wasting 
Members' time discussing this charade, monopolizing the time of 
our witnesses who would undoubtedly be able to participate in 
something more productive?
    My colleague who just spoke talks about housing being a 
priority. Of course, it is a priority. It is a priority for 
every American. Look, that is why we work. That is why people 
go get jobs. They get jobs so that they can pay rent, and they 
can pay mortgages.
    There are 10.5 million unfilled jobs right now. Nobody is 
denying housing to Americans. You have to work. You have to 
work for it. You have to get a job. You have to get an 
education and pay for rent, pay for housing.
    This committee has already voted on its portion of the 
reconciliation bill. We had a spirited debate. Every Republican 
on this panel voted, ``No.'' So why are we revisiting the 
issue? It is because the Majority can't get their act together 
and communicate amongst themselves.
    The size of the package will need to shrink significantly 
to have any real chance of passing. This committee reported 
$325 billion in its ill-conceived housing spending. If the 
broader package, which included extreme liberal wish-list items 
from across the spectrum, needs to shrink from $3.5 trillion to 
something substantially less, do we actually think there is 
room for $325 billion for taxpayer-funded housing, as opposed 
to housing that is actually financed through the efforts of 
individuals? I don't think so.
    I ask unanimous consent to insert into the record an 
October 20th Politico article entitled, ``Democrats Weigh 
Slashing $200 Billion in Housing Aid from the Spending Bill.''
    Chairwoman Waters. Without objection, it is so ordered.
    Mr. Barr. So, the housing funding will not be in the 
ultimate bill. What will be in the bill? Let's review some of 
the things that are in this bill.
    My colleagues supposedly want to go after wealthy tax 
evaders and, ``close the tax gap.'' Their solution is to turn 
banks into IRS agents. The Administration and Congressional 
Democrats are proposing to spy on the bank accounts of most 
American citizens.
    I take issue with this proposal for many reasons. First, it 
is a blatant invasion of privacy and would provide data to the 
IRS that it doesn't need and can't secure.
    Second, it places an undue burden on our financial 
institutions, especially small community banks and credit 
unions, which will be buried with implementation costs and 
ongoing compliance burdens.
    Finally, the proposal is based on the notion that every 
American is a tax cheat. That is so offensive. The 
Administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
suggest that raising the threshold from $600 to $10,000 will 
somehow ensure that only the wealthy are captured.
    Let us remember that weekly inflows and outflows of just 
$200 for a year would get an account past the $10,000 
threshold. This is not about millionaires and billionaires. 
This is about spying on you, the American people, anybody who 
has a job. As much as proponents of this proposal want to say 
it is about targeting rich tax cheats, it is clear that all 
Americans are vulnerable to this surveillance-state proposal.
    My colleagues also want to repeal the cap on the State and 
Local Tax (SALT) deduction. This is a big win for blue States 
like New York, New Jersey, and California, but it is not going 
to do anything for working-class Americans. Earlier this month, 
the Tax Foundation released a study which found that a repeal 
of the SALT cap would disproportionately benefit the top 1 
percent of earners, increasing their after-tax income by almost 
3 percent.
    So, which is it? Are we targeting the super-rich so that 
they pay their fair share, or are we bailing out blue State 
billionaires? The answer seems clear.
    Our witnesses here today don't care about the SALT cap 
because they are not wealthy. I suggest we have a growing 
economy that allows people to have higher wages and upward 
mobility so that they can afford to pay their own rent for 
themselves and their own families. That is what we need.
    [Gavel sounding.]
    Mr. Barr. What else is in this bill? My colleagues are 
proposing to reverse the pro-growth corporate tax policy of the 
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and enact a massive taxing of American 
businesses.
    Chairwoman Waters. Mr. Barr, your time has expired. I'm 
sorry. Most people can't hear the gavel, and I want them to 
hear about the National Flood Insurance Program that affects 
your district also.
    Mr. Barr. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. The gentlelady from North Carolina, Ms. 
Adams, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam 
Chairwoman, and thank you for holding this hearing today.
    And thank you to the witnesses for your testimony. I want 
to just begin by saying, housing is infrastructure.
    But let me just ask Ms. Crawford, the lack of affordable 
housing units in my district has produced a real problem and 
has contributed to driving the price of housing higher and 
higher. The fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in 
Charlotte-Mecklenburg is almost $1,100. And at the same time, 
the availability of low-cost rental units has decreased. Fifty-
one percent of all rentals in Charlotte were low cost in 2010. 
By 2018, the rate slipped to 25 percent.
    So, Ms. Crawford, can you tell this committee about why the 
lack of affordable housing units harms our communities?
    Ms. Crawford. Thank you for the question.
    The first thing that came to mind is gentrification. People 
who have generational roots in the community have been forced 
to find affordable housing away from family and friends and 
support. Small business owners lose the labor force and 
customers they depend on to stay in business, causing a 
negative impact on our most-vulnerable populations.
    I just think that with a lack of housing, we have more 
inflation as it relates to the housing crisis.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you.
    Ms. Crawford, can you tell me about why the investments 
proposed by this committee are so critical to solving the 
affordable housing crisis?
    Ms. Crawford. Sure, great question.
    For decades, the Federal Government has been absent in 
affordable housing and, more so, affordable homeownership. We 
need the Federal Government as a partner to invest in this 
affordable housing crisis from public housing to homeownership 
in order to have a positive impact that is needed to end this 
gap that we are having and this crisis that we are having 
today.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you.
    Ms. Galindo, before we start, you mentioned that you had to 
work all types of jobs to make ends meet. I want you to know I 
understand that. My mother was a domestic worker. She cleaned 
other folks' houses so I could get a good education. So, I do 
know the blood, the sweat, and the tears that you put into 
keeping a roof over your son's head, and I respect that. 
Working hard is not enough if you don't make enough.
    So, Ms. Galindo, can you tell us about your experience 
trying to balance your son's education while finding affordable 
housing?
    Ms. Galindo. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    It is an ongoing struggle. I haven't been able to balance 
it, really. I have to pick good education over quality housing 
just so he can receive a better education and receive services 
for his special needs because he has learning disabilities.
    So, I have to pick housing, even when it is not big enough 
for us, and he can't even have enough space to study. So, it is 
an ongoing battle for me.
    Ms. Adams. Okay. Thank you so much for sharing.
    And Madam Chairwoman, I am going to yield back.
    Mr. Auchincloss. [presiding]. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. 
Williams, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you very much.
    There are a few things I just want to bring up quickly. 
America, this great country, was never built on guarantees; it 
was built on opportunities. And for those of you who don't 
know, America is broke. We have no money.
    And we have a misleading term we keep using around here, 
``affordable.'' There is nothing affordable right now that is 
anywhere under the Biden Administration. It is not affordable. 
And a $15 minimum wage is not a career.
    With that being said, throughout this pandemic, it seems 
elected officials have been laser-focused on helping renters 
get through this pandemic while forgetting about the negative 
consequences that all of this government interference would 
have on landlords, the people who took risks and hoped they 
would get rewarded.
    While there might have been some justification to allow 
greater flexibilities at the very onset of the pandemic, it is 
ridiculous how long these emergency measures have lasted. In 
many jurisdictions across the country, the landlords are still 
unable to evict tenants or collect rent checks because of 
government mandates. All the while, let us not forget, these 
people are still having to pay their bank with no income.
    And just think about this: If the landlords don't get paid, 
they don't receive income, and they don't pay their bank debt. 
Then, the bank forecloses. And where is there for people to 
live?
    This is so ridiculous that it bears repeating. Landlords 
are still being forced to provide accommodations to people 
without getting paid. No cash flow. No income. But pay your 
bills, the banks say, and the liberals. And without any legal 
avenues to evict horrible tenants.
    We have seen some horrible stories coming out about renters 
who are taking advantage of this terrible public policy 
decision. So rather than demonize the landlords, who have also 
faced amazing amounts of uncertainty because of this pandemic, 
I wanted to give you, Mr. Lee, and all of the other landlords 
across this country, my sincere appreciation for all you have 
done for the communities where you hold properties, I might 
remind everybody, while still paying the debt that you owe to 
your lenders.
    So with the rest of my time, I want to give Mr. Lee the 
opportunity to talk about any stories he has seen over the past 
year of landlords who have been taken advantage of or hurt as a 
result of terrible public policy by the Democratic Party, from 
elected officials, whether it be the inability to collect rents 
or the inability to evict horrible tenants.
    But before you get started, I do want to say that landlords 
have bills, too. And without their cash flow, they can't pay 
their bills. So, why we attack landlords is beyond me.
    So, Mr. Lee, would you tell us a few stories of what you 
have experienced being a landlord?
    Mr. Lee. I so appreciate this opportunity. Thank you, 
Representative.
    I recently talked to Dr. Kennisha Gilbert, who was the 
victim of violence. She is a small property owner, an immigrant 
herself. She is a doctor, an OB/GYN, and she cares for us New 
Yorkers. She is an essential worker.
    She had a tenant who ran an illegal puppy mill, which 
caused such damage to her apartment that she feared for the 
safety of her son. There was urine and feces dripping down the 
walls of her apartment, which is below this apartment.
    She called every elected official that she could. She tried 
every avenue available to her. Because of the eviction 
moratorium, because the courts are closed, and even when they 
are open, they are limited, she had no other avenues but to go 
to social media and to try to get the media on her side.
    And so, with the help of only 1 out of our 50-something 
council members, she was able to make contact with the ASPCA, 
and with the NYPD, who already had been to her house several 
times, and they told her, this is a housing issue, this isn't 
an NYPD issue, and she was left exasperated and tired, still 
going to work, still caring for us New Yorkers.
    Finally, the ASPCA took the dogs away. The police did come 
and arrest the tenant, only to find out that he was released 
within hours. Dr. Gilbert came home from work and the tenant 
was waiting for her on her doorstep. She and her husband were 
beaten on their property, with their two children watching from 
the window.
    The system has failed her. This is a story that is repeated 
with our owners over and over again. We must recognize that the 
eviction moratorium has hurt people. It has hurt some of our 
vulnerable property owners who are Americans and families just 
like everyone else.
    I talked with Dr. Gilbert. She is going public because she 
feels that there are many people like her who are suffering 
from tenants who are taking advantage of this eviction 
moratorium. We can't keep kicking the can down the road without 
allowing some of our vouchers to finally come through--
    Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lee. 
Welcome to the Biden Administration.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Auchincloss. The Chair now recognizes himself for 5 
minutes.
    The ranking member and the vice ranking member and many of 
their colleagues in the Republican Party have described this 
hearing as a means for the Democrats to resolve disarray and to 
resolve internecine squabbles. It is certainly true that the 
Democratic Party is engaged in a vigorous debate right now 
about how best to ensure affordable housing, how to lower the 
cost of prescription drugs, how to tackle climate change. This 
is governance. This is what governance should look like.
    Meanwhile, our colleagues on the GOP are debating whether 
QAnon is mostly true or entirely true. They are debating 
whether the 2020 election was a free and fair election. They 
are debating whether or not to support the U.S. Capitol Police 
following the insurrection. They are debating whether vaccines 
implant chips in people's arms.
    So, we welcome our Republican colleagues into the fray of 
governance and vigorous debate, but it seems they are 
distracted right now by their own partisan debate.
    And one of those key issues that we want to engage on is 
housing. Ms. Crawford, first of all, as a Representative from 
Massachusetts, I want to say how thrilled I am that you are 
running the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance. Your 
story and your work is really an inspiration, and I thank you 
for your support, not just of those in Boston, but also my 
constituents in places like Taunton, Attleboro, and Fall River.
    You know from your own work how complicated housing policy 
can be because it involves not just Federal but, of course, 
State and local policy as well. And in Massachusetts, we are 
really an exemplar of that. We recently passed the Housing 
Choice Act at the State level, and there is increasing 
mobilization to liberalize zoning laws at the local level.
    Can you talk about what the cooperation needs to be in 
Massachusetts between the three levels of government to ensure 
not just that we have more support for people looking for 
housing units, but that we are also creating more of a supply 
of housing?
    Ms. Crawford. Thank you. I appreciate the question, 
Congressman. And while I can't speak in total confidence on the 
topic, I can say that the three different bodies of government 
can come together and figure out a way to increase supply so 
that the demand is lowered, so that inflation can go down. 
Then, on the buyer side, increase assistance for those who have 
been systematically excluded from homeownership, then combined, 
we would be able to see the racial homeownership gap really be 
reduced and going in the direction we want to after working 
decades in different ways to make this happen.
    We just need to come together as one unit, knowing that the 
entire State needs the additional assistance from State, 
Federal, city, and local government to make this crisis go 
away.
    I hope I was able to answer your question, and I thank you 
for asking it.
    Mr. Auchincloss. Are there ways that you think that Federal 
programs can induce localities to expand the use of multifamily 
zoning? I was on the city council in my hometown for 5 years 
prior to coming to Congress, and I saw that, really over the 
last 5 years, there has been an acceleration of demand for 
transit-oriented, multifamily development. but our zoning laws 
can oftentimes make it challenging to develop it.
    Are there areas that HUD can press on that would encourage 
cities and towns that are applying for Federal funding to 
commensurately liberalize their zoning laws?
    Ms. Crawford. One of the ways, I think, is to--whatever 
zoning laws we have that prohibit multifamily housing in 
certain neighborhoods while not prohibiting it in others should 
be lifted. And also, we need to stop exclusionary zoning across 
the State. We need to utilize those measures that especially, 
the City of Boston is using by building multifamily homes near 
the transit system so that we can get to and from work and have 
a choice to actually live where we want to live. Affirmatively 
Furthering Fair Housing is a way to get this done, and I thank 
you for asking the question.
    Mr. Auchincloss. I yield my time back to the Chair, and the 
gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Hill, is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Hill. I thank our Chair pro tem for being in the chair 
on this hearing. And I thank our witnesses for bringing their 
personal testimony about the importance of housing in their 
lives to the committee to help us do a better job here.
    While I share the views of the ranking member and my 
colleagues that as the 32nd hearing on housing, we are doing a 
superb job in hearings about housing, but what we are 
struggling with are the right policies to help people in the 
maximum way. And that is why I believe that yet again, this 
hearing is not as constructive as it might be, and the reason 
for that is clear, which is that the Majority party is, as my 
friend from Massachusetts identified, having a vigorous debate 
within their own party on how best to serve people with 
housing. And therefore, this is not, I think, the most 
constructive use of our time.
    Mr. Edmonds, again, let me thank you for being here, and 
your testimony was very compelling. I really appreciated your 
story, not only your life story but a real window, a detailed 
window on Tucson and the housing challenges there. And I was 
particularly drawn to the condition of public housing, and your 
testimony highlights that, from the elevator to other physical 
infrastructure issues. Is there anything beyond the testimony 
you want to add about the physical infrastructure of the public 
housing units with which you are personally familiar?
    Mr. Edmonds. Not that I can think of. It needs care. It 
needs regular maintenance. It just seems to me that the regular 
maintenance has not happened on schedule as it should have, and 
that could have been part of the problem that led it to where 
it is now.
    Mr. Hill. Yes, I think it is a key point, and recently, in 
Little Rock, I visited a very successful Rental Assistance 
Demonstration (RAD) program by HUD whereby an old 1940 public 
housing set of units was completely renovated into very nice, 
modern, convenient apartments, complete with access to 
broadband and new wiring, new fixtures, energy-efficient 
lighting and the like, and that is through the RAD Program, 
something that Republicans have supported in HUD's budget.
    And I would argue to my friends on the other side of the 
aisle that in the committee's original print of this $300-
billion exercise, RAD was completely available for billions of 
dollars of public housing assistance. But in the bill actually 
marked up in this committee, and voted on in this committee, it 
was stripped completely out.
    So RAD, I think, has done a good job in providing much more 
modern, safe, clean, and environmentally-appropriate housing 
for our families who are in public housing, and so I just 
remind my friends on the other side of the aisle that RAD was 
taken off the table in your bill as marked up.
    Mr. Edmonds, have you seen tenants and those families in 
public housing who benefitted from afterschool care or 
educational tutoring or health clinics or GED preparation or 
things of that nature, or even drug and alcohol abuse 
programming? Have you seen those kinds of services being 
helpful to public housing tenant families?
    Mr. Edmonds. Everything you mentioned, we are trying to 
obtain. We have some things beginning with assistance from the 
Arizona State University School of Social Work and some other 
local agencies. But there is funding for housing, and funding 
for structures, and funding for personnel, and that has been 
the problem. There has been mostly not enough manpower 
available just to assist in those areas.
    Mr. Hill. Thank you for that, because my colleagues and I 
have certainly advocated for those kinds of wraparound services 
connected with housing, and particularly housing vouchers. And 
again, the Majority has blocked our efforts to do that on the 
housing voucher program time and time again. And in public 
housing, I believe that the nonprofit sector could partner 
there very effectively. I had hoped that HUD, under the 
previous Administration, would take action on these kinds of 
centers and provide nonprofit access to public housing, where 
they could do that in an affordable way and not burden the 
public housing agency with it personally.
    There is more work to do here. I thank you for your 
engagement, and I thank the rest of the panel. And I yield 
back.
    Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Scott, who 
is also the Chair of the House Agriculture Committee, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to 
take just a moment to discuss the rental housing market and the 
challenges that it presents for a large share of our American 
people. Homeowner versus renter statistics reflect a very 
serious decline in homeownership, with 36 percent of American 
households renting their homes today, and that, ladies and 
gentlemen, is more than 44 million of our American families.
    Ms. Crawford, we know that housing affordability in the 
rental market is a major determinant to a family achieving 
economic stability. So tell us, what impact can Federal support 
programs, like down payment assistance, have for renters 
looking to purchase their first home?
    Ms. Crawford. Thank you so much for the question. I would 
just say the impact has given those who would not have the 
option from family and friends to the Bank of Mom and Dad to be 
actually given a leg up, not a handout but a leg up, and able 
to enter the housing market, especially the homeownership 
market.
    Down payment assistance (DPA) is a barrier that has 
prevented people, especially low- to moderate-income people, 
from actually obtaining homeownership, because their rent is so 
high and they are not able to save for that down payment and 
closing cost assistance.
    Mr. Scott. You mentioned the word, ``barrier.'' Explain 
what those barriers are that would have this negative impact on 
so many of our homeowners?
    Ms. Crawford. Thank you. In addition to that saving for the 
down payment and closing costs, we also have the high student 
debt, we have the credit issues, and we have the housing 
crisis, where there is not enough stock available for potential 
homeowners to actually get into the homeownership market. Those 
are just some of the barriers that we are seeing right now.
    Mr. Scott. I just want to thank you for that response. This 
is a very important issue. And what you are saying, and your 
testimony is exactly why we must ensure that down payment 
assistance remains a key component of our Build Back Better Act 
that our President is pushing.
    Thank you for your comments, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 
yield back.
    Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman 
from Minnesota, Mr. Emmer, is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Emmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our 
panel of witnesses today. Unfortunately, if your government 
worked, you would not have to be here, so I am sorry that you 
all have to come before the committee to plead your cause 
because the Majority in Congress cannot craft legislation that 
actually serves the American people.
    On that note, I would like to point out that we have had 
over 30 housing hearings in the committee since the Democrats 
took control, and this is our 9th housing hearing this year. 
And as we talk and talk and talk and talk, while we talk about 
housing, Americans continue to suffer. To date, about $7.7 
billion of the $46.5 billion Congress has allocated for 
emergency rental assistance has actually been distributed. That 
is pitiful, and it is wrong.
    Republicans have offered a solution, the Renter Protection 
Act, that would cut the bureaucratic red tape and get rental 
assistance to the families who need it most. But Democrats are 
focused, unfortunately, on passing a massive partisan spending 
bill with little to no government oversight.
    As you know, the first rental assistance program passed in 
December of 2020, and that program gave the Treasury inspector 
general the authority to conduct oversight of the distribution 
of funds, and recoup funds that are used fraudulently. For 
every dollar allocated to the inspectors general to oversee 
government spending, inspectors general returned approximately 
$16 in savings. These are savings that can actually be returned 
to Americans.
    Interestingly, the second emergency rental assistance 
program, passed in March by Democrats, is not overseen by the 
inspector general. I offered an amendment to fix this last 
month during the markup, which was rejected by Democrats.
    So as Democrats focus on passing a $3.5 trillion, big 
government, socialist spending bill, just know that this bill 
has little to no oversight mechanism and will lead to 
significant waste, fraud, and abuse.
    This Democratic failure to legislate extends far beyond 
housing. Careless spending sprees, not even designed to target 
those most in need, are driving inflation in this country like 
we have not seen in 30 years. We see rising prices at the 
grocery store, rising prices at the pump. Again, levels of 
inflation that we have not seen in decades. And it is entirely 
because Democrats are spending our constituents' money faster 
than ever before. Democrats simply have never learned that you 
cannot spend your way to prosperity. When we spend taxpayer 
dollars, we must do so thoughtfully, not frivolously. We must 
craft programs that work, not programs that leave Americans 
suffering and unable to pay rent.
    I cannot emphasize this enough. We must be responsible 
stewards of taxpayer dollars. I am disappointed by my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have prioritized 
massive government spending that simply left Americans to 
endure government incompetence and rapidly-increasing 
inflation.
    I yield back the remainder of my time.
    Mr. Auchincloss. The gentlewoman from Pennsylvania, Ms. 
Dean, is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank all of our 
witnesses today for telling us your lived experience and for 
educating us around the issues of housing.
    Mr. Harrison, thank you for sharing your experiences with 
us today. I also want to thank you for the work that you are 
doing now, as an outreach coordinator for Prince George's 
County. You are using your experiences to lift others. In your 
testimony, you described two instances of working to earn a 
degree, once when you did not have stable housing, and once 
when you did. Could you please describe, with some more 
details, how important it was to have housing in order to 
pursue and succeed in getting an education, and how else did 
stable housing help you or others around you?
    Mr. Harrison. Thank you for the question. When I first 
attempted to improve my education, I not only did not have a 
place to stay, but I did not have a place to study. Of course, 
I could use the school's library then but really, the 
distraction was remaining focused on getting through whatever 
day it was, and I really didn't have the ability to focus on my 
studies because my personal situation was unstable.
    When I was housed, I not only was able to pass, I was able 
to excel in my studies, and I have earned an associate degree 
with a high GPA, and I have gone on to obtain professional 
certifications in my field that have helped me, and my 
experience, as someone experiencing homelessness, has helped me 
in the work I do now. Thank you.
    Ms. Dean. No, thank you. Thank you for that detail. And, of 
course, no place to stay, few places to study, but as you say, 
the ability to focus on your studies without the distraction 
of, where will I sleep tonight? So, I thank you for those 
details, and congratulations on claiming your education and the 
work you are doing.
    Ms. Crawford, to build on that experience, as a first-
generation homeowner could you describe specific barriers you 
faced as you began working towards your goal of owning a home?
    Ms. Crawford. Thank you. One of the biggest barriers that I 
remember facing was the fact that I could not find an 
affordable home to live in at that time. The economic market, 
the housing market in 2004 almost mirrors what it is today, 
just that inflation has pushed the price up so much more than 
2004.
    So, to find an affordable home that could house my family 
and also allow me to pay my mortgage, I had to think about 
different ways to be innovative about it. I had to purchase a 
multifamily home so that I could get the additional rent to be 
able to help me to afford that high-cost mortgage.
    I also needed to know how to deal with my student loans and 
make sure that I paid them down in order to be able to afford 
the home that I am living in now.
    The barriers are there, and I am hoping that we can take a 
look at how we can use down payment and closing cost assistance 
to rectify those barriers. I did not have that down payment and 
closing cost assistance at that time, but thanks to the ONE 
Mortgage program that we had in Massachusetts, I was able to 
afford a home with that mortgage.
    Ms. Dean. I thank you for that. And to take the lens and 
broaden it to the work that you are doing now, among those whom 
you help serve at the Massachusetts Affordable Housing 
Alliance, what other obstacles are they facing? As you point 
out, you had to be creative and recognize, with the cost of 
housing so high, to buy a multifamily home so that you could 
receive some income to go toward that mortgage. What other 
obstacles are you seeing for those whom you serve?
    Ms. Crawford. The option for me, especially around 
purchasing a multifamily home, is almost nonexistent now. The 
housing market is depleted, so there is very little option in 
that, and the cost, when you see one, is so expensive. And 
again, we are talking about the down payment and closing costs, 
and the Build Back Better Act would really help those who need 
it the most, to get into housing. We have to take a look at 
student loans that are stopping our young people from actually 
leaving college and going out of their parents' homes into 
homes of their own that they can purchase. Low income is also a 
barrier. You are working three and four jobs and you still 
cannot afford a home. There are so many I could list, and I 
thank you so much for your question.
    Ms. Dean. Thank you for your experience and your eloquence, 
and I yield back.
    Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. 
Timmons, is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Lee, I appreciate you taking the time to be with us 
today. How many rental properties do you own?
    Mr. Lee. Two tenement buildings in the heart of Chinatown.
    Mr. Timmons. How many tenants do you have?
    Mr. Lee. It is 14 in each building.
    Mr. Timmons. And what percent of your tenants took 
advantage of the eviction moratorium and withheld rent for the 
last 18 months?
    Mr. Lee. We were very fortunate in that our tenants are 
paid up, but that has to do with the fact that some of our 
rents in our buildings are one-tenth the market rate for 
equivalent-sized apartments in Manhattan. So they were able to 
afford it because the rents were so low, because they are 100-
percent rent-regulated.
    Mr. Timmons. I am glad that you did not have any 
challenges. I know you are here on behalf of the Small Property 
Owners of New York. Could you give me percentages for the 
larger association?
    Mr. Lee. I cannot give you exact percentages, but we talk 
often about tenants who have just given up on the system, and I 
will tell you why. The Emergency Rental Assistance Program was 
so poorly rolled out that both tenants and landlords were 
waiting for a long time before the technical issues were ironed 
out. There was also no transparency on whether or not a tenant 
had applied and whether a landlord had the right information. 
And so, there was this opaque atmosphere where both tenant and 
landlord really did not see the application process go through, 
and many, many, many people are still without the assistance 
now. It is just very problematic, and in 2021, we really should 
not have this level of technological failure.
    Mr. Timmons. Sure. And I think we can all agree that we 
needed to do something quickly at the beginning of COVID, and 
it was not perfect but I think it was overwhelmingly good and 
in the right direction. But we have run out of excuses, 18 
months later. What do you think the biggest changes, other than 
just technological, are making it easier for people to apply 
and receive assistance, making sure that landlords have the 
ability to facilitate it, if the tenants are unwilling? What 
other things do you think would fix this problem?
    Mr. Lee. I think that there were many millions of dollars 
given to nonprofits to help assist tenants. I know that was 
successful to varying degrees. The training required prior to 
the rollout of this rental assistance program would have helped 
a lot, because the feedback that we got was that even the 
nonprofits have difficulty in navigating it. We heard stories 
of people having to spend 4 to 6 hours sometimes in front of 
computers, only to find that when they finally sent their 
paperwork, all of the information would be lost.
    So, I think that it starts to erode faith in the process, 
and we all want to have faith in the process. At the end of the 
day, both tenant and landlord have the same goal. We all need 
to be made whole so that we could provide safe and stable 
housing, as thousands and thousands of us in New York City have 
done, throughout the pandemic. There are more great stories of 
people taking care of each other than there are of the bad 
stories that you hear in the media. We want to continue more of 
that, but we need the tools to do it well.
    Mr. Timmons. I think one of those tools is stability and 
not moving the goalposts. Obviously, a number of people were 
very concerned with the extension of the eviction moratorium by 
the Biden Administration and really just the lawlessness 
surrounding the Supreme Court saying that they couldn't do it, 
and they did it, and then they got it returned.
    Again, we're 18 months in, and we have the policy available 
to figure this out. We should have already had it figured out 
by now. I do not think anybody thought it was appropriate to 
evict anyone at the height of COVID, during the shutdown, 
during the lockdown. But again, there are vaccines for anyone 
who wants one, and it is time to get back to work, and we need 
to make all of the landlords--all of the rental assistance is 
great, but we have to make sure it gets to the right spot and 
that we make everybody whole.
    I just really hope that this committee will find some 
bipartisan support to make sure that we do not leave anyone 
stranded, or anyone in a worse-off position. This country has 
come a long way in the last 18 months, and I think we can craft 
the policy that is needed to move past this pandemic and to get 
everybody back to work. So, I appreciate you taking the time, 
and with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Auchincloss. Thank you. The gentleman from California, 
Mr. Sherman, who is also the Chair of our Subcommittee on 
Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets, is 
now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Sherman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am so glad we 
are having this hearing on such a critical subject. Housing is 
infrastructure. The rents are too high. We cannot repeal the 
law of supply and demand. We can occasionally have a building 
built, and a politician can go cut the ribbon, and we can meet 
a few dozen families who will live at affordable rates. But 
ultimately, we need millions of new apartment buildings in the 
cities and suburbs of this country.
    And one of the greatest problems is you really cannot build 
apartments in so many places because zoning prevents it. We 
have, in so much of this country, a requirement that you cannot 
have more than six families live on any acre. Then you can say, 
well, we are not excluding people on the basis of economics or 
race; we just include everybody who can afford one-sixth of an 
acre. Given the cost of land in cities and suburbs in this 
country, that really does mean you are excluding people on the 
basis of economics and on the basis of race.
    That is why I am glad Section 40103 of the Build Back 
Better Act will provide at least the economic incentives to 
sweep away these exclusionary and restrictive zonings. I want 
to commend to my colleagues on this committee what we are doing 
in Los Angeles. It is one small step, it is not a replacement 
for anything else, and that is allowing alternative dwelling 
units (ADUs) to be built basically in everybody's backyard. 
Given the economics, a lot of people in L.A. are doing this, 
and it should provide tens of thousands of additional units for 
rent.
    The gentleman from Minnesota was decrying that the money is 
not getting out for rental assistance. We had a whole hearing 
on that, of course, but more importantly, the chairwoman has 
introduced the Expediting Assistance to Renters and Landlords 
Act. I have co-sponsored it, and so far we do not have a 
Republican co-sponsor, and I hope the gentleman from Minnesota 
is the first. It is not enough to decry the darkness. It is 
time to join with us in lighting a candle.
    Ms. Crawford, the rising cost of housing is putting 
homeownership out of the reach for so many. Many individuals, 
especially younger people, are thinking they are just going to 
rent indefinitely. Section 40201 of the bill that this 
committee marked up represents our piece of the Build Back 
Better package, which would provide first-time, first-
generation homebuyers with down payment and closing cost 
assistance. Could you speak to the ways this would help 
overcome the barriers for first-time home purchase and how 
becoming a homeowner allows a family to start to build well?
    Ms. Crawford. Thank you so much for the question, 
Congressman. I would rather share with you the story I talked 
about earlier. We have Dafany and we have Akilah. They are both 
first-generation owners today because of our STASH program. 
They had so many different barriers as they thought about 
becoming homeowners, and had it not been for the assistance of 
getting some down payment and closing costs assistance, minimum 
though it was, it enabled them to afford their homes, along 
with affordable mortgages that we have here in this State.
    We also have several others who are waiting to be able to 
afford a home, who are waiting for deeper down payment and 
closing costs assistance, which the Build Back Better Act would 
be able to provide these individuals. And there are millions 
more, such as Dafany and Akilah, out there, waiting.
    Mr. Sherman. Thank you. Ms. Galindo, Section 8 is the major 
program to help renters, also known as the Housing Choice 
Vouchers. In my City of Los Angeles, we went 13 years before we 
even allowed people to get on the waiting list. We recently 
allowed a small number, about 20,000, get on the waiting list, 
when 180,000 people wanted to get on the waiting list. We have 
dramatically underfunded this program, and so there are very 
few slots.
    In your testimony, you described the real, human problems 
you suffered having to wait 6 weeks for rental assistance. 
Could you use that experience to opine what it would be like to 
be living in Los Angeles and having to wait 13 years to even 
get on the list to get a Section 8 voucher?
    Ms. Galindo. Thank you. I do not think that we would be 
able to make it work. I would have to keep staying in underpaid 
jobs that do not give me an opportunity to at some point jump 
up to the middle class. If I had not had assistance, I would 
not be able to take another job that would help me get out of 
the poverty line. So, I cannot even imagine.
    Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
    Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Rose, is 
now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters and Ranking Member 
McHenry. Let me just say this feels a little bit like, 
``Groundhog Day,'' a movie that I actually enjoy watching. But 
as I sit through another committee hearing on housing, the 
second one in less than a week, I cannot help but be reminded 
of that movie.
    We have been talking about the same legislative proposals 
for months now, and because they are likely to be taken out of 
the Democrats' massive socialist spending package, we are 
discussing them again today. Since Democrats plan to pass their 
reconciliation package exclusively on party lines, I think this 
time would be better used by Democrats to talk to their 
colleagues.
    We are dealing with the fallout now from President Biden's 
failed American Rescue Plan. Under the previous Administration, 
Treasury issued binding Emergency Rental Assistance 
(ERA)Program rules and FAQ guidance to accompany those funds, 
on January 19th. The Biden Administration then opted to rescind 
that guidance and publish new ERA rules in February. It then 
revised rules again in March, then added new rules in May, and 
then revised and added new rules again in June.
    Mr. Lee, how has this constant revision of rules and added 
red tape stopped rental property owners like you from getting 
much-needed rent from tenants?
    Mr. Lee. Thank you for the question. We had a hard time 
even before COVID, and with the unusual situation in New York, 
with residential rents being regulated for over 1 million 
apartments, it puts tremendous pressure on our commercial 
tenants, and we all know that commercial restaurants and coffee 
shops and bodegas and small businesses are having ever-
increasing costs that they have to endure.
    And so, as we talk about how much a cup of coffee has gone 
up, and how much a steak has gone up, or a hamburger, those are 
all because of things that are not just about inflation but 
also because we don't have enough operating money, and it puts 
so much pressure on the only unregulated, free market rent in 
many thousands and thousands of small buildings in New York. 
So, it puts tremendous pressure on our small mom-and-pops as 
much as it puts pressure on the mom-and-pop tenement buildings 
and small buildings that house them.
    Mr. Rose. Can you expand on what flexibility you think 
Congress could provide to help reach small landlords who are 
facing hardships like you described?
    Mr. Lee. I think that there is much to be said for the 
efficiency of using technology, getting the money where it 
needs to go quickly, and very importantly, having the proper 
amount of staffing in the agencies that are left to administer 
this. We warned early on in the pandemic that whatever you do, 
make sure that your agencies have the training and the staffing 
required, because all of us are going to be applying at the 
same time, and indeed, we found many websites crashing. We 
found that there were long periods of time to get answers, and 
when we did, we found that some of the information was just 
redundant between tenant and landlord.
    So if we could have a system by which the landlords and the 
tenants could see their applications happening in real time, 
that would help greatly. It would cut down on the time waiting, 
and every single day that we don't pay our real estate taxes, 
an 18-percent penalty is hoisted upon us, and it is just 
impossible to get on top of, so every day counts.
    Mr. Rose. In the remaining time I have, I want to shift and 
talk about the housing voucher program. The housing proposal 
passed on a party line basis through this committee included 
$75 billion in housing voucher funding. Oftentimes, voucher 
holders experience issues finding private landlords willing to 
enter the program and accept vouchers.
    Mr. Lee, could you expand on how current red tape 
discourages private landlords like yourself from participating 
in the Housing Choice Voucher Program?
    Mr. Lee. I think it comes back to an administrative issue. 
I think that there is not enough clarity on the application 
process, but also, in our experience speaking with many other 
small property owners, we feel that tenant stabilization is 
key. If we can stabilize tenants, no matter where they are, and 
have vouchers follow them to the next address, it then allows 
us, as small property owners, to renovate up to code, up to 
compliance, in an ever-changing world when compliance is 
becoming more and more difficult. We have apartments that have 
been with the same tenant for 50 years, and when that tenant 
leaves, we just do not have the funds to fully renovate them if 
we know that we are going to be locked into a rent that is the 
same as the previous tenant's. It's just not tenable, while our 
taxes are increasing, our insurance is increasing, our oil 
prices are increasing, and we are finding everything on the 
other side of the balance sheet way out of sync with our 
income.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lee. I see that my time 
has expired. I appreciate your answers, and I yield back.
    Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Lawson, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Lawson. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 
thank you to the ranking member, as well.
    I was intrigued by the introduction of a statement by the 
staff, which I will read, and it says, ``Evidence-based 
research has demonstrated that having a safe, decent, and 
affordable home is foundational to improving societal and life 
outcomes for families and individuals. When families and 
individuals are able to secure stable and affordable housing, 
they are better able to find and keep employment, children are 
better able to thrive and do well in school, seniors are better 
able to age in place, and people with disabilities are better 
able to maintain their health and live independently. Having 
affordable housing also allows families to achieve greater 
economic mobility, build wealth, and enter the middle class.''
    With that, my question goes to Mr. Edmonds. As a public 
housing resident, how have the programs supported you in your 
community? How has public housing provided you with a platform 
to achieve housing stability and pursue opportunities?
    Mr. Edmonds. Yes, it has been interesting. When I first got 
in here, I said, I am going to keep my mouth shut and I am just 
going to get on my feet and go look for a job, or go back to 
school. And then, I started attending meetings about THRIVE in 
the 05, for the area, for Tucson House, and I started getting 
invited to more meetings and more meetings, and I was appointed 
to the Residents Council.
    I have been given opportunities I never even imagined, by 
just being here. And again, taking aside, maybe I should be 
looking for a job, maybe I should go back to school, but there 
are so many people in here who need me, they need somebody, 
that I have had to completely just ignore my needs, for the 
most part.
    Mr. Lawson. That is amazing. So during the time that you 
spent in public housing, have you ever decided that with the 
opportunity that you have, it could have afforded you to look 
then into obtaining residential housing on your own?
    Mr. Edmonds. Yes. The way things are in this area, I have 
always said if I ever get a job and I am able to pay, let's 
say, market rate, market rent, or however you want to phrase 
it, I am more than happy to leave, to let somebody else come in 
here who needs my space. That is fine. I would love to stay in 
this community, because of the THRIVE in the 05 Program, 
economic development. I can see possibilities and 
opportunities, and I would love the opportunity to purchase a 
home in this area.
    Mr. Lawson. Okay. One other thing I want to say to my 
colleagues, when they said that we have forgotten about the 
landlords is, I have worked with Congressman Taylor out of 
Texas to make sure that during this pandemic, we bring to the 
forefront the problems that the landlords are having in order 
to be able to pay their mortgages and keep things going, where 
we can have affordable housing. And, at the same time, it 
becomes very critical.
    And so my question to Mr. Lee, if he is still there, Mr. 
Lee, we were always worried about the situation for landlords, 
even when you actually are providing affordable housing for 
individuals, how would this affect, with what has happened with 
this pandemic, your concerns about retirement and how you would 
be relying on the property that you own to fulfill that 
obligation as you go down this path?
    Mr. Lee. That is such an excellent question. Thank you. 
Many, many of our small property owners are aging, and they 
rely on the income from their small buildings for their 
retirements. But that is all in jeopardy. We are finding that 
people like myself, many owners who are seniors are starting to 
see the investment, the legacy that they have had in the 
American Dream eroding right before their eyes, and that was a 
snowball effect that started even before COVID. With COVID, we 
are finding it more and more difficult, because more and more 
people are rent-burdened, including commercial tenants.
    And so, the savings that we had were gone a year ago, 
family savings, loans, they are piling up, and it's just very, 
very difficult, and it is a shame to see our life savings, our 
life's work erode before us.
    Mr. Lawson. I see my time has run out, so I yield back.
    Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Steil, 
is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Steil. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our 
witnesses for being here.
    It cannot be lost on me, as I look around the room, to my 
right and to my left, Mr. Chairman, that you and I are the only 
Members here. I know there are a few people online joining us 
as well, but in person, the committee hearing room with dozens 
and dozens of members, it is you and I. Look around this place. 
We have had 31 hearings on this topic this year. We have had 
two hearings in less than a week. This whole debate is on the 
left side of the aisle. And how many have showed up to have it 
in person? The Democrats want to spend $3.5 trillion in social 
spending, putting our country further into debt. The debate is 
on the left as to how they are going to possibly accomplish 
this. They cannot figure it out. Might I suggest showing up and 
talking to your colleagues? More importantly, show up and talk 
to the American people. They do not want this massive socialist 
spending plan to go through in the first place. Maybe that is 
why you cannot agree.
    This is theater. This is political showmanship. We have had 
31 hearings on this topic, so many that it appears nobody is 
showing up, Mr. Chairman. It is you and I in this room. We have 
a handful of people online. We can look up at the screen. We do 
have a few of your Democratic colleagues chiming in online with 
us, but why are we here? Why are we struggling? We are 
struggling because nobody is coming and having the conversation 
in person, and we have had 31 hearings on this, to spend $3.5 
trillion in social spending that the Democrats cannot reach an 
agreement on. We have a period of time when we have 10 million 
job openings but a complete disconnect in our labor force, to 
make sure that we are getting workers back to work.
    Prices are rising. Gas prices are up significantly, hitting 
people in the pocketbooks. Grocery prices are up. Back-to-
school shopping, and soon Christmas shopping will be hitting 
Americans in the pocketbooks. Americans are finding store 
shelves empty, and where are our priorities? I feel like we are 
back in the 1970s and the Carter Administration, when you look 
at the labor participation rate. Heck, you even have Iran 
flexing its muscles once again. And by all accounts, we are 
heading back to the malaise of the Carter years.
    So it makes sense that we are once again here to discuss 
public housing, and a lot of ideas that are on the table are 
right out of the 1970s. We have discussed, in countless 
hearings, and we know what is driving the housing crunch in so 
many of our cities: Regulations. Instead of addressing the 
serious supply-side constraints, we are talking again about 
ineffective, big government programs that we have seen play out 
decade after decade.
    Mr. Lee, can you just walk us through your thoughts about 
the impact to spend $80 billion on public housing in a period 
of time when housing prices are going up, rather than focusing 
on the supply-side issue and the fact that housing has been 
underbuilt due to big-city regulations for decades?
    Mr. Lee. There is a lot of talk in New York about rezoning 
New York so that more buildings could be built, so that we 
could have more affordable housing in New York. But as small 
property owners we kind of look around and say, well, we 
provide housing. We have available, vacant apartments. What 
stands in the way is regulation after regulation, and the 
hurdles that have been just hoisted upon us, that keep us from 
actually recouping a reasonable amount of money when we make 
major investments to improve our buildings, to bring them up to 
the standards to be competitive with free market apartments.
    And that is where we find the dichotomy here. We have 
apartments. We want to get them online. We want new people to 
come in. We want a rotation of people so that new immigrants 
could come into New York City. But we are locked in, and the 
only alternative is to go through these long, lengthy zoning 
processes and break ground and build big buildings, only to 
have the remaining affordable apartments that they promised be 
out of reach for most Americans.
    And so, we really have to look at to what extent, what 
could be done quickly, how do we get people off the couch and 
working again?
    Mr. Steil. I think you are spot on. I go back and look at a 
2018 study, looking at some of those regulations, adding as 
much as $93,000 to the cost of a home where the average sale 
price of a single-family home is just under $400,000. We are 
talking 25 or so percent of the cost of housing units being 
regulations. Is that what you are seeing, in your experience?
    Mr. Lee. At every turn, we are seeing an increase in our 
operating costs, and unfortunately for a million apartments in 
New York City that are under the Rent Guidelines Board, those 
increases are just not reflected. They are also not reflected 
when it comes time to pay our taxes. We have not had any 
rollbacks. There are no tax deadline rollbacks.
    Mr. Steil. Understood. I am cognizant of my time. I 
appreciate you being here today, and I appreciate our witnesses 
being here today, and with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield 
back.
    Mr. Auchincloss. The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. 
Lynch, who is also the Chair of our Task Force on Financial 
Technology, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to note that 
all of the Republican seats are empty as well. I think it might 
have something to do with the pandemic, so I am not troubled at 
all. What I am troubled about is the disinvestment. As someone 
who grew up in public housing--me, my five sisters, my mom and 
dad--we would have been homeless but for the fact that we found 
housing in the Old Colony Housing Project in South Boston, 
which, at the time, was one of the poorest census tracts in the 
country for predominantly White families. And it was a blessing 
for us. Like I say, we would have been homeless, but for the 
fact that we were on a list for public housing. We eventually 
were successful, and it actually causes me to view public 
housing not as a program but for 15 years it was my home, and 
we were blessed to have that.
    We are at an inflection point in this country, I believe, 
where that tipping point has been reached again, where many, 
many, many families, with the escalation in housing prices, 
have been forced to the point where they either desperately 
need public housing and are on the list for public housing, and 
in many cases they are indeed homeless, living in their cars, 
or living on the streets.
    That did not happen by accident. It happened by 
disinvestment, over many years, where we actually built a 
housing stock in this country, but because of disinvestment on 
maintenance and the usual maintenance and care of those units, 
we lose about 10,000 units of public housing in this country 
every single year. That just squanders the sum costs that we 
have put in to create that housing in the first place. And 
living in and around the City of Boston, we see that every 
single day, with the astronomical housing prices, people being 
priced out of the market, and precious few public housing 
projects available for those people who are on the verge of 
homelessness.
    Mr. Edmonds, you have a good perspective on this, in terms 
of the investment and what that means to families who are 
struggling, and you have been a voice for those families as 
well. What do you think are the most important things that 
Congress could do right now to address this problem, from your 
perspective?
    Mr. Edmonds. Looking at it from my perspective, from Tucson 
House, we need manpower, number one. I cannot do everything. 
We, meaning the Residents Council, we cannot do everything. We 
have seven people on the council, and three of us are 
physically capable, sometimes two. There have been times where 
it is just me who was available and showed up and had to take 
care of everything that came to us. So, I would start with 
manpower.
    Right now, I am supposed to be in the basement emptying out 
a truck from the Community Food Bank. I had to try to find some 
volunteers to take my place, and I hope they are down there. I 
expect they are, but I just hope they are down there. That food 
has to be unloaded. It has to be separated. It has to be 
distributed, taken to some of the residents. I need manpower. I 
need help.
    Mr. Lynch. Yes. In our situation, we have been blessed with 
some of the affordable housing developers who have actually 
plussed up the maintenance staff with union electricians, union 
plumbers, and others, during the pandemic, and guaranteed them 
that they would not be laid off. But I would bet that is not 
the usual circumstances of people living in public housing.
    Mr. Chairman, my time has just about expired. I want to 
thank you for holding this hearing, and I hope that we can 
continue to maintain the position that housing in general, but 
especially affordable housing, is indeed infrastructure, and 
maintain that as a priority in the upcoming spending bills.
    I yield back. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman 
from New York, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman. We 
have seen a lot of commentary from my colleagues across the 
aisle, claiming that the Build Back Better Act, reconciliation, 
infrastructure, social infrastructure, et cetera, is some big 
socialist conspiracy, and I just want to address that very 
quickly, because the idea of a current package where we are 
debating means testing, modest investments, and minimized 
climate action as socialist is an insult to both socialists, 
specifically, and the general public's intelligence, generally.
    But moving on, I think that when we talk about the issue of 
housing, and particularly public housing, we need to make sure 
that we are centering on the folks who are impacted most by 
this issue, and to the commentary that these hearings are a 
waste of time and that they are unnecessary, when we have 
individuals who have experienced homelessness testifying right 
before this committee, is just, frankly, unprofessional, and it 
is wrong.
    For folks who are curious as to why we have had several 
housing hearings, this is a housing committee. It is the 
Financial Services Committee, also previously known as the 
Banking and Housing Committee, so this is our job, and we are 
here to do our job.
    Most of all, I want to thank our witnesses for coming in. 
We often talk about dollar figures, X billion here, X billion 
there, but without really understanding the human impact of 
what these dollar amounts add up to, it is very difficult for 
people to wrap their minds around what these proposals can do. 
Without housing, economic mobility, and security, opportunity, 
access to healthcare, a safe living environment, all of these 
other things are out of reach. You cannot get a job, or it is 
very difficult to get a job when you are unhoused.
    Mr. Harrison, I want to thank you for your testimony and 
for really bringing to light everything that a lot of Members 
may not know about the experience of having been unhoused. In 
your experience today, what would have helped you improve your 
living situation then that you find is actually still missing 
for the people that you assist today?
    Mr. Harrison. Thank you for the question. I think along 
with the opportunity to apply for and hopefully receive a 
housing voucher, a lot of my clients need additional support, 
and the process is pretty complicated. I have been able to help 
my clients, for instance, understand how the value of a voucher 
is different in each ZIP Code in the continuum of care that I 
am working in, but I think that a lot of people who are 
experiencing homelessness have really lost their social support 
network and the services that help support people's efforts to 
address the issues that have contributed to or become greater 
while they are experiencing homelessness would be very helpful.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. My last question for you is, 
the experience of homelessness really stays with us, as a 
society, and on individuals who have experienced it, long after 
they find housing. How would you describe what some of the 
lifelong impacts of having experienced homelessness have been, 
and how do you see this among other people that you know or 
have encountered about the effects of homelessness after even a 
person finds housing?
    Mr. Harrison. Thank you, again. Some of the long-term 
impacts of that period in my life were that my social mobility 
was downward, and I was in poverty, and it takes a long time to 
offset the impact, and I am only just now really emerging from 
that state of poverty, and so a lot of things are still out of 
reach for me. Thank you.
    Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I wish you the best in your future 
endeavors. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from 
Illinois, Mr. Garcia, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for 
having this continuing timely conversation and this hearing. I 
am going to direct my comments and question to Ms. Crawford.
    What we saw during this pandemic was a bigger gap between 
the haves and the have nots. Plenty of people in my working-
class immigrant community lost their jobs. Many had to take on 
new debts. Businesses closed, but housing prices are through 
the roof. In 2019, right before the pandemic, Latino homeowners 
had a net worth 40 percent higher than Latino renters. That 
number is alarming, and it has only increased. Can you talk 
about the impact of rising house prices for first-time Latino 
and Black homebuyers and what we can do to help them?
    Ms. Crawford. In short, we need that $25,000 DPA. People 
like Donna Wilson, who is looking for a home, cannot find a 
home that she can enter into because the home prices are so 
high that they have been outbid by speculators or people who 
actually have cash to buy their homes. So, we need that to 
actually help people to break down that barrier. Blacks and 
Latinos are experiencing the same thing. We have people in our 
class, 3,000 people who have graduated this year, and we cannot 
find homes for them, so we need that DPA Program to help us to 
get them there.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. And ``DPA'' means, ``Down Payment 
Assistance,'' correct?
    Ms. Crawford. Down Payment Assistance Program, yes.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Thank you. Ms. Fernanda Galindo, 
the eviction moratorium in Illinois expired earlier this month, 
so rental assistance is more important for my constituents than 
ever, but to be effective, it has to reach the tenant quickly 
and easily. We must ensure that landlords do not discriminate 
against tenants who need it. Can you talk about how rental 
assistance helped you during the pandemic, and how rental 
assistance and housing vouchers must be a part of our housing 
plan moving forward?
    Ms. Galindo. Thank you, and especially for my Latino 
community. I live in a large community of Latinos, and one of 
the things is that it helped me out to be able to, like I 
mentioned before, jump to a better job, which is going to help 
me being pulled out of this cycle of hardship financially. This 
could potentially give me a higher income, so I can focus my 
attention and my opportunities on something that is actually 
going to give me more incentives to do more with my life and I 
do not have to depend on the government assistance so much. But 
it is not as accessible because there are too many people 
needing assistance, and you need a lot of time to apply for 
this, and people need to go to work and to pay rent. So, it is 
a never-ending cycle that we can never get out because to apply 
for these programs, you need to skip work for one day, and we 
do not make enough to do that.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Thank you for sharing that. Turning 
to Mr. Edmonds, my City, Chicago, used to have plenty of public 
housing, but after decades of disinvestment, it fell into 
disrepair. Many of our units were demolished. Without a strong 
supply of safe, well-maintained public housing, we got to where 
we are today: Much of our housing is either crumbling and 
unsafe or unaffordable. Could you talk about why public 
housing, in particular, must be a part of the solution to the 
affordable housing problem?
    Mr. Edmonds. If you do not have housing, you have people on 
the streets. You cannot have people on the streets. You cannot 
have the disabled, the elderly, those who have behavioral 
health issues--you cannot just turn them loose. You have to 
help them. They need help. I am still reading now about the 
environmentally-friendly public housing. That is quite 
possible. We need to look at that nationwide.
    Mr. Garcia of Illinois. Very well. Thank you for that, and, 
Madam Chairwoman, I yield back the remainder of my time.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman 
from Georgia, Ms. Williams, who is also the Vice Chair of our 
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. For 
years, our constituents have not been given the leg up that 
they deserve because Washington has not made necessary 
investments in housing and other basic infrastructure. My 
Democratic colleagues, along with our chairwoman and I, are 
here to change that, with or without the support of my 
Republican colleagues. People need housing. They need broadband 
access, childcare, and other basic necessities for life to help 
our economy grow. With the Build Back Better agenda, we can 
invest in our people and our recovery, and we can build a more 
inclusive economy that will benefit our constituents, our 
children, and our future.
    We hear a lot about what Build Back Better investments cost 
financially, but today is an important opportunity to replace 
the dollar signs with faces and really see how much it will 
cost for people to not make these investments. I look forward 
to focusing my questions on the human impact of the Build Back 
Better Agenda.
    Let's start with the cost of housing. According to the 
National Low Income Housing Coalition, a Georgian would have to 
work 2.7 full-time jobs--that is 107 hours a week at minimum 
wage--to afford a two-bedroom rental home. We need the Build 
Back Better agenda because housing is simply unaffordable for 
far too many of my constituents.
    Ms. Galindo, you have mentioned some of the things that you 
give up in the short term to afford housing. Can you tell us a 
little more about the long-run impact that the cost burden of 
rent will have on your family, and what are some of the things 
you might have to give up long term without more affordable 
housing?
    Ms. Galindo. Thank you. Space is basically one. With the 
quality of housing that I have, we do not have enough space 
here for playing or even studying for my son. The amount of 
hours that I have to work has reduced time for my son that he 
needs to be around people who love him. And the security of not 
finding quality care for him could be also a potential danger 
in the long run. And also, my physical health. If I cannot 
afford rent, that is a basic need so that I do not lose custody 
of my son. I cannot even afford healthcare, so I cannot get 
medical attention, and my body is destroyed from working 70 
hours a week for years on end just to afford housing.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you. And housing 
affordability is critical, including when it comes to 
homeownership. In my district, there are several first-time 
homebuyer programs that are providing a gateway to 
homeownership.
    Ms. Crawford, how can first-time homebuyer programs disrupt 
poverty and provide a generational pathway to wealth and 
prosperity for its participants?
    Ms. Crawford. I think it will have a positive impact. Over 
the decades, we have seen the homeownership rate and gaps 
widening, and at this time, in this moment, I think the answer 
to that question is to make sure that we have the necessary 
things in place, such as the Down Payment Assistance Program, 
to help people to break down those barriers so that they can be 
homeownership-ready and can get into homeownership.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. So, we have to get these programs 
in place and get them funded so that we can get these programs 
working for the people. Thank you so much.
    Mr. Edmonds, in your testimony, you mentioned how fully 
funding the housing components of the Build Back Better Act 
could translate to important repairs and upgrades within your 
community that will improve life for its residents. More 
specifically, how would ensuring broadband access in your 
community help provide access to new opportunities for 
residents?
    Mr. Edmonds. In this building, when I first moved in--and 
it was set up and paid for by the management--we have a 
wireless router down in the basement, down in what we call our 
library. You have to be down there nearby just to get the 
signal. Maybe if you are outside by the window, you can get the 
signal. And that is how the residents who can afford devices of 
any type, who have a device, can communicate with others. That 
was it. More recently, which we are still working on and it 
started this week, we got some tablets from T-Mobile, about 
250, and we are trying to get them set up with residents, teach 
them how to use it, and create some accounts for them, things 
like that. So, it has been difficult--doctor's appointments, 
getting them to talk to the people handling their cases, 
family. It has been rough.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you so much, and thank you 
to all of the people who are here to testify today. And my 
colleagues, I urge you to look beyond the dollars and cents. I 
know that is critically important as we fund these programs, 
but these are the faces that we are impacting in the work we 
are doing, and I will always focus on the people in the work 
that I am here to do in Congress. Thank you so much, Madam 
Chairwoman, and I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you so very much. I want to thank 
all of our distinguished panelists. This is our first panel--we 
have two today--of witnesses. And at this time, I would like to 
excuse the witnesses, because we are going to have a second 
panel, and we are going to have to stand in recess for 5 
minutes to allow the second panel of witnesses to be seated. 
But I want you to know your presence here today is so 
extraordinarily important while we are in the middle of 
negotiating one of the biggest bills in the history of this 
Congress, and transformational efforts that we are putting 
forward, in housing, in particular. Thank you all so very much.
    This panel is adjourned. Thank you.
    Mr. Edmonds. Thank you.
    Ms. Crawford. Thank you.
    [brief recess]
    Chairwoman Waters. The committee will come to order.
    I want to welcome our second panel of witnesses today: 
Professor Raj Chetty, the William H. Ackman Professor of Public 
Economics at Harvard University; Dr. Carlos del Rio, the 
Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the Division of 
Infectious Diseases at the Emory University School of Medicine; 
Ms. Lisa Rice, the President and CEO of the National Fair 
Housing Alliance; Mr. Khalil Shahyd, the Managing Director of 
the Equity, Environment and Justice Center with the Natural 
Resources Defense Council; and Mr. Matthew Dickerson, the 
Director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget 
at The Heritage Foundation.
    You will each have 5 minutes to summarize your testimony. 
You should be able to see a timer on your screen or on the 
table in front of you that will indicate how much time you have 
left in your testimony.
    And without objection, your written statements will be made 
a part of the record.
    Professor Chetty, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to 
present your testimony.

STATEMENT OF RAJ CHETTY, WILLIAM A. ACKMAN PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC 
                 ECONOMICS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

    Mr. Chetty. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry, and 
members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to 
discuss evidence on the importance of affordable housing for 
economic mobility. I want to begin today by discussing the 
American Dream, the idea that every child in America should 
have a chance of succeeding regardless of their race, 
ethnicity, or family income, an ideal of equality of 
opportunity that I think we all share.
    Back in the middle of the last century, virtually all kids 
in America had access to the American Dream. Ninety-two percent 
of children born in the 1940s went on to earn more than their 
parents did. Today, only 50 percent of kids are on track to do 
better than their parents. One factor that research has 
identified as being particularly important in determining 
economic opportunity is access to a neighborhood that has the 
resources--from good schools to social capital--to support 
upward mobility. Many studies have shown that there are stark 
disparities across a range of outcomes, from income to 
education to health, across neighborhoods. The maps on pages 3 
and 4 of my written testimony show how children's chances of 
upward mobility vary dramatically across places. As you can 
see, kids from families with comparable incomes who grew up 
just a few miles apart often experience vastly different life 
trajectories.
    Critically, neighborhoods have a causal effect on the 
outcomes of kids who grow up there. When a given child moves to 
a higher opportunity neighborhood, the amount they earn as an 
adult increases. Indeed, large-scale experiments conducted by 
HUD show that providing families housing vouchers to live in 
low-poverty, high-opportunity areas can dramatically improve 
their economic and health outcomes. Similarly, racial 
disparities are also shaped in large part by unequal access to 
high-opportunity neighborhoods. In light of this evidence, the 
key question in my mind is, how do we give everyone access to 
opportunity-rich neighborhoods?
    This brings me to the second key point I want to make, 
which is that access to housing in opportunity-rich areas is 
severely constrained in the United States. Demand for housing 
has consistently outpaced supply in the past decade, and many 
poor families currently spend half of their income, or even 
more, on housing. Furthermore, the neighborhoods that offer the 
best chances for upward income mobility are often even more 
expensive, hence low- and even middle-income families often 
cannot access the neighborhoods that offer their children the 
best chances of achieving upward mobility.
    Now, Federal aid can play a major role in addressing some 
of these challenges and making opportunity more accessible to 
all. Indeed, many programs already exist that have precisely 
that aim, but those programs are vastly underfunded at the 
moment. At present, only 1 in 4 families who are eligible for 
Federal housing assistance actually receive that aid.
    This brings me to my third and final point, that well-
designed changes in Federal policy that expand support for 
affordable housing can play a key role in restoring the 
American Dream. Bolstering support for affordable housing 
through the Voucher Program, through public housing, through 
the Housing Trust Fund, and other policy models can increase 
access to housing in high-opportunity areas, and thereby 
increase upward mobility.
    But I will note that it is very important that we design 
any such policies well, in an evidence-based manner, to 
maximize impact. To give you an example of that, we find that 
even among families who do receive housing vouchers at present, 
most of them currently live in lower-opportunity neighborhoods. 
In a recent pilot study, we found that providing a small set of 
additional support services during the housing search process 
can dramatically increase the fraction of families who move to 
high-opportunity areas, potentially generating increases in the 
incomes of their kids by more than $200,000 over their 
lifetimes. What this illustrates is that coupling Federal 
assistance for housing with such support programs is likely to 
be critical for maximizing their impact. As another example, in 
addition to providing assistance for lower-income families in 
renting existing housing, I think it is critical to also 
provide support for expanding the total supply of housing in 
order to relieve pressure on prices.
    To conclude, we now have rigorous scientific evidence that 
stable housing in high-opportunity neighborhoods can provide a 
critical foundation for a variety of outcomes, such as higher 
future earnings, better health, and better levels of education. 
Well-designed Federal support for affordable housing can give 
all children, irrespective of their race, ethnicity, or family 
income, a chance of achieving the American Dream. Thanks very 
much.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Chetty can be found on page 
88 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Next, we have Dr. 
Carlos del Rio, a distinguished professor of medicine in the 
Division of Infectious Diseases at the Emory University School 
of Medicine. Dr. del Rio?

STATEMENT OF CARLOS DEL RIO, MD, FIDSA, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR 
 OF MEDICINE, EPIDEMIOLOGY AND GLOBAL HEALTH, EMORY UNIVERSITY 
                       SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

    Dr. del Rio. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters and Ranking 
Member McHenry, and thank you, members of the House Committee 
on Financial Services, for giving me the opportunity to present 
to your committee.
    My name is Carlos del Rio, and I am the Executive Associate 
Dean for Emory University School of Medicine at the Grady 
Health system. I am also the Distinguished Professor of 
Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, and professor 
of epidemiology and global health here at Emory University. In 
addition, am the president-elect of the Infectious Disease 
Society of America, and the past chair of the HIV Medicine 
Association, and I am the international secretary of the 
National Academy of Medicine.
    As a physician researcher, I want to thank you for holding 
this hearing on the importance of addressing housing stability 
through the infrastructure and economic recovery legislation. I 
am an infectious disease physician whose clinical care and 
research prior to the COVID-19 pandemic primarily focused on 
HIV prevention and care. I also have conducted research on the 
key drivers of HIV-related disparities, including factors that 
make certain communities and populations more vulnerable to HIV 
infection and to experiencing worse outcomes from HIV.
    The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront the 
impact of social determinants of health, including housing, 
economic stability, education, food insecurity, healthcare 
coverage and access, racism, and health vulnerability and 
outcomes. Research evaluating the link between social and 
community factors from COVID-19 incidence and outcomes 
indicates that race and ethnicity, poverty, and housing 
stability put certain populations at greater risk for COVID-19 
and at a higher risk for more severe outcomes due COVID-19.
    One study that evaluated housing conditions on COVID-19 in 
all of the United States counties found that those with a 
higher percentage of households with poor housing had a higher 
incidence of COVID-19 and higher mortality associated with 
COVID. Alarmingly, the researchers found that the percentage of 
households living in poor housing conditions increased by 5 
percent. In one county, the risk of COVID increased by 50 
percent and the mortality increased by 42 percent. Factors 
found in the study are likely contributing to greater 
vulnerability to COVID, including overcrowding, inadequate 
plumbing and sanitation, as well as high rent costs, leaving no 
or only nominal resources to access healthcare services.
    In addition to housing and living conditions affecting 
health status, housing instability is married to healthcare 
services that results in worse outcomes and higher healthcare 
costs for individuals and families. For people with HIV, stable 
housing is associated with viral suppression, which is when the 
level of virus in your body is reduced to undetectable levels. 
When individuals are virally-suppressed, their immune systems 
are protected, they can live long and healthy lives, and the 
risk of transmitting HIV to their sexual partners drops to 
essentially zero. The Ryan White CARE Act Program supports an 
overall viral suppression rate among people served by the 
program of 89.3 percent, but that percentage drops nearly 15 
percentage points to 74.5 percent for clients who are unstably 
housed. I will remind you that the Ryan White CARE Act Program 
serves over 50 percent of people living with HIV in our 
country.
    Community-based supportive housing that provides case 
management and linkages to other healthcare services also 
improves outcomes and breaks the cycle of chronic housing 
instability. In 2018, the National Academy of Sciences convened 
a committee to evaluate supportive housing and noted that 
chronic homelessness is a highly complex social problem of 
national importance because of the harms to health caused by 
unstable housing. The committee recommended expanding access to 
permanent supportive housing and other housing models while 
continuing to evaluate supportive housing programs. Stable 
housing coupled with case management and other services for 
people with chronic conditions is important in alleviating 
physical and mental stressors, providing sanitation and 
refrigerators for food and some medications, and to facilitate 
communications and connectivity with social services and 
healthcare professionals and to maintain community and social 
supports.
    Expanding access to integrated and coordinated approaches 
to providing healthcare and housing services or permanent 
supportive community-based housing is important to improve 
health outcomes for people with chronic conditions experiencing 
chronic unstable housing, including seniors, people with 
disabilities, HIV, behavioral health, and substance use 
disorders. Stable and adequate housing is healthcare. For 
people with HIV, it affects their ability to connect or 
maintain a connection with the care and their ability to adhere 
to daily HIV medications, which are necessary for them to 
continue their viral suppression.
    As a physician who cares for people with HIV and other 
infectious diseases at the Grady Health System here in Atlanta, 
I have seen firsthand the challenges that patients who are 
unstably-housed face in accessing and staying connected to our 
healthcare services. I also have seen the challenges that our 
patients who are unstably-housed face in securing permanent 
housing due to lack of affordable options. According to the 
National Low Income Housing Coalition, American Indian or 
Alaska Natives, Latino, and Asian households are more likely to 
be extremely low-income renters than White households. These 
population groups have also been disproportionately affected by 
HIV and COVID-19, among other infectious diseases. For Black 
households, 20 percent are extremely low-income renters. For 
American Indians and Alaska Natives, it is 18 percent, and for 
Latinos, it is 14 percent.
    Chairwoman Waters. Dr. Rio, your time has expired. Thank 
you.
    Dr. del Rio. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. del Rio can be found on page 
104 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. Ms. Rice, you are now 
recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.

   STATEMENT OF LISA RICE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL FAIR 
                        HOUSING ALLIANCE

    Ms. Rice. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member 
McHenry, and members of the committee for the opportunity to 
speak about the importance of housing and the Build Back Better 
Act. My organization is a non-profit civil rights agency 
dedicated to eliminating housing discrimination and ensuring 
equitable housing opportunities for everyone.
    The nation stands at a crisis, and housing is at its core. 
As millions of people face eviction due to the ending of the 
moratorium, Congress and President Biden have a once-in-a-
generation opportunity to help rectify centuries of injustice 
in our nation's housing and lending markets, and redress the 
negative effects of distorted race-based laws and policies put 
in place by the Federal Government that provided housing and 
wealth-building opportunities for Whites, while simultaneously 
denying those same opportunities to the people of color who 
helped build this country. These discriminatory policies helped 
create inequitable systems like residential segregation, 
restrictive zoning ordinances, and the dual credit market that 
are still with us today, driving disparate outcomes in every 
area and facet of our lives.
    For example, White families hold 5 and 8 times the wealth 
of Latino and Black households, respectively. That wealth gap 
is driven by disparities in homeownership. White households 
have a 40-percent higher homeownership rate than Black 
households, a 36-percent higher homeownership rate than Latino 
households, and a 21-percent higher homeownership rate than 
Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander households. If we 
freeze White wealth where it is today, it would take Black 
households 228 years to achieve the level of wealth that White 
households now have.
    Moreover, housing insecurity brought on by the COVID 
pandemic has been disproportionately felt by households of 
color, who are more than twice as likely as their White 
counterparts to be behind on their housing payments. Indeed, as 
you have heard, housing and residential segregation are social 
determinants of health. Quantitative and qualitative gaps in 
housing are driving multiple disparate outcomes related to 
education, incarceration, income, health, credit access, 
longevity, and many other areas. Your ZIP Code determines your 
outcomes in life.
    The overwhelming majority of Americans understand this, and 
they do not like it. The Bipartisan Policy Center's Morning 
Consult poll published last month shows that most Americans, 
including a majority of Republicans, Independents, and 
Democrats, support significant funding for housing issues, 
including public housing repairs, tax credits to develop and 
renovate homes in distressed communities, and down payment 
assistance for first-generation homebuyers. Voters know that 
there is no city in our nation where someone making minimum 
wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment. They view today's 
affordable housing challenge as a crisis that needs immediate 
action. Nearly 90 percent of people, including 76 percent of 
Republicans, believe that the government has a role to play in 
creating affordable housing solutions and want to see their 
elected officials take action.
    Congress has the opportunity to change history by helping 
to eliminate the largest racial homeownership gap since 
redlining was legal. The definition of insanity is to keep 
doing the same thing, and expecting a different result. So, we 
must implement new solutions, like down payment assistance for 
first-generation homebuyers, as Chairwoman Waters' Downpayment 
Toward Equity Act provides. Every $30 billion dedicated to down 
payment assistance adds over 500,000 new Black and Latino 
homeowners, increasing homeownership rates for both groups, 
respectively, by 1 percentage point, and leveraging roughly 
$141 billion in additional economic impact.
    We must also support the renovation of the existing 
affordable housing stock, as provided by the Neighborhood Homes 
Investment Act and include $1 billion for the Fair Housing 
Initiatives Program and $250 million for the Fair Housing 
Assistance Program.
    In conclusion, an overwhelming majority of Americans want 
Congress and the President to fix our nation's housing ills. In 
fact, President Biden ran on the promise of addressing racism 
in housing inequality through his Build Back Better platform, 
but we cannot address racial injustice without addressing 
housing and homeownership inequities. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Rice can be found on page 
126 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Mr. Shahyd, you are 
now recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.

    STATEMENT OF KHALIL SHAHYD, MANAGING DIRECTOR, EQUITY, 
  ENVIRONMENT AND JUSTICE CENTER, NATIONAL RESOURCES DEFENSE 
                            COUNCIL

    Mr. Shahyd. Thank you. Good morning, or good afternoon now, 
Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry, and the 
distinguished members of the House Committee on Financial 
Services. Thank you for holding this hearing and for the 
opportunity to testify. My name is Khalil Shahyd. I am the 
managing director for environmental and equity strategies with 
the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). At NRDC, we 
recognize the importance of expanding affordable housing to 
address many of our nation's environmental challenges, such as 
climate change, and the uneven burdens faced by communities of 
color due to racialized land-use policies that locate hazardous 
materials and infrastructure disproportionately in our 
communities.
    I am here today to urge Congress to pass the Build Back 
Better Act, including the critical investments voted for by 
this committee for affordable housing development, 
preservation, and retrofit. Making smart investments in 
affordable housing will ensure the Build Back Better Act 
addresses racial disparities in our nation's housing system 
that disproportionately burden renters of color with high 
housing costs, while devaluing homeowners in these same 
communities, leading to an ever-widening racial wealth gap.
    This is a national crisis. There are no red States or blue 
States. We are unified by the fact that in no State, 
metropolitan area, or parish can a worker earning a Federal 
minimum wage afford a two-bedroom rental home by working a 
standard 40-hour work week. The private market has never been 
able or willing to produce an adequate supply of homes for 
extremely low-income households, and the growth of low-wage 
work exacerbates the problem. Without congressional action, 7 
of the 10 occupations projected to experience the greatest 
growth over the next decade will pay hourly wages that are 
insufficient to afford modest apartments, meaning the problem 
is likely to be exacerbated in the coming years.
    Analysts expect that over the next 10 years, more than 400 
new renter households will enter the rental market, many of 
these households being low income. And if this were not enough, 
low-income families pay more per square foot--on average, 20 
percent more--of their incomes on electricity and heat. That is 
a lot. And for a household, that means deciding between keeping 
heat or lights on versus paying rent, buying food, or paying 
for medicines or school supplies.
    High energy burdens also create hidden dangers. Space 
heaters are involved in 79 percent of fatal home heating fires, 
when building heating systems are inadequate. And if that was 
not enough, many families are increasingly facing the prospects 
of dealing with major weather disasters, such as hurricanes, 
flooding, wildfires, and other climate-related emergencies. The 
number of affordable housing units at risk from flooding in 
coastal areas will triple by 2050 unless action is taken today.
    Fully funding the Build Back Better Act will provide 
important investments to address the housing crisis while 
creating quality jobs. The shortage of affordable housing costs 
our economy $2 trillion each year in lower wages and 
productivity. A 2015 study estimates that between 1964 and 
2009, we could have had a $1.7-trillion increase in income 
overall, and $8,775 in additional wages per worker with 
improved housing quality. Just one year of construction of 100 
affordable housing units can generate $11.7 million in local 
income, and $2.2 million in taxes and revenue, and can create 
161 local jobs.
    Addressing the housing crisis is also key to equitable 
climate action. Homes and buildings in the U.S. account for 
nearly 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption, and nearly a 
third of our greenhouse gas emissions. What we build today will 
have a major impact on future energy costs and the protection 
of communities from extreme weather due to the emission 
thresholds we have already crossed. Investing in our nation's 
affordable housing to make it more energy-efficient and 
resilient must be the cornerstone of our nation's Build Back 
Better strategy. These investments are also critical to ensure 
success in fighting climate change and to ensure the positive 
investments in the clean energy economy are shared.
    With millions of Americans still struggling to afford a 
stable home, the Build Back Better Act is not just an 
opportunity; it is a national imperative. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Shahyd can be found on page 
147 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Mr. Dickerson, you 
are now recognized for 5 minutes to present your testimony.

  STATEMENT OF MATTHEW DICKERSON, DIRECTOR, GROVER M. HERMANN 
     CENTER FOR THE FEDERAL BUDGET, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

    Mr. Dickerson. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry, 
and members of the committee, thank you so much for the 
opportunity to be here and testify. My name is Matthew 
Dickerson, and I am the Director of the Grover M. Hermann 
Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation. My 
views in this testimony today are my own and should not be 
construed as an official position of The Heritage Foundation.
    Housing is an important component of the American economy, 
but more importantly, housing is often the largest part of a 
family's budget, and it is a vital determinant in their quality 
of life. The affordability of housing depends on basic economic 
factors, including an ample supply of available housing as well 
as a growing economy where people can enjoy the dignity of the 
fruits of their labor.
    So, it is important that we consider housing in the context 
of economic policy. Unfortunately, too often, government erects 
barriers to opportunity. It should be no surprise that the 
sectors of the economy that people express the most frustration 
with--things like healthcare, education, energy, and housing--
are the ones where government is already the most involved. 
Government rules, regulations, subsidies, and disincentives all 
limit consumer choice. They stifle innovation, drive up costs, 
and ultimately make things more difficult and less fulfilling 
for people all around the country.
    Congress is currently considering a massive tax and 
spending package that is meant to transform the American 
economy and expand government control over some of the most 
personal aspects of people's lives. It would put more of the 
economy's resources under the control of politicians and 
bureaucrats rather than the people. It would use the force of 
government to pick winners and losers, and that unfairly 
empowers special interests. And all of this will just 
exacerbate the challenges that families and communities are 
facing as we continue to struggle to emerge from this pandemic.
    Americans have been feeling the effects of price increases. 
The Consumer Price Index has increased 5.4 percent in the last 
year, which is among the highest increases since the 1970s. 
Total government spending in Fiscal Year 2021 was 53 percent 
higher than it was in 2019--53 percent higher. Of the roughly 
$5.2 trillion in new Federal debt that was added since the 
beginning of the pandemic, $2.8 trillion of that, or 54 
percent, was purchased by the Federal Reserve. Fifty-four 
percent of the new debt added since the beginning of the 
pandemic has been monetized by the Federal Reserve. All of this 
is unprecedented, and I am concerned that pumping even more 
government cash into the economy could fuel a dramatic surge in 
price inflation.
    One of the biggest issues on the minds of people throughout 
the country is the disruptions to the goods and services that 
they need, that they rely on. Consumers are seeing shelves that 
are bare of goods while the White House warns that Christmas 
may be interrupted. We have even seen some basic goods 
disappear from the shelves in stores. Factories have seen work 
slowdowns and shortages due to interruptions of vital supplies 
and components. Meanwhile, throughout the country, we see help 
wanted signs posted in shops and restaurants. In August, there 
were 8.3 million unemployed workers, and that is way too many, 
but at the same time, there were 10.4 million job openings. 
That is 2.1 million more job openings than people who were 
looking for work.
    The economy is facing very significant challenges, and the 
Build Back Better Act threatens to make those worse by 
increasing regulations and fiscal burdens, especially on small 
businesses and independent workers like truck drivers, 
especially as the economy is struggling to recover from 
government lockdowns and economic disruptions. These policies 
would reduce wages, cost jobs, harm economic growth, cut 
investment, increase prices, and harm working families. And 
that is the exact opposite of what we are supposed to be here 
to do. Instead, I think we should focus on doing better. We 
should be removing barriers. We should be rolling back 
regulations, getting the budget on a sustainable path, and 
giving people more opportunity.
    And with that, I am happy to yield back the remainder of my 
time, and thank you so much for the opportunities.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Dickerson can be found on 
page 110 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Votes have been 
called on the House Floor. We will stand in recess, and we will 
reconvene immediately following the conclusion of these votes. 
I appreciate your patience.
    The committee will stand in recess.
    [recess]
    Chairwoman Waters. The committee will come to order.
    I now recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions.
    Thank you for your testimony today, Professor Chetty. I 
have long been a supporter of the Housing Choice Voucher 
Program. Housing choice vouchers help families escape 
homelessness and poverty, and they support the development of 
more affordable housing. That is why we included $75 billion 
for new Housing Choice Vouchers in my committee's section of 
the Build Back Better Act.
    This funding is a top priority for me. Just a few weeks 
ago, I was out in the streets of my district working with the 
Los Angeles County Development Authority to try and move people 
experiencing homelessness immediately into permanent housing. 
However, Los Angeles County simply does not have enough housing 
resources to do so.
    As a matter of fact, I had what is known as LAHSA, which is 
the coordinating agency for the homeless in getting shelters, 
et cetera, I had L.A. County and the City and the Housing 
Authority, all come out. We met. I stayed out there 6 hours 
with them. All of these makeshift tents that were lining the 
median of this major street had been there for months, and I 
have passed them week after week and month after month.
    And so I went to each of the tents, and I asked them if we 
could get them some temporary housing, the hotel housing 
operation that we have, what they call the Hotel Key, I 
believe, but it is very temporary, overnight style. They said 
yes. So, we helped them to get some of their stuff stored, and 
some of it they could not take with them, and that was carried 
away.
    But the idea was that we had all of the agencies--the City, 
the County, the Housing Authority, and LAHSA--all there, and we 
had people coming from the community around what we were doing. 
They saw the activity, and they were begging me for vouchers. 
They wanted vouchers. They knew that there is something called 
Section 8 vouchers, and if you could get one, you would have an 
opportunity to find a place.
    So, I want to ask you about vouchers, because I have given 
it a high priority in my funding. How can a significant 
infusion of vouchers help places like Los Angeles address the 
affordable housing crisis in the short term as we work to 
increase our country's affordable housing stock? And really, 
the question is not only about Los Angeles or California, but 
vouchers everywhere that we can get to give people an 
opportunity to go look for housing using these vouchers.
    Do you think that vouchers can help us deal with this 
homeless problem in significant ways?
    Mr. Chetty. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters.
    I completely agree with those sentiments. I think there is 
good evidence that vouchers can help families find stable 
housing, and expanding funding for vouchers, especially given 
that only a small fraction of the families who are actually 
currently eligible receive vouchers, is a critical step towards 
getting more families vouchers and the housing they are 
ultimately seeking.
    Now that being said, I think there are two important things 
to keep in mind. One, there are also serious supply problems. 
If we just give people more vouchers, but there aren't more 
total houses for people to rent, more total apartments, then 
that is going to drive up prices and not necessarily lead to 
more total housing.
    So, I think in parallel to expanding vouchers, which is 
critical, it is also important to figure out how you relax the 
zoning restrictions and do other things to increase the supply.
    And the second thing, I will go on quickly, is trying to 
get people housed in areas that provide good opportunities for 
upward mobility more generally. Schools, other resources, 
networks, and so forth are extremely important to keep in mind 
as well.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Rice, the Build Back Better agenda has been championed 
as a way to uplift America's middle class. Given the growing 
racial wealth gap and demographic trajectories which show that 
people of color will make up the majority of America by 2042, 
is it really possible to build back better without robust 
affordable housing investments?
    Ms. Rice. No, it is not. And it is also not possible to 
build back better without significant down payment assistance, 
since those families do not have intergenerational wealth to 
pass down due to our nation's legacy of inequitable housing 
policies.
    Chairwoman Waters. You mentioned how long it would take to 
make up this wealth gap. Do you mean if we keep doing what we 
are doing now, or do we need to do new and bigger things to 
close that wealth gap?
    Ms. Rice. Yes, we need to do new and bigger things. If we 
keep doing what we are doing now, we will never close the 
racial wealth gaps.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
    The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you once again, Madam Chairwoman, for 
holding this important meeting.
    I don't see Matthew Dickerson in the lineup here. Is he 
still with us?
    Mr. Dickerson. Yes, sir. I am here in person.
    Mr. Posey. Oh, okay. Mr. Dickerson, can you tell us what 
your research shows about the importance of reducing the cost 
of building affordable housing and solving our overall 
affordable housing challenges?
    Mr. Dickerson. Absolutely. I think that is really the goal. 
If the goal is to get more people into housing and make more 
housing available to people, we should be removing government 
barriers to building new housing, and that is the best way to 
increase access to housing is to allow more housing supply to 
be built. And also, allowing people to keep more of their 
dignity and the fruits of their labor to be able to afford it.
    Mr. Posey. Does any of your research give any basis 
whatsoever for estimating how much Federal housing expenditures 
have merely driven up the market prices and rents of housing as 
opposed to reducing the costs of building new housing and 
increasing the supply of housing in the private market?
    Mr. Dickerson. I think that is a great question, and there 
is no question that when the Federal Government gets involved 
and it starts subsidizing different forms of housing, that just 
drives up prices in the marketplace artificially rather than 
allowing true market-rate housing to be available. So, I think 
a lot of times when we are talking about market rate housing, 
that doesn't actually exist in the housing market.
    If you look at the mortgage financial system, nearly 90 
percent of mortgages are backed by the Federal Government. The 
Federal Reserve owns more than $2 trillion worth of mortgage-
backed securities. There is too much government intervention in 
the housing marketplace.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you. How do you foresee Congress being 
able to help reduce the costs of building affordable housing in 
the private market?
    Mr. Dickerson. That is a great question.
    There are some things in the Tax Code. The Tax Code is 
actually biased against building new construction for housing. 
If you want to build a new apartment building, you have to 
depreciate those costs over 27\1/2\ years. So, it takes 
multiple decades for a developer to build a new house and then 
be able to write that off over the course of time.
    What we could do--there are a couple of easy suggestions. 
We should allow expensing, full and immediate expensing for 
those types of investments like we do other capital 
expenditures. Or we could allow other ways to write that down 
which allow companies to actually recoup those costs so we can 
build more and increase investment, which would, of course, 
lower costs.
    Mr. Posey. I remember a story about Mother Teresa in New 
York. She built a house for the homeless, and they wouldn't let 
her open it, because they said it didn't have enough bathrooms, 
and they might have to wait in line. So they didn't have a 
house, and they just went in the street.
    Are there any estimates of how much reducing the cost of 
building new housing and reducing regulatory cost burdens on 
new housing could potentially increase the stock of affordable 
housing in the private market?
    Mr. Dickerson. That is another great point. We should 
reduce the regulatory burdens to building at the local, State, 
and Federal levels. There are things like Davis-Bacon 
prevailing wage requirements, that if the Federal Government is 
involved in building a project, that just artificially drives 
up the cost. So, if the goal is to build more public housing, 
we should try to build as much as we can in a cost-effective 
manner for the taxpayers, rather than artificially increasing 
the price of those projects.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you. Have there been pretty solid studies 
to back this up, of which you are aware?
    Mr. Dickerson. Absolutely. I think there are lots of basic 
economic studies that have been done by my colleagues at The 
Heritage Foundation and many others throughout the country. I 
know our colleagues at the Mercatus Center at George Mason 
University have been specialists in this area. And there are 
folks at the Manhattan Institute who have done very good work 
in this space, that I would recommend as well.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Dickerson, for joining us today, 
and I thank the other witnesses as well for coming and sharing.
    I see my time is about to expire, so I yield back, Madam 
Chairwoman.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman 
from New York, Ms. Velazquez, who is also the Chair of the 
House Committee on Small Business, is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you so much, Chairwoman Waters.
    Dr. del Rio, for years I have been outspoken in saying that 
the state of our nation's public housing system has become a 
public health crisis. And earlier today, I told the first panel 
that the residents of the New York City Housing Authority 
(NYCHA) endure a consistent lack of hot water, insufficient 
heat during the winter months, rodent and insect infestations, 
and a widespread and recurring lead and mold problem.
    As a result of these conditions, many NYCHA residents 
suffer from respiratory illnesses. In your expert medical 
opinion, is there a connection between poor housing conditions 
and the development and exacerbation of respiratory illnesses?
    Dr. del Rio. Thank you for your question, and I appreciate 
the opportunity to address that.
    Absolutely, I think when we talk about having decent 
housing for individuals, we are also talking about people 
having access to clean air and to adequate water and sanitation 
in the place they live. Simply having a wall or a roof over 
your head, which may be living in the streets in a made-up 
housing, is not sufficient, right? You need to have other 
things, and we know people suffer from respiratory illnesses. 
We know people suffer from gastrointestinal illnesses because 
their water is contaminated. We know recently that because of 
water that was contaminated with lead, citizens in Michigan 
have problems with that.
    So your house can be the safest and the most secure place, 
but it could also be--the place you live could also be where 
you acquire infections. And I think in the case of COVID, we 
saw that, that when people were brought together and you had 
overcrowding, even though people were housed, because they were 
overcrowded, the risk of transmission increased significantly.
    Ms. Velazquez. Yes. Are respiratory problems and other 
health conditions among residents in public housing an issue 
you see across the country?
    Dr. del Rio. I am not an expert on respiratory diseases, so 
I cannot tell you, yes, that is the case. But in my reading, I 
would say that we see in people who live in public housing a 
higher incidence of asthma and other respiratory diseases.
    People don't realize that, for example, asthma, is actually 
more common in poor individuals. It is much more common in 
people who live in unstable--in public housing than for people 
who live in adequate housing.
    Ms. Velazquez. Dr. del Rio, last year Senator Gillibrand 
and I wrote to the NYCHA chairman highlighting our concern 
about the poor conditions in NYCHA and the Authority's reported 
failure to fix mechanical fan equipment, exacerbating the 
spread of COVID among residents. Can you please explain how 
improving housing conditions could have helped mitigate the 
effects of the coronavirus?
    Dr. del Rio. One of the things that I think we did wrong in 
our country is when somebody was diagnosed with COVID, then 
instead of sending them--in many places, people were found a 
place to isolate, so they wouldn't infect other people. Here, 
we diagnose individuals, and we send them back to their house. 
And if their family members and the people living in the house 
were not infected, they became infected, because the infected 
person transmitted the disease.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you.
    Dr. del Rio. One of the most important things is the 
ability to be able to isolate when you have COVID. And for 
that, you need to have a private room and a private bathroom 
and the ability to stay away from others who are not infected 
in your household in order to prevent transmission.
    Ms. Velazquez. Yes, and there are concerns about the 
ventilation systems in public housing, as one area that could 
have any type of connection with the spread of COVID-19.
    Ms. Rice, as you know, our nation faces a homelessness and 
affordable housing crisis. Can you explain the importance of 
creating additional units of affordable housing and how the 
Build Back Better Act helps us meet that challenge?
    Ms. Rice. Congresswoman Velazquez, thank you for the 
question.
    Yes, we need 5 million additional affordable housing units 
in the United States, and the Build Back Better plan would 
provide funding to support the development of new affordable 
housing units using funds from the National Housing Trust Fund 
and also via tax credits. But it also provides funding to fix 
the already-existing plethora of naturally-affordable housing 
units that are in very, very poor condition in communities 
throughout the States.
    So, it provides a tax credit to update that housing so that 
it can be onboarded and used for affordable housing purposes.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from 
Kentucky, Mr. Barr, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Barr. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    And once again, I would like to thank the panel of 
witnesses for appearing before the committee, and once again, I 
must question why they are even here. We have had this debate 
multiple times. In fact, since Democrats took control, we have 
had 31 housing hearings, and 13 of those hearings have been in 
the Full Committee.
    We voted on the bill that this hearing purports to review, 
and the final negotiations are apparently nearing the finish 
line, arguably with little or no input from Democrats on this 
committee. I say that because in public reporting, I am reading 
that Democrats are considering cutting housing funding in this 
massive socialism spending bill to roughly a third of the 
initial amount proposed, as they try to lower the cost of the 
bill to perhaps try to earn the support of Senator Manchin or 
Senator Sinema.
    The committee's portion of this bill and the broader 
reconciliation package are simply a big government spending 
blowout. Spending another $3.5 trillion financed through debt 
and massive tax hikes will not only put us on the downhill 
slide to socialism, it will perpetuate devastating inflation 
felt by Americans across the country.
    Rising prices are compounded by shortages due to supply 
chain bottlenecks and the Biden Administration's failure to 
adequately take action to address them. Higher prices and 
scarcity at the grocery store are not, ``high-class problems,'' 
as senior White House officials suggest, and Americans should 
not just, ``lower their expectations,'' as some in the 
mainstream media have said.
    Imagine being a middle-class working parent who sees the 
price of milk, eggs, meat, and gas rising rapidly and once-full 
shelves at the grocery store now bare. Now imagine being told 
by so-called elites that you just need to suck it up and hope 
for more government handouts. That is the reality in President 
Biden's America: Just hope for more government handouts.
    The argument that inflation is transitory is getting 
thinner and thinner with each passing month. Increases in the 
Consumer Price Index have topped 5 percent month after month 
after month. Some of my colleagues may try to dismiss the 
dramatic rise in prices as temporary due to supply chain 
bottlenecks, increased demand from reopening the economy, or 
overly-accommodative monetary policy. And while these elements 
may play a role, let us be clear that reckless government 
spending and across-the-board tax hikes will ensure that these 
upward price pressures will remain with us for years to come.
    Just this week, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco 
published a report that examined this question specifically: 
Does runaway government spending have an impact on inflation? 
And the answer was absolutely, yes.
    The report finds that significant Federal spending under 
the Biden Administration has resulted in higher inflation. 
There is simply too much demand chasing too little supply, and 
that is a basic recipe for increases in prices.
    And the message is clear as we look to the future: Greater 
amounts of wasteful government spending mean higher prices for 
everyday Americans. And continuing to pay people to not rejoin 
the labor market is also going to push prices higher because 
you are just going to continue to have these supply chain 
disruptions.
    So, make no mistake about it, prices are up: the price of 
gas is up 42 percent; beef, 18 percent; bacon, 19 percent; and 
used cars, 24 percent. These aren't high-class products. These 
are items that everyday Americans in Kentucky's Sixth 
Congressional District and around the country need. And our 
constituents are paying the price.
    This is Joe Biden's inflation tax, and it is not a tax on 
the wealthy; it is a tax on lower- to middle-income Americans. 
A recent nationwide survey showed that consumers are worried 
about rising prices and increasingly blaming blowout government 
spending. Seventy-eight percent said rising prices were a 
concern, and two-thirds said that they believed increased 
government spending was a significant contributor to upward 
price pressures.
    Not to mention the concern about our government going 
bankrupt and that future generations of Americans are going to 
be paying the price tag. No matter how much the Biden 
Administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
want to sweep this problem under the rug or pretend that big 
government tax-and-spend policies don't contribute, the data is 
clear. And Americans are paying attention.
    Inflation is a tax. It is a tax on Americans, and it is 
dampening the spending power of consumers. Real wage growth is 
down just as America is recovering from a global health and 
economic crisis.
    The Biden Administration's answer is more Keynesian blowout 
spending the likes of which we have never seen. This threatens 
to perpetuate inflation, bankrupt small businesses, and 
compromise U.S. global leadership and economic security. So, 
let us stop pushing for more wasteful government spending.
    I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. The gentleman yields back. The 
gentlewoman from Iowa, Mrs. Axne, who is also the Vice Chair of 
our Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development, and 
Insurance, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you for 
all of the work that you understand is important to this 
country, which is housing for Americans and affordable housing 
in all parts of our country.
    I am here to actually ask questions about the real issues 
that we are facing, and thank you to all of our folks here for 
attending.
    A study recently found that in Iowa, 75 percent of our 
children under 6-years-old had lead in their blood. This is the 
fourth-highest rate in the country.
    Dr. del Rio, I know this isn't quite your specialty area, 
but can you tell me a little bit about how lead can affect 
children?
    Dr. del Rio. Thank you very much for your question, 
Representative Axne.
    Yes. Lead accumulates in the brains of children, and 
therefore, it impacts their development. Many years ago, the 
government banned lead in paint and in toys and in other things 
that could lead to children licking that lead and leading then 
to lead intoxication, which causes anemia, causes many things, 
but eventually will cause developmental deficits. And those 
children with lead intoxication in their house are probably 
never going to develop normally and will have developmental 
disabilities, which will lead them then to actually not be able 
to be productive Americans.
    So, we are really hurting our future by exposing children 
to lead.
    Mrs. Axne. I appreciate you bringing that up. If I am 
hearing you correctly, there is literally no safe level of lead 
for children. Is that correct?
    Dr. del Rio. Again, I am not an expert in that area, but my 
answer will probably be, no, lead is not something that 
normally goes into our bodies. So, any lead could probably be 
dangerous lead.
    Mrs. Axne. I appreciate that. Having this level of lead 
poisoning in Iowa's children is very concerning to me, and so I 
want to focus on some of the causes and solutions that we might 
have here.
    Mr. Shahyd, my understanding is that lead is far more 
likely in areas where there is more older housing, especially 
housing from 40 years ago or more. Does that fit with your 
research?
    Mr. Shahyd. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Representative, for 
that question.
    Yes, it does. Our housing stock across the nation has not 
gotten the attention, particularly the housing that is relied 
on by households with fixed incomes. So, our elders as well as 
low-income families just haven't had the type of upgrading and 
regular upkeep and maintenance.
    And the lead issue, it is both an issue of paint inside the 
house, but also issues, as we know, obviously with Flint, 
Michigan, and with many other municipal water systems as well. 
So, lead is also in the water lines.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you for that. I appreciate it.
    It appears we don't see the same level of issues with new 
housing. So, Ms. Rice, is building new housing or replacing 
older housing with new, as we have structured in the Build Back 
Better Act, likely to improve our children's health by better 
protecting them from lead?
    Ms. Rice. Yes, it definitely will. And in addition to that, 
as I alluded to earlier, the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act 
provides substantial subsidies to enable the refurbishment, the 
renovation, and the rehabilitation of naturally-occurring 
affordable housing that already exists in our communities 
throughout the nation. So, it provides the funding needed to 
remove the lead paint and to update the water lines.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you for that.
    One last thing, I was surprised to learn when I got to 
Congress that we had no USDA multifamily housing built in more 
than a decade. This is, of course, housing for our rural 
communities. And we all know you can't expect to have safe, 
affordable housing for everyone if we don't build anything new, 
and that is why I have been working to fix this for a couple of 
years. Funding for new USDA housing is included in the bill we 
passed here last month.
    Ms. Rice, I am wondering if you can describe the impact 
that you think bringing also affordable housing out to our 
rural areas could do for this country?
    Ms. Rice. That is tremendously important. One of the 
challenges that we face in rural communities is problems around 
infrastructure and the ability of that infrastructure to 
support safe and healthy housing. So, the funding to support 
rural housing development is really critical.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you so much.
    I know that we need to get this work done to build more 
affordable housing, of course, for our working families. And a 
key part of that for me is to make sure that we protect our 
Iowa kids from the dangers of lead exposure in these older 
homes. I hope that we can all come together as Americans to 
make sure that we protect our children and have safe, 
affordable housing for people across this country.
    Thank you so much for your time and for being here. I 
appreciate all of your testimonies, and I yield back.
    Thank you.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. 
Williams, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Williams of Texas. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    There are so many different issues facing the American 
people right now, and we are using the committee's time to hash 
out arguments that the Democrats are having within their own 
party. While the Democrats deal with their intraparty fighting, 
I wanted to highlight some of the concerns I am hearing about 
every single day in my district in the great State of Texas.
    First of all, businesses can't find workers to hire as they 
hope to ramp up for the holidays. Heating prices are expected 
to climb over 50 percent this winter, and the Biden 
Administration continues to wage war on the fossil fuel 
industry.
    Our grocery store shelves are empty, and supply chains are 
falling apart. Inflation is wiping out any wage gains for the 
middle-income workers, and there is a record inflow of illegal 
immigrants coming to our country illegally, with 1.7 million 
illegal encounters this year alone.
    And out of all of these concerns, the single-largest I am 
hearing about, the issue I am hearing about is tax increases 
and the effects that this will have on their ability to 
survive. We have people on this panel, for example, who are 
tenured professors who can only be fired under truly 
exceptional circumstances. This guarantee of tenure gives you 
peace of mind, knowing that you will continue to receive a 
paycheck and be able to provide for yourself and your family 
regardless of outside economic factors or how bad things can 
get.
    Small business, like mine and others, don't have the luxury 
of the guarantee of tenure. They are fighting every day to 
compete with other businesses providing better products and 
services within the marketplace. Let the customer decide whom 
they want to do business with, not the government. And this 
competition is at the heart of the American capitalism that 
makes our country one of the top innovators in the world.
    Now, I can tell you, everyone here today, when we are 
talking about tax increases that the Democrats' so-called--in 
their program called the Build Back Better plan, Main Street 
America is scared to death of this, totally scared. Because 
look, you can't raise taxes and help the economy. You have to 
cut taxes and help small business and put cash flow in the 
economy.
    Main Street America sees through these lies. They see 
through the lie that no American making under $400,000 will 
have to pay more in taxes. Inflation alone is increasing their 
costs of doing business.
    So, Mr. Dickerson, thank you for being here, and thank you 
for being on the scene to talk to us today. Can we discuss this 
misleading point that we keep hearing from the left about this 
terrible proposal and how these tax proposals would be 
especially bad for small businesses, in other words, Main 
Street America?
    Mr. Dickerson. Absolutely. Thank you so much, sir, and I 
know that you are a small businessman and have that experience. 
So, thank you.
    The Build Back Better Act would increase taxes. It would 
increase taxes on people earning less than $400,000. It would 
increase taxes on small businesses. It would increase taxes on 
people all throughout the economy.
    And what does that do? That raises prices. That costs jobs. 
That costs people to not get the raises that they would 
otherwise get. Why? Because the Federal Government has taken 
it, so it can go under the control of politicians so that they 
can dole it out for new spending programs.
    And that is just bad for the American economy, it is bad 
for families, and it is bad for our communities.
    Mr. Williams of Texas. And small businesses right now, you 
are probably seeing, too, are totally playing defense. They are 
scared to death of tax increases. They are scared to death of 
mandates that are being put on them, that are going to cost 
them. So they have to decide, do I save money to pay my taxes 
and cut a person loose and terminate a job? Or do I have to 
terminate a job because I may have to pay for vaccinations or 
whatever the case may be?
    This is not inviting to the risk and reward that built this 
country, where people can invest money and get a return on 
their investment. And if you are the banks, you are worried 
about this reporting system. They have no clue. The banks have 
no clue what this $600 reporting system is going to cost them.
    And that is going to go down to where people can't make 
loans, the banks won't make loans. You dry up money, and big 
government takes over. So we have to fight this, and I 
appreciate you being here, I appreciate all of the panel being 
here.
    And the remainder of my time, Madam Chairwoman, I give back 
to you.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from 
New York, Mr. Torres, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Torres. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    I just want to respond. During the first panel, I think one 
of my colleagues, Representative Barr, responded to a comment I 
made about how housing is a priority. We both agreed that 
housing is a priority, but I believe he said that if you need 
housing, get a job so that you can pay the rent.
    And I agree, except there are millions of Americans who do, 
indeed, have jobs but who, nevertheless, cannot afford market 
rate rent. The affordability crisis has two causes. Not only is 
the rent too high, but the wages are too low.
    According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, 
there is something known as the, ``housing wage,'' the wage 
that a tenant would need to earn to afford an apartment. The 
national housing wage is more than $20 an hour, versus a 
Federal minimum wage of $7.25. So, let that sink in.
    The Federal minimum wage is about a third of the national 
housing wage. And if you earn the Federal minimum wage of $7.25 
an hour, you would have to work 72 hours to afford a one-
bedroom apartment--72 hours. And in the United States, not only 
do we have the working poor, but increasingly, we have the 
working homeless.
    Nearly half of the household heads in the New York City 
shelter system are working people, essential workers who put 
their lives at risk for all of us during the peak of the 
pandemic, but who find themselves languishing in a shelter 
system because the affordability crisis is raging out of 
control.
    Now, the Republicans on the committee have consistently 
said that the latest hearing on housing is a waste of time, and 
Representative Barr asked, why are we here? And if you wish to 
know why we are here, look no further than the research of Dr. 
Chetty. Dr. Chetty's research demonstrates that housing is 
foundational not only to who we are, but to who we can become. 
It is foundational to the American Dream.
    Where you live in America determines your opportunity and 
mobility. It determines the quality of the schools you attend 
and the quality of the services you can access.
    And so, Dr. Chetty, I want to ask you, can we build back 
better without housing investments aimed at promoting upward 
mobility?
    Mr. Chetty. Thank you, Representative Torres.
    And I absolutely think investments in housing designed in 
the right way are central for creating economic mobility and 
the type of inclusive prosperity for which I think we all aim.
    Mr. Torres. I have a question for Mr. Dickerson. I know you 
are from The Heritage Foundation, so I suspect we have 
radically different worldviews. You have emphasized the role of 
the government in raising the cost of housing. Is single-family 
zoning an example of the kind of housing intervention that 
raises the cost of housing?
    Mr. Dickerson. Yes, sir. Thanks for the question. I think 
we probably have a lot more in common than we might have 
different as Americans.
    And yes, I do think that local zoning regulations are an 
example of government intervening in the marketplace and making 
it more difficult for people to do what they want to do with 
their own private property, to develop it, which can create an 
opportunity to build more housing. So, I think that is a 
perfect example of things--
    Mr. Torres. Including single-family zoning?
    Mr. Dickerson. The types of reforms that could be done--
    Mr. Torres. But single-family zoning is an example of a 
housing intervention that would raise the cost of housing?
    Mr. Dickerson. Yes, absolutely. If a local community wants 
to make those rezones.
    Mr. Torres. We do agree. My colleagues have characterized 
the housing component in the Build Back Better Act as some kind 
of nefarious socialist scheme. The Build Back Better Act 
invests billions of dollars in lead remediation and abatement. 
Do you think protecting children from lead exposure in public 
housing and elsewhere--does that strike you as a nefarious 
socialist scheme or an evil thing to do or--
    Mr. Dickerson. I don't think lead exposure is a good thing. 
I think it is important for us to consider how we do that.
    Mr. Torres. So, you would agree that the government has a 
legitimate role to play in protecting children from lead paint 
exposure?
    Mr. Dickerson. I would say it is important for us to 
consider what the proper role of the Federal Government is in 
that type of a policy. Did the Federal Government put--
    Mr. Torres. Let us take public housing. Public housing was 
founded by the Federal Government. It is primarily funded and 
regulated by the Federal Government. Do you think that the 
Federal Government has an obligation to protect children from 
lead exposure in public housing, which we founded, which we 
regulate, and which we fund.
    Mr. Dickerson. I think that is a good argument for getting 
the Federal Government out of housing. It should be devolved to 
the State and local levels.
    Mr. Torres. But we have been in the business for 8 decades. 
There are a million people who live in public housing. We 
cannot withdraw overnight. So, there are children who are 
exposed to lead. And as you know, if you are exposed to lead, 
you could be brain-damaged for the rest of your life.
    Should we just let those children be brain-damaged, or 
should we actually remediate the mold and make the Federal 
investments required for mold remediation or lead remediation?
    Mr. Dickerson. And I think that is why we should get the 
Federal Government--
    Mr. Torres. So, you are not in favor of lead remediation?
    [Gavel sounding.]
    Mr. Torres. Okay.
    Chairwoman Waters. The gentleman's time has expired. The 
gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Loudermilk, is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Loudermilk. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate 
the opportunity to be here.
    Earlier this week, the Washington Post ran an opinion piece 
that has gotten quite a bit of coverage, saying that everyone 
should stop complaining about understaffed stores and supply 
chain problems. Unbelievable.
    The American people just need to quit complaining about 
what they have been used to for decades and centuries as 
actually having the products they need on the shelves. In other 
words, the American people should lower their expectations, 
they were saying, and just accept that this Administration and 
the outgoing Majority in Congress can't seem to get anything 
right.
    The Secretary of Transportation said, look, these shortages 
are because the economy is good. Expecting that people are 
going to accept that paying over $3 for a gallon of gas is 
good, and the inflation that we are seeing is good, yes, it may 
be that the people are buying, but what they are getting for 
what they are spending is less than it was in the previous 
Administration. That is clear.
    I have a better idea. Let's stop pushing the policies that 
are causing the problems. Out-of-control spending is causing 
consumer prices to skyrocket. The massive expansion of 
entitlements has caused millions of people to stay at home and 
not go to work. Hence, the supply chain catastrophe that we are 
currently in.
    There is an all-time record of unfilled jobs. And by the 
way, an economist just came out and said the reconciliation 
bill will cost 8 million jobs. I guess that is one way of 
balancing out the 10 million jobs that are available, just make 
8 million of them disappear. That takes care of part of it.
    But the outgoing Majority is engaging in the very 
definition of insanity. They are doing the same thing over and 
over again, expecting different results. I have some bad news 
for the outgoing Majority. A new poll came out yesterday, which 
shows that 62 percent of Americans believe the Biden 
Administration's out-of-control spending policies are 
responsible for the skyrocketing inflation that we are 
experiencing.
    In other words, they don't want Congress to spend another 
$5 trillion because that is the primary cause of this 
inflation. Also, I might add, two-thirds are opposed to the 
Orwellian proposal to spy on their bank accounts. But even with 
nearly 75 percent or 73 percent or 66 percent, whatever the 
numbers are, an overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed 
to this, and the lame duck Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has continued 
to push this proposal.
    Mr. Dickerson, would spending another $5 trillion to expand 
entitlements make our economic problems better or worse?
    Mr. Dickerson. Thank you so much for that question. I think 
that is a really key question, and I am really glad you are 
bringing that to the forefront.
    I think that the proposal in front of Congress would 
significantly exacerbate the problems that we are seeing, that 
our families and our communities are seeing.
    Mr. Loudermilk. Mr. Dickerson, housing prices have 
skyrocketed over the last year-and-a-half. Would another $330 
billion of housing entitlement spending make the housing market 
better or worse?
    Mr. Dickerson. I don't see how it would.
    Mr. Loudermilk. Do you think it would make it worse?
    Mr. Dickerson. I don't see how it would make it better.
    Mr. Loudermilk. Yes. I think it is basic economics, and it 
is interesting that one of my colleagues on the other side just 
mentioned that the Federal Government has been engaged in 
Federal housing for 80 years, which makes me think of a quote 
by Ronald Reagan, ``The closest thing to eternal life on this 
planet is a government program.''
    Whether it works or it doesn't, we just believe that to 
throw more money into it will fix the problems. But as Ronald 
Reagan said, ``Government is not the solution to the problem. 
Government is the problem in most instances.''
    The economic disaster we find ourselves in is a direct 
result of government meddling in the economy and out-of-control 
spending. The economy was at full strength not long ago when 
the Republicans were in control, and we can get that back, we 
can get back to that, and it looks as if we are on a trajectory 
to be able to do that before too long.
    The solution is simple. Get the government out of the way. 
Empower the American people. They can take care of their 
problems, and let us make equal opportunity for everyone.
    With that, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Will the gentleman yield?
    Mr. Loudermilk. I have yielded my time back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Will the gentleman yield?
    Mr. Loudermilk. Are you asking me to yield my time back? I 
have already done that.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. I think that the gentleman 
has the ability to do that if he desires.
    Mr. Loudermilk. I am not sure what you are asking for.
    Chairwoman Waters. I just simply wanted you to yield your 
time.
    Mr. Loudermilk. Madam Chairwoman, I have already yielded my 
time back to you.
    Chairwoman Waters. I'm sorry. I wanted you to yield to me--
    Mr. Loudermilk. The 22 seconds I have remaining.
    Chairwoman Waters. Okay. Thank you.
    I would just like to ask if when you talk about government 
spending, did you support the government spending for all of 
the restaurants and the airlines and all of the big businesses 
that also were beneficiaries of the government response to the 
pandemic?
    Mr. Loudermilk. Madam Chairwoman, if I can reclaim that 
time to answer you, I did support that because that was an 
issue, an economic issue that the government caused. And so, 
therefore, I did support the government providing relief to 
private institutions who were forced to shut their doors 
because of government mandates.
    Chairwoman Waters. The gentleman's answer is yes. Thank 
you.
    The gentlewoman from Massachusetts, Ms. Pressley, who is 
also the Vice Chair of our Subcommittee on Consumer Protection 
and Financial Institutions, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters.
    And I wish to associate myself with your most recent 
comments and query right there, and also with the words of my 
colleague, Congressman Torres, as well. I am just sitting here 
shaking my head. Some of the commentary offered here, I am not 
sure if it is callousness, cluelessness, or both. But it 
certainly is at the height of hypocrisy here.
    But, Madam Chairwoman, housing is a human right, period. 
Everyone deserves a safe and stable home, period. But for some 
of my colleagues in the Senate who don't share this view, let 
us break down the economic need for housing investments.
    Experts estimate that the bipartisan infrastructure bill 
and the Build Back Better Act combined would create nearly 4 
million new good-paying jobs each year. Now, these new jobs are 
sorely needed as millions of people in America, as our 
colleagues across the aisle continue to underscore, are still 
unemployed. However, if we don't also make housing more 
affordable, job gains from these bills will be severely 
weakened.
    Professor Chetty, you are an economist and an expert on 
economic mobility. In your opinion, could you characterize what 
it means to have a, ``good-paying job?'' What is that? What 
does it look like?
    Mr. Chetty. I would say it is being financially secure, 
having some savings, having a good quality of life, having 
stability.
    Ms. Pressley. I would agree with that. So if someone is 
paying 50 percent of their income on rent, and has no savings 
month after month, would you say they are financially secure?
    Mr. Chetty. No, I would not.
    Ms. Pressley. Yes, me neither. If someone can't afford a 
$200 medical bill on top of their monthly rent, would you 
consider them financially secure?
    Mr. Chetty. No, I would not.
    Ms. Pressley. Yes, me neither. If someone's rent is so high 
that they can't afford to order takeout once a month on their 
income, would you consider them financially secure?
    Mr. Chetty. No, I would not.
    Ms. Pressley. Yes, me neither. So, passing legislation that 
creates millions of good-paying jobs is absolutely critical. 
But if housing costs continue to rise at these rates, those 
good-paying jobs will barely keep folks housed. They will 
barely be making ends meet when factoring in their housing 
expenses.
    Residents in my district are moving farther and farther 
away from work to find housing that is affordable. Right now, 
they have to work an 87-hour work week to afford a median 
market rate one-bedroom apartment. Boston area drivers spend 
164 hours in traffic per year. They are moving farther and 
farther away from work to find housing.
    Not only is the added commute time impacting the quality of 
life and the environment, but it costs the economy $4 billion--
that is ``billion,'' with a ``b''--a year from lost 
productivity. So, Professor Chetty, how would investing in 
affordable housing in opportunity-rich neighborhoods help boost 
local economies and break the cycle of intergenerational 
poverty?
    Mr. Chetty. Thank you, Representative Pressley.
    I think investing in affordable housing in opportunity-rich 
areas is likely to be critical, both for people who are facing 
precisely the challenges you just laid out in allowing them to 
achieve better lives, but I would argue more broadly in helping 
our economy in general by giving more kids pathways to the 
types of jobs that will lead to innovation and lead to 
development that will help all of us in the long run.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Professor Chetty.
    The Build Back Better Act must include investments to 
preserve and build new affordable housing. If you don't support 
that because it is the right thing to do, if you can't do that 
out of benevolence, then support it because it is the smart 
thing to do for our economic recovery.
    Thank you, and I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. The gentleman from Tennessee, 
Mr. Kustoff, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Kustoff. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    Mr. Dickerson, if I can go back to your testimony, I think 
you had a statistic that in 2019, Americans spent more on taxes 
than on food, clothing, and housing combined, which is an 
incredible statistic. Can you talk about the tax burden, and 
let us play things out. Let us assume that a reconciliation 
package of some type passes along party lines. What will the 
increased government borrowing and the spending--how will that 
impact quality of life for the people that you cited in your 
remarks?
    Mr. Dickerson. That is a great question, and I think that 
should be why we are here, and tone hing that we are taking 
into consideration is what is the effect on real people 
throughout the country of the policies that Congress is 
considering?
    Increasing the tax burden even further would take money 
away from people who earned it, and it would give it to the 
politicians here in Washington, D.C., and away from the people 
who earned it. And I think that some taxes are necessary, 
probably way less taxes than Congress currently collects from 
people, because Congress spends too much. They spend too much 
on the wrong things that are outside of the proper role of the 
Federal Government.
    Mr. Kustoff. And again, taking it further, and obviously at 
this point, we don't know whether reconciliation is going to 
pass or not. We don't know at what limits. We do know that we 
have inflation. There are some economists who characterize the 
inflation as transitory. How do you characterize inflation?
    Mr. Dickerson. I am concerned about it, especially if 
Congress does go through and spend another $3.5 trillion or 
potentially even more if this $1.1 trillion infrastructure 
bill. So much money, borrowed money going into the economy, 
printed cash going into the economy, that severely increases 
the risk of drastic price increases.
    It would, as Mr. Barr described earlier, cause even more 
cash chasing even fewer goods. Combined with the rest of the 
policies in the bill that would restrict the supply of goods, 
and restrict the supply of labor, that is just a recipe for 
disaster for our economy.
    Mr. Kustoff. And how would increased taxes that would be 
passed in reconciliation to pay for some of this affect not 
high earners, not high-income Americans, but everyday 
Americans?
    Mr. Dickerson. That is a great point as well.
    President Biden has promised over and over and over that he 
would not increase the tax burden on anyone making under 
$400,000. Unfortunately, we know that is not true, based on the 
Joint Committee on Taxation's (JCTs) analysis of the Build Back 
Better Act. The JCT analysis shows that hundreds of thousands 
of Americans making less than $20,000 a year will see their 
taxes go up in 2023 under the bill. That is the Joint Committee 
on Taxation's analysis.
    By 2027, more than half of all middle-income earners will 
see their tax burden go up by a collective $3 billion. That is 
a violation of the President's promise, according to the 
nonpartisan official congressional scorekeeper.
    Mr. Kustoff. Mr. Dickerson, we talked about State and Local 
Tax (SALT) deductions. As we know from reports, there has been 
some talk that the SALT deduction that was part of the 2017 Tax 
Cuts and Jobs Act, which I think a lot of us can argue was a 
main driver for the economy performing as strongly as it did 
before the pandemic and even after the pandemic, that with that 
deduction, there is some talk of either increasing that limit 
or maybe outright repealing the deduction cap.
    When we talk about the SALT deductions, whom does that 
benefit the most?
    Mr. Dickerson. Almost exclusively high earners and high-tax 
States.
    Mr. Kustoff. And in the earlier panel, we heard from a 
property owner who talked about having a tough time with making 
ends meet. Part of it is property taxes. What would the 
repealing of the SALT cap deduction or increasing it, what 
effect would that have, in your opinion, on local governments 
and their ability to increase property taxes?
    Mr. Dickerson. It would be a Federal subsidy for local 
property taxes, which high-income earners would be able to 
deduct, and low-income earners would not be able to deduct.
    Mr. Kustoff. Thank you. My time has expired.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from 
Florida, Mr. Lawson, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Lawson. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I thank the 
ranking member as well. And I would like to welcome our 
panelists to the committee today.
    I know from the standpoint of when we are talking about 
affordable housing, now the panel has heard everything except 
affordable housing what people are talking about. I can tell 
you during my tenure in the legislature in Florida for 20-some 
years, even when we had full employment, one of the biggest 
concerns then, when they said there were jobs and everything 
around, there were still concerns about affordable housing. How 
can we get affordable housing because of the amount of minimum 
wage, as you heard some of my colleagues explain about, and how 
would people be able to have access?
    We have had the problem in Florida with schoolteachers, 
where communities wanted to invest in affordable housing in 
order to keep teachers in the State of Florida, because of the 
amount of money that they were earning.
    And my question will probably go to Dr. del Rio. What we 
have found is that where hospitals have decided also to invest 
in affordable housing because of the shortage of nurses and 
bringing nurses into different communities, especially into the 
larger cities, is finding affordable housing for them so they 
can function and help take care of our medical needs. Some 
hospitals have begun to do a lot of investment in that area.
    Dr. del Rio, please discuss how affordable housing can 
lower medical costs for individuals and diminish the need for 
such expensive care?
    Dr. del Rio. Thank you, Representative Lawson.
    This is actually a really important issue. What we learned 
is that very little healthcare actually happens in hospitals, 
right? A lot of the healthcare happens in the community. A lot 
of your health happens in the community.
    While we, as a nation, talk a lot about how genetics 
determines your disease and how we are doing personalized 
medicine, I can tell you that your disease outcomes and the 
type of diseases that you are going to get are more determined 
by your ZIP Code than by your genetic code. Where you live 
determines what kind of diseases and what outcomes you are 
going to have.
    If you are going to have cancer, your outcomes may be a lot 
worse if you live in certain ZIP Codes than if you live in 
others--same individual, same genetics.
    In the hospital, as a clinician, not uncommonly we will 
have somebody that we need to discharge who happens to be 
homeless, and that person may go to a shelter, but sometimes 
will also go to the street. And then, not uncommonly, that 
individual will then not take their medications, not be able to 
fill their prescriptions, and then will be readmitted. So the 
cost to healthcare is frequently the cost of readmissions and 
the cost of unnecessary care that could have been avoided by 
doing housing.
    For that reason, many healthcare systems across the nation 
are now actually investing in creating housing and in finding 
housing so they can have patients housed. They are partnering 
with organizations like that. There is an important need to 
create housing for people who are unstably housed and are being 
discharged from the hospital. It is a way to decrease the cost 
of healthcare in America.
    Mr. Lawson. Thank you, Doctor. And I would like to see if 
Ms. Rice would like to respond to that?
    Ms. Rice. Thank you, Congressman Lawson.
    Yes, I agree with the response by Dr. del Rio 100 percent. 
We know that housing and residential segregation are social 
determinants of health. In fact, my organization, the National 
Fair Housing Alliance, just partnered with Zillow Corporation 
because Zillow, as a company, is so concerned about this issue.
    Zillow found that healthcare facilities are hyper-
concentrated in predominantly White communities, and they are 
very sparsely located in communities of color. And that has 
contributed to the disparities that we are seeing related to 
the COVID pandemic. So, yes, we definitely need to address 
housing issues and build more affordable housing in areas that 
are very well-resourced.
    Mr. Lawson. Thank you very much, Ms. Rice.
    And I know my time is running out, but I want to say to my 
colleagues that it is not just affordable housing for the poor, 
but it is affordable housing for everyone who has been left 
out, without the opportunity to have a roof over their head.
    With that, Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from 
Ohio, Mr. Davidson, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Davidson. I thank the chairwoman.
    And it is like deja vu all over again. Here we are talking 
about housing. And housing truly is important, but it is one of 
many things that are important within the Financial Services 
Committee. But of course, when you are homeless, one of your 
priorities is to get housing. But let us talk about the whole 
scope of housing within our committee.
    Housing affordability and homelessness have been used 
really as a proxy to try to implement Bernie Sanders' socialist 
agenda. A lot of Democrats feel betrayed because they voted for 
Joe Biden, not Bernie Sanders. But what we are voting on here 
in the House is gussied up, rebranded, and called something 
else, but it is really Bernie's agenda.
    Massive spending is already fueling inflation, and it is 
destroying the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar. And who 
does this hurt the most? Retirees and working-class Americans. 
Despite how much President Biden and his staff would like to 
think that inflation is a, ``high-class problem,'' it is the 
working class who suffer most when you destroy the purchasing 
power of the U.S. dollar.
    Just to quote one of our witnesses from earlier today 
speaking to you, Madam Chairwoman, was John Harrison. He was 
formerly homeless and now works for Prince George's County 
Department of Social Services. And he said that the housing 
vouchers aren't going as far anymore because of the price of 
housing.
    Housing isn't deflating. It is getting more expensive. And 
the more money we dump into the market, the more expensive it 
gets. And this highlights one of the problems at the Federal 
Reserve. They provided essential stability when this crisis 
first hit in March and April of 2020. The market needed 
liquidity, and they provided important backstops.
    But since then, they have continued to inflate the housing 
market. They are adding $40 billion a month of mortgage-backed 
securities purchases. It is driving up the housing values by 
funding the market, fueling low interest rates that are putting 
that cash out of dollars into property.
    When people go out and they say, the good thing about 
inflation--because we heard from our Press Secretary that 
inflation is actually a good thing. It is not a bad thing. Most 
people don't think it is a good thing. But, okay, if you got a 
raise, 2 or 3 percent, I guess that is good, except it is not 
keeping up with inflation that is at 5 to 8 percent.
    But even if you get one of those raises, what is happening 
to the money? What is happening to the money? You get a raise, 
and if you are on the edge in a safety net program and you are 
starting to work your way out of it, you could hit a benefit 
cliff.
    This is why I want to talk about a bill I have called the 
People-Centered Assistance Reform Effort. It is designed to 
create a commission that would work together, four Republicans, 
and four Democrats, and they would get a year-and-a-half to 
work together, and what could they do?
    They couldn't cut spending, but they could redesign the 
program. So instead of five programs intended to accomplish the 
same purpose, you could have one common goal and one set of 
funds. And you could have onramps and offramps in that program. 
But whatever they do, it would be up to the commission, and 
then Congress would get a vote.
    So, here is the solution. Our safety net programs cost our 
country about $1 trillion a year. This isn't Social Security or 
Medicare. This is just means-tested programs. Collectively, 90-
plus programs, $1 trillion a year. And they are hard to 
administer, they are expensive to administer, and they are not 
incredibly effective.
    As the 31 hearings we have had in the committee on housing 
highlight, the system, in spite of the resources, isn't 
effective because we aren't using the resources well. So this 
commission, I hope everyone in the committee would cosponsor, 
is that it doesn't advantage of disadvantage any one party, and 
frankly, it goes way beyond the scope simply of this committee 
to look at the whole safety net and to deal with benefit 
cliffs.
    Mr. Dickerson, in the time we have left, could you just 
highlight how important it is to deal with the impact of 
inflation? And when you look at the means-tested programs, what 
is the impact of, I guess, mal-administration in some of those 
programs?
    Mr. Dickerson. I think that is a great question.
    The Ways and Means Committee has produced a really 
interesting infographic that has this crazy spiderweb of more 
than 80-plus means-tested welfare programs that exist at the 
Federal level, and that just has to be incredibly difficult to 
navigate.
    We have spent trillions and trillions of dollars since the 
war on poverty was declared, without a measurable advancement 
in outcomes. So, I do think that is a really important thing 
that Congress should be examining. How do we get better results 
for people and make it so that we can have an opportunity 
society and allow people to not have to depend on Federal 
Government welfare programs?
    Mr. Davidson. Thank you so much for that.
    And look, it is important that we explore these issues, and 
it is really important that we work together where we can agree 
because, obviously, with two parties, we disagree about some 
things. But we have really in the House, a leadership in 
Speaker Pelosi and, frankly, some of our other leaders are 
opposed to working with any colleagues on any issue.
    I yield back.
    Chairwoman Waters. I tried to get it in before you--will 
you yield?
    Mr. Davidson. I yield to the Chair.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
    As you know, Mr. Davidson talked about this working 
relationship that we should have, and I am sitting here not 
really understanding how is it we can work with those who would 
deny that January 6th was an invasion on our Capitol and an 
undermining of our democracy?
    How can I work with people who won't even protect voting 
rights for all of the people in this country? How can I work 
with people who would deny vouchers to the poorest people in 
this country, but support the biggest businesses in this 
country for tax cuts?
    Give me a break. Yes, we could work with each other if 
there was some respect for the basic issues that affect people 
of color and poor people in this country. Without that, it is 
very difficult, if not impossible.
    I yield back.
    Thank you very much. The gentlewoman from North Carolina, 
Ms. Adams, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and amen 
to that.
    Thanks for holding this hearing, and thank you to the 
witnesses for their testimony.
    Ms. Rice, you have spoken extensively about the links 
between racial inequality and access to housing. And I think a 
number of us on this committee are actually aware of the links 
between those topics, but I would like to hear directly from 
you. Can you talk about why it is important for any substantial 
investment in our nation's housing infrastructure to address 
the intersection of systemic racism and access to housing?
    Ms. Rice. Congresswoman Adams, thank you so much for the 
question.
    For centuries, since before the inception of our nation, 
laws and policies enacted to create land, housing, and credit 
opportunities were race-based. They were race-conscious, 
denying critical opportunities to Black, Latino, Asian 
American, and Native American individuals.
    Throughout the course of this hearing, I have heard some 
Members of Congress refer to the Build Back Better plan as, 
``social spending,'' and if that is the case, I feel compelled 
to point out that this nation, the United States, has always, 
always had social spending, invested in social spending to 
support land and homeownership, but it was just social spending 
for White citizens to the exclusion of people of color.
    The Indian Removal Act was massive social spending that 
transferred hundreds of millions of acres of land away from 
Native American populations and into the hands, overwhelmingly, 
predominantly, of White households. The Homestead Act was 
social spending. The Land Grant Act was social spending. The 
Home Owners' Loan Incorporation Act, in which we saved 
predominantly almost exclusively White homeowners from 
foreclosure during the Great Depression, was social spending. 
The National Housing Act was social spending.
    But again, these policies were developed and implemented in 
an explicitly racially-discriminatory manner. These laws and 
policies created residential segregation, unequal credit 
markets, institutional redlining, restrictive zoning, and other 
structural barriers that are still with us today.
    And the Build Back Better plan provides that all of the 
housing provisions remain in the bill; provides a start. It 
gives us a beginning in helping to remove these structural 
barriers because it contains critical provisions to address 
housing inequities and fair housing.
    Ms. Adams. Great. Thank you.
    Professor Chetty, I would like to touch briefly on 
something that I brought up earlier in this hearing, the link 
between accessible affordable housing and quality education. 
Ms. Galindo earlier today talked about how difficult it was to 
provide both a good home and a quality education for her son. 
So, Professor, can you discuss the links between affordable 
housing and education outcomes for our students?
    Mr. Chetty. Thank you, Representative Adams.
    Yes, I think there is a strong link between affordable 
housing and educational outcomes in particular because we have 
such varied school systems across neighborhoods in the United 
States due to local property tax financing typically and issues 
of single family zoning that was brought up before. This 
creates a lot of variation in the quality of schools across 
areas. And often, it is very difficult for families to afford 
housing in the neighborhoods that can give their children the 
best chance of getting a good education and ultimately 
achieving better life outcomes.
    So, I view these two things as integrally connected.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you.
    Dr. Shahyd, can you elaborate on the intersections of 
racial inequality, climate change, and the need for housing 
investment?
    Mr. Shahyd. Yes, thank you, Representative Adams.
    Housing and climate change are intricately linked in a 
number of ways. First and foremost, the expansion of the 
interstate highway system, the suburbanization of America was 
largely fueled by White Flight racism, moving out of the inner 
cities, the transfer of wealth from Black communities, the 
transfer of public investment from inner-city communities to 
build suburban communities outside of the city, which really 
fueled our transportation emissions, our car-dependent 
infrastructure, and our car-dependent cultures, which have 
really fueled climate change.
    So, the relationship between climate change, the 
disinvestment of Black communities across this country, and the 
buildout of our residential neighborhoods are all intricately 
linked to our histories and our legacies of racism in this 
society.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you so much.
    Madam Chairwoman, I yield back. I am out of time.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. The gentleman from 
North Carolina, Mr. Budd, is now recognized for 5 minutes. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Budd. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    And Mr. Dickerson, thank you for being here, and thank you 
for being here in person.
    The physical condition of America's public housing stock 
has declined, and it has a lot less to do with funding and more 
to do with a shift over the last 40 years toward modern housing 
programs. There is simply little justification to put enormous 
amounts of new funding into a public housing system that is 
mismanaged and outdated when better alternatives exist.
    Mr. Dickerson, can you talk about some of the ways that we 
can better use funding to achieve public housing goals?
    Mr. Dickerson. I think that is a great question, sir, and I 
think that is a good argument for devolving public housing 
programs away from the Federal Government so that those types 
of investments can be made by State and local communities and 
civil society groups that are much closer to the problem than 
the bureaucrats here in D.C.
    Mr. Budd. Okay. The Federal Government will hit record high 
spending levels this year. We poured trillions of dollars into 
the economy already, and now Democrats are trying to spend 
trillions more in reckless spending. As a percentage of GDP, 
our public debt reached 125 percent in the second quarter. Do 
you believe that there is a level of debt that is unsustainable 
for our economy, and if so, what is that number?
    And I asked--in that very seat, I asked Secretary Yellen 
that a few weeks ago, and she indicated that we could sustain a 
significantly higher debt burden than we have right now. A 
Democrat following my questions actually, in a dialogue with 
Secretary Yellen, said that number could be closer to Japan's 
number, which is 250 percent of GDP. That would be doubling our 
debt to $60 trillion or more.
    What do you think?
    Mr. Dickerson. There certainly is a natural debt limit, and 
what I mean by that is there is a point at which creditors will 
not lend to the United States Government. The problem is nobody 
knows what that is. It is impossible to predict that because as 
soon as you know when that is, that pulls the crisis forward in 
time, as people try to get ahead of the global financial 
crisis.
    So, at some point, we will hit that point. We don't know 
when that is going to be. We do know that if we continue on the 
current path, at some point over the long run, we can't keep 
spending more at the Federal Government faster than the growth 
of the economy. We can't legitimately promise our creditors 
that we will be able to tax at high enough rates in order to 
pay back the creditors if we continue spending at a rate that 
is faster than the growth of the economy.
    Mr. Budd. Thank you.
    In closing, I hear every day from people back in North 
Carolina how inflation is impacting them. They are telling me 
how much harder it is to make ends meet.
    What impact does this level of spending have on American 
families? What do you think, Mr. Dickerson, about this level of 
spending?
    Mr. Dickerson. I think it is unsustainable, and it is 
damaging. Not only the level of spending, but the things that 
the Federal Government is spending on that are outside the 
scope of what the proper role of the Federal Government is.
    It distorts markets. It creates inefficiency. It creates 
waste. There is all sorts of duplication in the Federal 
Government. And as you mentioned, all of this additional debt-
fueled government spending goes into the marketplace, and then 
it drives up prices. And that is very concerning.
    Mr. Budd. Yes. Thank you for your time. I yield back.
    Mr. Torres. [presiding]. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. 
Hollingsworth, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. Wonderful. I appreciate the time that 
has been afforded and I certainly appreciate the Majority 
holding such an important hearing to talk about these really 
weighty topics. I know a lot of us have done much work over the 
past few Congresses in trying to find solutions to this that 
will be workable and hopefully enduring to close some of these 
gaps that are so important.
    Ms. Rice, I wanted to ask you a few questions, because I 
read with eagerness your lengthy written testimony. On page 15 
of that testimony--I don't know if you have it in front of 
you--you have a chart, ``Denial Rates Based on Race.'' I am 
trying to divine your intent with this chart to help me 
understand what you were showing me by virtue of its inclusion.
    Ms. Rice. Congressman Hollingsworth, thank you so much for 
the question.
    Yes. So, we were speaking to and explaining the impact of 
historically discriminatory policies and the inequitable 
systems that they have created. For example, one of the 
inequitable systems that we have now in existence is our dual 
credit market in which--
    Mr. Hollingsworth. Right.
    Ms. Rice. Yes.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. Okay. I guess what I am trying to 
understand from this is, is the aim to have equal denial rates 
based on race?
    Ms. Rice. No, that is not the aim. The chart is just an 
explanation of the current reality.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. Got it. But the reality is we want to 
have equal denial and equal acceptance rate for anyone who is 
similarly situated, irrespective of their race, right?
    Ms. Rice. Yes. So people who are substantially--
    Mr. Hollingsworth. Correct.
    Ms. Rice. Yes.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. Correct. So when you break this down by 
race, what you are really doing is showing that race is closely 
correlated with income and wealth, which is a historic inequity 
that needs to be corrected. But it is not really that the 
denial is dependent on race. It is more that race is correlated 
with income and wealth, which is also correlated with denial 
rate. Isn't that the case?
    Ms. Rice. Yes. And race is also highly correlated with 
structural inequities.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. For clarity, the outcomes are highly 
correlated with race. Structural inequities may be the reason 
why those outcomes exist. Correct?
    Ms. Rice. What I mean by that is race is highly correlated 
with structural inequity. For example, race is the number-one 
predictor of whether or not a payday lender will be 
geographically located in a neighborhood.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. Right. But that is also just a proxy 
variable for income level in that particular neighborhood. My 
point is you cannot say--
    Ms. Rice. No, it is not.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. My point is that you cannot say that 
structural inequities are closely correlated with race. What 
you can say is that the outcomes from inequities historically 
are highly correlated with income and wealth, which are also 
highly correlated with race.
    And on page 13 of your testimony, you say the following, 
``The bias in our markets is not a bug, but a feature. They 
were built that way and intended to operate in a discriminatory 
fashion.'' Can you distinguish between a bug and a design 
feature? What do you mean?
    Ms. Rice. What I mean by that is that it is not a fluke. 
The bias that we see in our marketplace is not a fluke. It is 
not a happenstance. It is not perchance.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. What you mean is it is intentionally 
designed into the system?
    Ms. Rice. Yes.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. You believe that in the architecture of 
the financial markets system, there was intent to create 
discrimination today?
    Ms. Rice. Yes.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. Okay. Buttress that really kind of 
astoundingly broad claim with data or some sort of 
understanding of what the intent was in the creation of the 
financial system. You don't go on to provide any evidence to 
that.
    Ms. Rice. Yes, it is in the testimony.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. Okay, where is it?
    Ms. Rice. Yes, it is in the testimony. For example, the 
Home Owners' Loan Corporation, which we explain in the 
testimony, developed a system for underwriting homes and rating 
communities and rating consumers that was race-based. So, if 
you look at the residential security surveys that were 
developed by the Federal Government, they specifically ask for 
the number of African Americans living in a geographical area.
    Mr. Hollingsworth. Do they do that today?
    Ms. Rice. No, but--
    Mr. Hollingsworth. The problem today is that race has 
become highly correlated with income and wealth. That is a 
problem I want to solve. But we should not pretend the problem 
is its correlation with race. We should find the underlying 
variable, not the variable between the two.
    And with that, I will yield back.
    Mr. Torres. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I would like to thank our witnesses for their testimony 
today.
    The Chair notes that some Members may have additional 
questions for these witnesses, which they may wish to submit in 
writing. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open 
for 5 legislative days for Members to submit written questions 
to these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. 
Also, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days 
to submit extraneous materials to the Chair for inclusion in 
the record.
    This hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 4:01 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                            A P P E N D I X



                            October 21, 2021
                            
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