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


                      HOUSING AMERICA: ADDRESSING
                      CHALLENGES IN SERVING PEOPLE
                       EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS

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

                            VIRTUAL HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING,
                         COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT,
                             AND INSURANCE

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                            FEBRUARY 2, 2022

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services     
     

                           Serial No. 117-66
                           
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 

                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
47-104 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
                  Subcommittee on Housing, Community 
                       Development, and Insurance

                  EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri, Chairman

NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York         FRENCH HILL, Arkansas, Ranking 
BRAD SHERMAN, California                 Member
JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio                   BILL POSEY, Florida
AL GREEN, Texas                      BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas              LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York         TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana
JUAN VARGAS, California              JOHN ROSE, Tennessee
AL LAWSON, Florida                   BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin, Vice 
CINDY AXNE, Iowa, Vice Chair             Ranking Member
RITCHIE TORRES, New York             LANCE GOODEN, Texas
                                     VAN TAYLOR, Texas
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on:
    February 2, 2022.............................................     1
Appendix:
    February 2, 2022.............................................    39

                               WITNESSES
                      Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Bush, Adrienne, Executive Director, Homeless and Housing 
  Coalition of Kentucky..........................................     6
Dones, Marc, Chief Executive Officer, King County Regional 
  Homelessness Authority.........................................     5
Karr-McDonald, Harriet, President, The Doe Fund..................    11
Oliva, Ann, Vice President, Housing Policy, Center on Budget and 
  Policy Priorities..............................................     8
Roman, Nan, Chief Executive Officer, National Alliance to End 
  Homelessness...................................................     9

                               
                               APPENDIX

Prepared statements:
    Bush, Adrienne...............................................    40
    Dones, Marc..................................................    55
    Karr-McDonald, Harriet.......................................    60
    Oliva, Ann...................................................    65
    Roman, Nan...................................................    86

              Additional Material Submitted for the Record

Cleaver, Hon. Emanuel:
    Written statement of Catholic Charities USA..................    95
    Written statement of Community Solutions.....................   103
    Written statement of the Council of State Community 
      Development Agencies.......................................   110
    Written statement of the Skid Row Housing Trust..............   114
    Written statement of the J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for 
      Housing Policy and the Bipartisan Policy Center............   118
Waters, Hon. Maxine:
    Written responses to questions for the record from Adrienne 
      Bush.......................................................   124
    Written responses to questions for the record from Marc Dones   131
    Written responses to questions for the record from Ann Oliva.   139
    Written responses to questions for the record from Nan Roman.   149
McHenry, Hon. Patrick:
    Written statement of Isabel McDevitt, Executive Vice 
      President, The Doe Fund....................................   156

 
                      HOUSING AMERICA: ADDRESSING
                      CHALLENGES IN SERVING PEOPLE
                       EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS

                              ----------                              


                      Wednesday, February 2, 2022

             U.S. House of Representatives,
                           Subcommittee on Housing,
                             Community Development,
                                     and Insurance,
                            Committee on Financial Services
                                                   Washington, D.C.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., 
via Webex, Hon. Emanuel Cleaver [chairman of the subcommittee] 
presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Cleaver, Velazquez, 
Sherman, Beatty, Green, Gonzalez of Texas, Vargas, Lawson, 
Axne, Torres; Hill, Posey, Huizenga, Zeldin, Hollingsworth, 
Rose, Steil, and Taylor.
    Ex officio present: Representative Waters.
    Also present: Representatives Pressley and Barr.
    Chairman Cleaver. Good morning. The Subcommittee on 
Housing, Community Development, and Insurance will come to 
order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the subcommittee at any time. Also, without 
objection, members of the full Financial Services Committee who 
are not members of the subcommittee are authorized to 
participate in today's hearing.
    Today's hearing is entitled, ``Housing America: Addressing 
Challenges in Serving People Experiencing Homelessness.''
    I now recognize myself for 3 minutes for an opening 
statement.
    Homelessness in the United States is an unnecessary and 
worsening crisis. According to HUD, between 2016 and 2020, 
homelessness increased in the richest nation on the planet by 6 
percent, with more than 580,000 people, including children, 
experiencing homelessness in January of 2020.
    The significant economic instability brought by COVID-19, 
and reports of crises from homeless service providers on the 
front lines have only heightened concerns about conditions 
facing homeless and at-risk populations. In every congressional 
district in the country, homeless service providers have worked 
tirelessly to benefit those communities. It is without question 
that these service providers are heroes and that the work they 
do saves American lives. It is also without question that 
service providers have been asked to solve complex, systemic 
problems with woefully insufficient resources and a unique set 
of professional challenges.
    It is my intent that this hearing will allow the public to 
better understand the challenges that local homeless service 
providers face in the battle to end homelessness in our 
country, and that members of this subcommittee will be better 
able to continue to explore ways that we can provide the needed 
support and resources for the benefit of those who are in need.
    I would also be remiss not to emphasize that while the 
causes of homelessness are many, the affordable housing crisis 
is an accelerant to open flames. Soaring housing costs and 
growing backlogs for critical housing resources have pushed 
some Americans into homelessness and left millions more at 
risk.
    In addition, the national strain on housing resources 
limits the ability of service providers to provide positive 
outcomes for Americans battling housing insecurity. In the 
United States, 40 percent of people experiencing homelessness 
are currently employed, yet unable to obtain stable housing. 
The Build Back Better Act passed by the House in November 
includes very, very, very, very important provisions for the 
committee, which we would now like to see pass in the Senate.
    I have heard opponents of these investments in the House. 
Many of their arguments, I think, are rather weak, but we will 
get into this, hopefully, as this hearing proceeds.
    I now recognize the ranking member of our subcommittee, Mr. 
Hill from Arkansas, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 
convening this hearing to talk about an issue that is important 
to all of us in our local districts, with all of our 
constituents, and that is the issue of how we can best, locally 
and nationally, address homelessness.
    I would like to start by talking about the success we have 
had in my district, first with my own team. I am so grateful to 
our combat wounded warriors--we have three on our staff--and 
how they work seamlessly with our veteran community to tackle 
veteran homelessness and help those veterans find shelter. And 
it is one of the most rewarding parts of my job and my time in 
Congress.
    Second, I would say that Central Arkansas is blessed by 
having a robust and well-coordinated support system to help our 
brothers and sisters who are homeless, including many of our 
great nonprofits like the Salvation Army, Jericho Way, the 
Union Rescue Mission, St. Francis House--which has a particular 
emphasis on veterans--the Veterans Villages of America, run by 
the great Iraq veteran, Colonel Mike Ross, Goodwill, and Our 
House. All of them work together seamlessly to try to eliminate 
homelessness and to fight for shelter.
    From Little Rock to Los Angeles, people experiencing 
housing insecurity need not just a safe place to stay, but also 
supportive services, whether it is clinical help, career 
coaching, or case management. That way, people can not only get 
housed, but eventually get their own place, break the cycle of 
homelessness, and begin their pursuit of happiness. That is why 
organizations like Our House, which is successfully working in 
Little Rock, as well as The Doe Fund in New York, that we will 
hear from today, have an expanding array of supportive 
services, including job training, childcare, and others that 
are successful in going well beyond shelter. I look forward to 
discussing how the Housing First approach disadvantages many 
successful local service providers, like those in my district, 
from receiving appropriate Federal funding, and why we should 
support those that provide crucial wraparound services as well 
as a true holistic approach to reducing homelessness.
    Before I yield back the balance of my time, I would just 
like to share a story from an Arkansan who has found success in 
these sorts of programs. Joshua is a constituent of mine in 
Little Rock, who had trouble finding stable housing after he 
left prison. He came to Our House and has been working there 
since 1987. He quickly settled in, found a home in the shelter, 
and joined a job training program on campus. And since last 
year, Joshua has worked in the guard shack, where he enjoys 
meeting people as they come to seek help. Because of his hard 
work and dedication, Joshua was selected to move into Our 
House's transitional housing, where he has been attending 
classes to earn his forklift certification, which will 
eventually lead to that career. Joshua, we are proud of you, 
and we are with you every step of the way. Joshua's story is so 
important, and it illustrates the importance of not just 
providing a safe place to stay, but giving people the resources 
and the help they need to succeed.
    Mr. Chairman, I look forward to our discussion today, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairman Cleaver. The gentleman yields back the balance of 
his time.
    The Chair now recognizes the Vice Chair of the 
subcommittee, the gentlewoman from the snow-filled Iowa area of 
our country. Mrs. Axne, you recognized for 1 minute.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is really good that 
we are having this hearing. I appreciate you holding this 
hearing because at last count, we had over 580,000 Americans 
who were experiencing homelessness, and over 2,500 right here 
in Iowa. Tonight, the wind chill in Iowa will be negative 15 
degrees. That is dangerous for anyone, let alone those who are 
forced to sleep outside tonight because they couldn't find 
shelter. I hope we get as many people sheltered in the short 
term as possible, but we absolutely need to use this hearing to 
discuss more solutions to address homelessness for the long 
term, including my bill to give rural areas more flexibility to 
help people experiencing homelessness. We need to implement the 
ideas we discuss today to get us back on track to finding 
people the homes they need, like we were a few years ago. Thank 
you, and I yield back.
    Chairman Cleaver. The gentlewoman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the Chair of the full Financial 
Services Committee, the gentlewoman from California, Chairwoman 
Waters.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you so very much for this 
subcommittee hearing, and I am here today to listen to our 
witnesses. I am absolutely upset, and I am unhappy about the 
lack of progress that some of our cities are making despite the 
fact that we are doing everything that we can to get the 
resources to them. I spent 6 hours out on the street working 
with the homeless, who were in tents with all of the trash, et 
cetera, and I was able to offer them Project Homekey, despite 
the fact that we were having locals telling us people didn't 
want to get off the street. Every one of them accepted getting 
into hotel rooms for the night and being able to work with 
whomever in order to transition them to permanent housing. And 
so, I want to hear what these obstacles are, because I am not 
pleased at all, and we have to move the homeless off the 
street, and I think we can all do a better job. I yield back 
the balance of my time.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    Today, we welcome the testimony of our distinguished 
witnesses: Ms. Adrienne Bush, the executive director of the 
Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky; Mr. Marc Dones, the 
chief executive officer for the King County Regional 
Homelessness Authority; Ms. Ann Oliva, the vice president for 
housing policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; 
and Ms. Nan Roman, the chief executive officer at the National 
Alliance to End Homelessness. And I will recognize Mr. Hill to 
introduce our final witness.
    Mr. Hill. Would you like me to do that now, Mr. Chairman?
    Chairman Cleaver. Yes, please.
    Mr. Hill. I appreciate that. I have the pleasure of 
introducing Ms. Harriet Karr-McDonald today, who serves as the 
president of The Doe Fund in New York City. Harriet is a 
longtime and fierce advocate for people experiencing 
homelessness at The Doe Fund, which she co-founded with her 
husband, the late George McDonald. And, first, Harriet, on 
behalf of all of us, let me offer my condolences to the family 
and The Doe Fund teams and over the loss of George. You and 
George have truly been points of light in New York, helping the 
less fortunate, and New York is a much better place because of 
you.
    I have been fortunate to visit The Doe Fund several times 
since I have been in Congress, and every time I return, I am so 
impressed by the work done by the men and women who are ready, 
willing, and able to fight homelessness and hopelessness due to 
this enormous challenge. The Doe Fund is an ordinary success, 
not only because it has lowered criminal recidivism and has 
higher work attachment than virtually any other program for the 
homeless in New York City, but because it specializes in 
tackling the hardest cases and helping those most in need. That 
is what impresses me so much about this organization. I thank 
Harriet Karr-McDonald for taking the time to lend her 
expertise, and I look forward to her testimony. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Hill, and welcome, Ms. 
Karr-McDonald.
    Witnesses are reminded that their oral testimony will be 
limited to 5 minutes. You should be able to see a timer on your 
screen that will indicate how much time you have left. I would 
ask that you be mindful of the timer, and quickly wrap up your 
testimony when your time has expired, so that we can be 
respectful of both the witnesses' and the subcommittee members' 
time.
    And without objection, your written statements will be made 
a part of our record.
    I now recognize Mr. Marc Dones for 5 minutes to give an 
oral presentation of his testimony.

 STATEMENT OF MARC DONES, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, KING COUNTY 
                REGIONAL HOMELESSNESS AUTHORITY

    Mr. Dones. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the 
subcommittee for the opportunity to speak today. My name is 
Marc Dones, and I have the honor of serving as the chief 
executive officer of the Kings County Regional Homelessness 
Authority. The Authority is charged with the oversight of the 
entirety of the homelessness system in King County, inclusive 
of the City of Seattle, and 38 other cities in our 
unincorporated areas.
    We are currently facing a growing crisis of national 
proportions, aided and abetted by policy choices that have 
misunderstood the root causes of homelessness, and under-
resourced the solutions that are most effective. Our 
investments in the homelessness space have been overly focused 
on services that offer sub-clinical support, while leaving 
systems unable to provide the actual housing solutions that 
people need. As the system administrator for the third-largest 
continuum of care, I am here to tell you that it simply doesn't 
matter how many social workers attend to a person's needs, or 
how many outreach workers are available to connect with our 
unsheltered neighbors if we don't have anywhere for them to go, 
and that is precisely where we stand today. The reality is that 
there is no number of social workers who will ever transform 
into a house. Until we prioritize stabilizing the housing 
market for low-income individuals, we will not end 
homelessness; we will simply manage it.
    We must also recognize that homelessness is 
incontrovertibly a racial justice issue. Homelessness 
disproportionately impacts people of color as a direct result 
of this country's history of racialized exclusion from housing. 
While Black people represent only 12 percent of the general 
population, we routinely make up 30 to 40 percent or more of 
the homeless population. Native people who make up only 1 
percent of the general population often make up 3 to 6 percent 
of the population experiencing homelessness. We must not forget 
that it wasn't until 1968, with the passage of the Fair Housing 
Act, that this country stepped towards ensuring people of color 
had access to the same housing finance tools as White 
Americans. This legacy is alive today in the patterns of 
generational wealth that communities can access to get through 
hard times like housing bubble bursts, global recessions, or 
global pandemics.
    Our national strategy to end homelessness must be aligned 
with these fundamentals and must focus on ending the racialized 
outcomes that continue to harm people even as we sit here 
today. Put quite frankly, the time has come for America to 
decide whether it will live down to its racist history or up to 
the dreams we all hold for it, and the decision to solve 
homelessness is a core component of that. This will require us 
to understand that homelessness is an economic issue; it is 
about not having the money to pay rent.
    At the local level, we see over and over again that many of 
the people in our shelter system, or, frankly, in our 
encampments, are working. What they aren't doing is making a 
living wage. We also know that the belief that homelessness is 
driven by behavioral health is false. What we tend to see is 
that even if people present with these concerns, they 
frequently begin after the experience of homelessness, not 
before. The reality is that every day we allow someone to 
experience homelessness, the harder it will be for us to 
connect them with the resources they need. Because of this, we 
must transform our homelessness systems into true crisis 
response, as has been called for us since the first United 
States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) plan in 
2010. In order to do that, we must equip systems with the 
necessary resources to act quickly and decisively when people 
experience homelessness.
    Jurisdictions have had success acquiring hotels, motels, 
and installed market rate projects to repurpose as housing 
supports. To some degree, this is a reinvestment in the single 
room occupancy (SRO) and other low-income housing stock that 
was wiped from the American landscape during the 
suburbanization of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. This low-income 
housing stock has played a significant role, or the lack 
thereof rather, in the inability to exit people from 
homelessness without some form of subsidy in the rise of the 
modern formation of homelessness itself.
    Additionally, given the fragile economic networks that 
communities face, we must continue to invest in diversion and 
other cash benefits that are tried and proven methods of 
keeping people from entering homelessness and prevent further 
public investment down the road. This data-driven decision-
making is critical for the appropriate targeting of resource, 
which absolutely must include prioritization and people 
experiencing unsheltered homelessness. It is unacceptable for 
our policies to force people to live outside, and we must make 
a concerted effort to end unsheltered homelessness in America.
    Finally, we must invest in our workforce. For 30 years, our 
field has been chronically underfunded and, as a result, we 
have seen our pipeline collapse. Providers are hemorrhaging 
staff who are no longer willing to tolerate poverty wages while 
trying to end homelessness. The fact of the matter is this work 
is done by people helping other people. There is no app that is 
going to change that. ``Housing case managers,'' ``recovery 
coaches,'' and, ``peer navigators'' are all fancy terms for 
people who have decided that the thing they want to do with 
their lives is to help others. And we as a country need to 
decide, do we care about our caretakers?
    I thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Dones can be found on page 
55 of the appendix.]
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you very much.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. Bush for 5 minutes for an oral 
presentation of your testimony.

 STATEMENT OF ADRIENNE BUSH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HOMELESS AND 
                 HOUSING COALITION OF KENTUCKY

    Ms. Bush. Good morning, Chairman Cleaver, Ranking Member 
Hill, and members of the subcommittee. I am honored to share 
our thoughts on ending homelessness in the Commonwealth of 
Kentucky. My name is Adrienne Bush, and I am the executive 
director of the Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky 
(HHCK), a Statewide non-partisan advocacy organization with a 
unique perspective on administering housing assistance to 
people experiencing homelessness.
    Our mission is to eliminate the threat of homelessness and 
fulfill the promise of affordable housing. To that end, we also 
step in to identify gaps to provide continuum of care and 
emergency solutions grant assistance when requested. 
Additionally, we convene and staff a Kentucky Interagency 
Council on Homelessness, the Statewide homeless policy and 
planning body authorized by State statute. We are a State 
partner of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and we 
abide by the principles that: (a) housing is a human right; and 
(b) housing ends homelessness.
    Here is what we know about homelessness in our small, 
mostly rural State. Using multiple sources, including the 
Point-in-Time Count, the coordinated entry process, and 
hospital discharge data, we know that just over 4,000 people 
enter street or shelter homelessness annually. Further, we know 
that Kentucky is not immune to systemic racial disparities 
among people entering homelessness. Most glaringly, 25 percent 
of people experiencing homelessness are Black in a State where 
only 8 percent of the general population identifies as Black. 
And the odds ratio of a Black hospital patient being identified 
as experiencing homelessness is 70 percent higher than the odds 
for a White patient.
    In Kentucky, there are three continuum of care (COC) 
jurisdictions: Lexington, Fayette County; Louisville, Jefferson 
County; and then the 118 counties outside of our two largest 
cities comprise the balance of the State. Each COC maximizes 
Federal funding to the extent possible. While Lexington and 
Louisville often are able to offer additional local revenue to 
support homeless assistance activities, homeless service 
providers in the balance of the State rarely have that option, 
and use much smaller allocations of COC and ESG funds. Each COC 
prioritizes projects that implement Housing First principles 
and strategies. They offer housing with case management in 
connection to employment and other services tailored to the 
needs of the household and the community.
    Barriers to ending homelessness and housing insecurity writ 
large are driven by the lack of affordable housing. As the 
members of this subcommittee are well-aware, the housing crisis 
is prevalent nationwide, and in Kentucky, where our cost of 
living is theoretically lower than the coasts, prior to the 
pandemic, we were short nearly 78,000 affordable and available 
rental homes for extremely low-income Kentuckians. The average 
wage that renters earn in Kentucky is $14.25 per hour, while 
the hourly wage required to pay for a 2-bedroom rental home is 
$15.78. Service and care sector jobs, where many labor 
shortages are occurring, have a median hourly wage of $9 to $10 
per hour here in Kentucky. It is also important to recognize 
that not all job openings with living wages are spread 
equitably across regions within the State, and this is acutely 
true in areas of longstanding depressed economies, such as 
Appalachian Kentucky.
    Congress, through the leadership of the House Financial 
Services Committee, has taken bold steps to reduce homelessness 
through the housing provisions in the CARES Act and the 
American Rescue Plan Act. Now is the time to continue that work 
through pathways of the Build Back Better Act and other 
legislation for consideration today. At HHCK, we know what 
works in Kentucky communities, whether in larger cities like 
Louisville or in our small rural towns. Given the challenges 
the United States faces in coming out of the pandemic, now is 
the time to course correct away from the affordable housing 
crisis and provide the foundation to end homelessness through 
legislation and correctly-scaled funding.
    Thank you for your consideration of my remarks this 
morning, and I yield back the balance of my time.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Bush can be found on page 40 
of the appendix.]
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you very much, Ms. Bush, for your 
testimony.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. Oliva for 5 minutes for an 
oral presentation of your testimony.

  STATEMENT OF ANN OLIVA, VICE PRESIDENT, HOUSING POLICY, THE 
             CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES

    Ms. Oliva. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters, Chairman Cleaver, 
and Ranking Member Hill. My name is Ann Oliva, and I am the 
vice president for housing policy at the Center on Budget and 
Policy Priorities. I want to commend this subcommittee for the 
housing-related relief measures enacted during the pandemic. 
Thank you as well to Chairwoman Waters, Chairman Cleaver, and 
Representative Torres for your continued leadership on 
homelessness, including the introduction of the Ending 
Homelessness Act of 2021, which, if enacted, would address many 
of the challenges that we are discussing today.
    The housing investments made as part of the nation's 
pandemic response are helping communities to keep families in 
their housing and/or providing critical resources for those 
experiencing homelessness in significant ways. More than 3.2 
million households, most of whom have very low or extremely low 
incomes, have received emergency rental assistance. Communities 
have issued nearly 23,000 emergency housing vouchers to 
households experiencing or at risk of homelessness, and more 
than 9,500 units have been leased. Emergency Solutions grants 
funding has helped communities respond to the needs of people 
living unsheltered and in shelters, and HOME funds will help 
communities build permanent and supportive housing.
    These resources are the right start, but more investments 
are needed to address capacity and equity challenges being 
experienced on the ground. All of the reliable evidence tells 
us that the situation for people experiencing homelessness is 
urgent, and that the homelessness crisis, which predates the 
pandemic, will persist afterwards without serious intervention. 
The Census Poll Survey continues to show that millions of 
households are at risk of eviction and that people of color 
continue to be disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
    In 2020, for the first time since we started gathering this 
data, we saw an increase in the number of people in families 
with kids living unsheltered, and the number of individuals 
living on the streets exceeded the number of individuals living 
in shelters, also for the first time. HUD reports that more 
than 580,000 people experienced homelessness on a single night 
in January of 2020, and that nearly 1\1/2\ million people 
experienced sheltered homelessness at some time in 2018.
    People of color are disproportionately impacted by 
homelessness. Families experiencing homelessness are typically 
headed by women, many are headed by young parents, and they 
include a high percentage of young children. Youth, veterans, 
and adults experiencing chronic homelessness are suffering on 
our streets and in our shelters every day, and data shows that 
more than half of sheltered people and 40 percent of 
unsheltered people experiencing homelessness work but still 
can't afford housing.
    Homelessness assistance systems face daunting challenges. 
Some are longstanding issues like the scarcity of available, 
supportive, and affordable housing units, but new challenges 
have also emerged. Rising rents make finding and keeping 
permanent housing more difficult for extremely low-income 
people. The urgency created by the pandemic has stretched 
community planning and staffing resources thin, creating 
unanticipated implementation challenges. Congregate shelters 
have proven to be unsafe environments for people who often have 
underlying health issues. Criminalization of people 
experiencing homelessness is rising, and more resources are 
needed. Communities consistently report that they want and need 
more housing and service resources.
    Expanding the Housing Choice Voucher Program and building 
new units through well-targeted programs is the most important 
and effective step Congress can take to address this crisis. 
Congress should pass a Build Back Better Act that retains 
critical housing investments, which currently includes voucher 
expansion that we estimate would serve about 300,000 extremely 
low-income households after phase-in, including about 80,000 
households experiencing or at risk of homelessness, an 
estimated 70 percent of whom are people of color.
    I regularly partner with people who have experienced 
homelessness and their priorities are clear: one, create more 
affordable housing options and supports and target those most 
impacted by structural equity; two, develop and support 
dignity-based services led by the communities most impacted by 
homelessness; three, reimagine congregate shelter and crisis 
response options; and four, end practices and policies that 
criminalize people experiencing homelessness. The need for 
housing assistance is urgent, especially for historically-
marginalized people. Now is the time for bold action to 
increase housing supply and affordability nationwide, to 
partner with people with lived expertise to define solutions, 
and to set communities up for success by making services more 
accessible.
    Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Oliva can be found on page 
65of the appendix.]
    Chairman Cleaver. Thanks, Ms. Oliva. I appreciate your 
testimony.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. Roman for 5 minutes for an 
oral presentation of your testimony.

 STATEMENT OF NAN ROMAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE NATIONAL 
                  ALLIANCE TO END HOMELESSNESS

    Ms. Roman. Thank you so much, Chairman Cleaver, Ranking 
Member Hill, Chairwoman Waters, and members of the subcommittee 
for inviting me to testify today. I am Nan Roman, CEO of the 
National Alliance to End Homelessness, which is a nonpartisan, 
nonprofit, education policy, capacity-building organization.
    Briefly, a few comments on where we stand on homelessness. 
As other witnesses have said, homelessness has been going up 
slightly every year since 2016. Due to the pandemic, we are not 
certain where the numbers stand today. The Alliance has 
conducted four surveys of the nation's continuums of care 
during the pandemic, and most COCs feel that the number of 
homeless people is up, including unsheltered numbers being up. 
It is our belief that unsheltered homelessness has likely 
increased, and it is possible that overall homelessness has 
also increased. And as others have said, people of color are 
disproportionately homeless, and there are disparities in the 
availability and the impact of the assistance they receive from 
that homeless assistance system. So, this is where we stand on 
homelessness today.
    Thanks to your work, there is a significant opportunity at 
the moment to make a serious dent in the problem of 
homelessness. The inability of people to afford housing is the 
major driver of homelessness and the major solution to 
homelessness. That is not to say that people don't need 
services and jobs. They do need services and jobs, but 
everything works better when people have safe, stable, and 
affordable housing. I think we could all say that about our own 
lives.
    During the past 2 years, you have generously provided 
through the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan Act the very 
resources that people experiencing homelessness need to return 
to housing. And Build Back Better, should it advance--fingers 
crossed--will build upon those resources. These resources are 
not going to be enough to end homelessness, but they can 
certainly reverse its course, and they represent a significant 
opportunity for us to make a difference.
    Of course, there are many challenges as well to making 
progress. A key challenge is to apply the resources that you 
have provided in the most strategic ways possible. 
Organizations, agencies, and their staffs are depleted, and 
they are struggling. It is easier to house people who have 
lower needs, who do not require services, who are more 
acceptable to landlords, or who are not yet homeless, than it 
is to house people who are literally homeless, possibly 
unsheltered, and have high service needs. But to reduce 
homelessness, we really need to focus on the latter group, not 
the former group.
    A critical priority is to address the needs of unsheltered 
people. It is just not acceptable that in a nation with the 
resources and capacity of ours, 230,000 people should be 
sleeping on the streets every night. Data indicate that people 
who are unsheltered have much more serious health problems and 
shorter life expectancy than those living in shelters. This 
group should be a top priority for us, and I am not sure that 
it is.
    Another challenge is staff shortages. Most COCs report 
significant shortages in staff across-the-board. While the 
sector welcomes and appreciates new resources and initiatives, 
it can be a struggle to implement, to follow up on those 
resources without staff. Similarly, new funding and initiatives 
often require the creation of new partnerships, important, but 
hard work, that many simply feel too overwhelmed to undertake 
at the moment. One final challenge is the possibility that 
there will be a significant post-pandemic increase in 
homelessness. Many Federal supports will be coming to an end, 
and the nation is facing a period of high inflation, including 
for housing. While I hope that the strategic use of stimulus 
resources prevents it, we should be prepared for a wave of 
increased homelessness possibly in the summer or next fall.
    Given these opportunities and challenges, there are some 
key solutions that the Alliance encourages communities to 
invest in to reduce homelessness. We recommend that they use 
funds to help people with the highest needs, including people 
who are unsheltered, those experiencing chronic homelessness, 
people with disabilities, families with children, and pregnant 
women and older adults who are homeless.
    On the other hand, we recommend that the funds not be used 
for the prevention of homelessness. There are other resources 
available for that. We recommend that communities allocate 
their resources to strategies that are specifically designed to 
reduce racial disparities and eliminate racial 
disproportionality. It is important to focus our resources on 
proven solutions, such as Housing First. Housing First is not 
housing only. We recommend that jurisdictions take the 
opportunity to investigate the possibility of converting 
available office and commercial space to housing, and we 
recommend investing in those partnerships that are needed.
    In closing, while people experiencing homelessness have 
suffered tremendously, the resources you have provided have 
ended homeless [inaudible].
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Roman can be found on page 
86 of the appendix.]
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Ms. Roman, for your testimony.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. Karr-McDonald for 5 minutes 
for an oral presentation of your testimony.

  STATEMENT OF HARRIET KARR-MCDONALD, PRESIDENT, THE DOE FUND

    Ms. Karr-McDonald. I want to thank you all for this really 
wonderful opportunity to testify about my 30 years of 
experience working mostly on the ground in this area. I am the 
president of The Doe Fund, and I ask that we keep the concept 
of opportunity at the forefront of our mind, opportunity that 
leads to true self-sufficiency. It is unquestionable that the 
vast majority of the people that we have served are minority 
people, and that is, for very obvious reasons, the lack of 
opportunity at every level for minority people.
    The Doe Fund pioneered Work Works in New York City 30 years 
ago. It was a similar moment of urgency. Homeless people were 
living on pretty much every street corner, and on subway 
grates, and one of the major areas where you could see this 
horrible human drama play out was Grand Central Terminal, where 
the thousands, literally, of people living there were desperate 
to survive. My deceased husband and I made it our business to 
spend an enormous amount of time in Grand Central with homeless 
people, and what we learned from them is what they told us over 
and over again: What they wanted was a room and a job to pay 
for it. We heard it constantly, ``a room and a job to pay for 
it,'' and that is what we set out to do.
    We started with 70 men that we literally picked up off the 
floor of Grand Central, and we decided that we would create a 
work program that at that time was a total innovation in the 
area of homelessness. Work came first. Even before we had a 
contract for transitional housing, we got a contract for work, 
and at that time, everyone thought that homeless people were 
too lazy or too crazy to work. From the beginning, those 70 men 
demonstrated that the absolute opposite was true. They worked 
so hard.
    Then, we got our transitional housing, and what we realized 
was that we needed a three-legged stool approach to start 
ending homelessness. We have very extensive social services, 
including drug treatment. We have paid work, of course, very 
good transitional housing, and training for jobs, and 
introduction to work. We clean 150 miles of New York streets 
every day. We also have an oil business, oil that gets refined. 
We have a direct mail business. And even increasingly, in this 
period of the pandemic, we have grown our culinary arts program 
and served other hungry people in the communities in which we 
work.
    The population that we serve today is honestly no different 
than the population we saw then. They are demographically 
absolutely [inaudible]. I believe that these single adult men 
make up the largest segment of the homeless population. That is 
who our program serves. We serve about 1,000 people at a time 
who are ready, willing, and able, and it has been replicated in 
6 cities across America, whether they are rural communities, 
other large cities, or more suburban areas.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you so much.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Oh, is that my 5 minutes? Okay.
    Chairman Cleaver. Yes.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Can I just add one little thing? What I 
am asking for here today--I know the critical need for 
independent permanent housing, but so many people can be 
independent. I ask you to consider funding additional models. 
Thank you very much.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Karr-McDonald can be found 
on page 60 of the appendix.]
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you for your testimony, and I will 
now recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions.
    I want to say to all of you, not far from my office here in 
Kansas City, Missouri, a young person, a 28-year-old woman, was 
burned to death--burned to death--in a homeless encampment 
under I-70, a bridge at I-70, not too far from where I am right 
now. The fire was so bad that traffic was blocked on the 
freeway. Now, the fire was under the freeway, but traffic was 
blocked on I-70. Anywhere you go in any major city, you are 
going to find that scene.
    In Washington, D.C., not far from where I live, there is an 
encampment of homeless individuals and some people living out 
of their vehicles. All kinds of issues are there. One of the 
things that I think we ought to do, and maybe, Mr. Dones, you 
can help here--because I grew up in public housing, I have 
heard all of the things: ``If you live in public housing, it is 
because you don't want to work.'' You all have heard it or 
maybe know people who say it even today. Are there things that 
we can be doing, that maybe this committee could do, or those 
of us who are thinking about this issue seriously can do to try 
to erase all of the stigma attached to homelessness? ``They 
want to be homeless; they don't want to have food,'' or 
whatever. Give us any kind of direction that you might be able 
to provide?
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. My experience, and it is long now, is 
that people desperately want to be independent. They want to be 
fathers to their children. They want to be contributing members 
of society. I get calls from guys saying, ``Oh, Miss Harriet, I 
just did my first taxes, I am so excited,'' because people want 
the dignity of being in the mainstream. We also do permanent 
supported housing. We now have 14 buildings, and I am not 
saying that is not critical for people with any kind of 
disability, but 95 percent of the people who come to us have a 
very serious drug problem.
    Chairman Cleaver. Right.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. And we deal with that on site; we always 
have. We honestly drug test, and if people are doing drugs, we 
don't ask them to leave, but we ask them to give up the paid 
work. We can't put them on the street to clean the streets of 
Manhattan.
    Chairman Cleaver. That is very helpful.
    Mr. Dones, do you have a response, do you or any panelists, 
to what can we do to begin to erase the stigma that also fights 
against us successfully getting more money that I think all of 
you are talking about?
    Mr. Dones. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. My response to 
that would be that the best thing we can do is incorporate 
people who are experiencing homelessness or have experienced 
homelessness into the work that we do, right? I, myself, have 
experienced housing instability. I have a serious psychiatric 
condition. I have been hospitalized twice. These are not things 
that you would know about me unless I talk about them. And in 
being honest about that history, and how I got here and how 
that influences my work, I think that is the most stigma-
disrupting thing that we can do. You, yourself, just spoke 
about growing up in public housing. I think we have to talk 
about it more frankly, those of us who have made it out.
    I also think that folks who are currently experiencing 
homelessness do have critical voices and real insight into what 
is necessary, and they are often highly refined, like, 
thinking, right? I have been quoted regulation chapter and 
verse by people experiencing homelessness, saying these are the 
things that are in my way right now to getting where I want to 
be. And the more that we pull those voices to the center, the 
more that we can disrupt the belief that is out there that 
folks want to live outside, that they don't actually know what 
is best for them or how to get where they need to go.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you so much. I appreciate your 
testimony. It is very, very critically important. My father 
turned 100-years-old on July 17th. I saw him cry about 30 years 
ago when he was looking at the news where they talked about how 
people who lived in public housing didn't want to work.
    Mr. Hill, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Hill. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Every January, 
traditionally, HUD releases its, ``Annual Homeless Assessment 
Report to Congress,'' which provides estimates on the local 
rates of homelessness in America. Despite the Federal reliance 
on Housing First as the sole approach to ending homelessness, 
that rate has increased over the past several years. While I 
hoped we would have that data before this hearing, I look 
forward to that report soon, and I hope, Chairman Cleaver, that 
we can bring attention to it at a future hearing.
    In my opening statement, I mentioned the story of Joshua 
and the success he found at Our House, which is our shelter in 
Little Rock for the working homeless. It has been in place 
since 1987 and has been such a success and part of our strategy 
to reduce homelessness in my hometown. Residents of Our House 
are required to work full time and to save 75 percent of their 
earnings as we try to get them that important savings account, 
that deposit for that next apartment or that down payment for a 
future home. But there are specific challenges facing homeless 
families with children. They often get left out of many, many 
Federal policy conversations, and the focus on Housing First 
often leaves out nearly all families with children who are 
experiencing homelessness. Our House's work shows that 
homelessness among families with children can be solved, but it 
takes this kind of holistic approach. And I am glad that they 
have put together a huge nonprofit that works in that way that 
brings in city, private philanthropy, and some Federal grant 
resources to achieve that.
    Harriet Karr-McDonald, again, thank you for coming today. 
It is so good to see you. And, again, I am so sad about the 
loss of George, but so gratified by your continued work, and 
your passion, and the personality that you have shown to the 
subcommittee today. The Doe Fund, as you try to access Federal 
funding, tell me the concerns you have when you combine paid 
work with transitional housing and support services? Does that 
make it harder to get Federal grant funding?
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Absolutely. Up until 2016, we won many 
awards from HUD because of our very strong data outcomes. 
Harvard studied us, New York State studied us and found we 
reduced recidivism by 62 percent. HUD stopped funding us 
because they decided the only thing they would really fund was 
permanent housing. We have 14 buildings now of really 
beautiful, supported housing. The only people who qualified 
have very distinct illnesses, whether it is mental health, 
AIDS, being elderly and not obviously being at a point in their 
life where they are going to enter the workforce, and it is an 
essential part of the solution for people with disabilities. 
However, the majority of people on the street don't suffer from 
that.
    Mr. Hill. And, Harriet, tell us--throw some numbers out 
there.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Yes.
    Mr. Hill. The vast majority of your clients are what we 
consider transitionally homeless.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Yes.
    Mr. Hill. They are coming from incarceration. They are out 
of work. They are out of luck. They have drug and alcohol 
dependency.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Yes.
    Mr. Hill. But they would be able to reenter society fully. 
Is that right?
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Absolutely, and they do.
    Mr. Hill. Yes.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. We have reduced recidivism by 62 
percent, one of the highest numbers in the country. And we have 
now served 29,000 people in these past 30 years who have 
entered the mainstream, and have paid child support. It is 
actually a requirement at The Doe Fund because the mothers are 
incredibly poor, too, and the men overwhelmingly want to be 
involved with their children. When you don't have a big legacy 
[inaudible], the children are maybe even more important.
    Mr. Hill. Thank you, Ms. Karr-McDonald, for your work in 
New York, and society there is better. And I yield back to my 
friend, Chairman Cleaver.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Thank you.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Hill. The Chair will now 
yield to the Chair of the full Finanacial Services Committee, 
the gentlewoman from California, Chairwoman Waters.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. I am going to try 
and raise a few questions and go quickly to each of our 
witnesses. And I don't mean to be abrupt, but I am now into 
trying to understand systems and how they work in various 
areas. For example, I want to know from each of you who is 
responsible for your homelessness programs? Is it a department 
of the city council, or is it another agency that has been 
organized by the city council to work on homelessness? And let 
me start with Ms. Bush.
    Ms. Bush. In Kentucky, we have three COCs, and the balance 
of the State is led by the State Housing Finance Agency as the 
collaborative applicant, Kentucky Housing Corporation. In 
Louisville, the collaborative applicant is a nonprofit 
organization, the Coalition for the Homeless. And then in 
Lexington, the Office of Homelessness Prevention and 
Intervention within the City of Lexington coordinates their COC 
activities.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. And Ms. Oliva?
    Ms. Oliva. Thank you for that question, Chairwoman Waters. 
Obviously, I don't run a continuum of care at this point in my 
career. I worked in the District of Columbia's Continuum of 
Care, where a nonprofit organization was identified as a 
collaborative applicant. But what I would say is probably the 
most important piece of COC work is that public and private 
sector partners and nonprofit organizations are working 
together to achieve a common goal and to ensure that people 
with lived expertise are helping to make those decisions.
    Chairwoman Waters. Excuse me. Where does it stop? Who has 
the responsibility for making sure that the funds that we 
receive are utilized in the way that they were intended to be? 
Where does the buck stop?
    Ms. Oliva. The buck stops in many communities with the 
collaborative applicant, which is sometimes a nonprofit and 
sometimes a government entity.
    Chairwoman Waters. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Marc Dones, what 
about you? Who has the responsibility? Is it the city council, 
or a nonprofit, or a combination of agencies?
    Mr. Dones. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. The buck stops in 
our community with me. I run an agency that was created through 
legislation that combined the efforts of the county and the 
City of Seattle into a single organization that has the span of 
policy control and funding for everything in the county. And I 
would add that we are one of only at least three organizations 
similarly situated in the country, and it really does make a 
big difference. The complexity of the answers you are getting, 
Madam Chairwoman, is actually why it is so difficult to 
implement things appropriately. It should be possible for 
people to say to you, ``It is my job.''
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you. Ms. Roman, who runs it?
    Ms. Roman. I am in the District of Columbia, so the same 
answer, the COC is run by a nonprofit.
    Chairwoman Waters. How many people know of or have seen a 
database of city-owned property that is available, that could 
be used for the development of affordable housing? How many 
people have seen that database? Raise your hand if you have 
seen it.
    [Hands raised.]
    Chairwoman Waters. How many people believe that perhaps 
what we could be involved with is seeing how we could get the 
ability for housing developers who develop affordable housing 
to have access to that land, if they can build these units at a 
very, very affordable price? Would that help?
    Ms. Roman. Yes.
    Mr. Dones. Yes.
    Chairwoman Waters. And do we believe that there are other 
laws and policies that could be made by the people who have 
land use authority, whether it is what I just alluded to, the 
use of city-owned property, or the removing of obstacles in the 
city in order to expedite housing development for low-income 
developers? Do you think there can be a better job done?
    Ms. Roman. Yes.
    Mr. Dones. Absolutely.
    Ms. Roman. Zoning and permitting issues also, similarly, 
could be reduced, and that would result in a lot more housing. 
I would put Federal property on that list as well.
    Chairwoman Waters. Federal property, too. How many people 
believe that we have systems that deal with the mentally ill 
and the developmentally disabled now that are working inside of 
the processes for dealing with homelessness? What do we do? Do 
we have processes? None.
    Mr. Chairman, I think that we have to not only be concerned 
about the money. We are concerned about the money, and we 
should be concerned about it, but we have to look at these 
processes now. I am not happy in Greater Los Angeles about the 
process. We just got a report that $3 million was returned that 
was unspent. We also know that in addition to unspent funds--I 
talked with my public housing agencies about the CARES Act, and 
they have not been able to get their money out. We have to look 
at these processes. Thank you, and I yield back the balance of 
my time.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. The Chair 
now recognizes Mr. Posey of Florida for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Posey. Clearly, homelessness and [inaudible] sad. It is 
a disappointing reality. Some critics suggest that focusing on 
housing the homeless with many collectives, as you mentioned, 
is an effective approach for dealing with the health and 
addiction issues that explain much of our homelessness. Ms. 
Karr-McDonald, tell us what you think the strategy should look 
like?
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. We developed a three-legged stool. That 
was always our concept from knowing the people and their needs. 
We concentrate on work, services, including working with people 
on their drug addictions, which 95 percent of our people have 
had, and job training. And increasingly, we do training and 
entry to higher-level secure jobs, like union jobs. For the 
first time in America, because so many people in the 
construction industry are retiring or have retired, they have a 
huge shortage.
    We have worked some deals with unions to train people and 
license them. Training for these jobs for people not associated 
and part of a program is my goal for anyone who can't afford 
that training. It is very expensive, so homeless people could 
never afford it. Even poor people can't afford it. It is like 
saying, oh, pay for college. Okay. And we all want people to go 
to college, of course, and enter secure jobs. They have a right 
to support their families and get pensions and healthcare, of 
course. And I think to an earlier question, having the number 
of people that we have had on the streets of New York for all 
of these years, cleaning and serving the communities, has truly 
changed the perception of what those who are, honestly, 
overwhelmingly minority people and formerly homeless and 
incarcerated people can achieve.
    We are all different, and homeless people are all 
different. They are not a monolith. And as I said before, 
people with disabilities definitely need permanent housing. Is 
housing too expensive now for even working people? Of course, 
but breaking the cycle, life breaking the cycle, is an 
incredibly important part of this. And I have to say, in great 
part it is due to prejudice, a history of long racial inequity. 
Almost all of the people that we serve are minority people, and 
so I believe people still feel, ``Eh, they are not so smart.'' 
I have known thousands personally. It is not true. They are 
like everybody else. They just have lacked opportunity, and 
that is what I believe in, and what I have seen demonstrated 
that works. And the most important thing is, like I did 
previously, I think funding data-heavy social programs in 
transitional housing is critical for a large segment of the 
homeless population. Thank you.
    Mr. Posey. Clearly, we need to move on housing to deal 
effectively with the reasons people end up homeless on our 
streets. I can imagine that it could be hard to get the 
chronically homeless to enter treatment coaching programs. That 
might be even more difficult since the Martin v. Boise case, 
which held that people experiencing homelessness can't be 
arrested for sleeping outside on public property if there are 
no available alternatives. No one wants to punish the homeless, 
but do local governments have the legal tools to get those 
people into treatment and coaching programs is the question. 
Sorry. I am out of time.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Posey.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. Velazquez of New York.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking 
Member, for holding this important hearing. Mr. Dones, New York 
City's LGBTQ senior population struggles with substandard 
housing conditions, poverty, and homelessness, particularly in 
parts of the Lower East Side in Manhattan, which I represent. 
In fact, according to a study, nearly 1 in 4 of New York City's 
LGBTQ senior population was reported as living in substandard 
housing. Can you speak to the unique challenges our LGBTQ 
seniors face, not only in New York but across the country, and 
also what recommendations do you have for addressing these 
challenges?
    I appreciate the question, particularly as a queer, non-
binary person, and I have had the opportunity to do quite a bit 
of work actually with trans-identifying folks experiencing 
homelessness in New York City. The thing that folks need, and I 
think this is a thread today, is community. For LGBTQ folks, 
because they have navigated the world via chosen family 
networks, being able to engage in the chosen family networks 
inside the housing options that they have is really important. 
So, when we think about that, when we think about housing 
options, we need to be prioritizing those community 
engagements.
    We also need to be really clear-eyed, but particularly for 
our trans community. There is still quite a bit of housing 
discrimination, so folks do need robust protections as they 
attempt to access certainly any market rate housing. But even 
inside the homelessness system itself, we continue to see that 
there is quite a bit of discrimination against folks. And then 
the other thing that I would say is that, again, speaking to 
that incorporation of lived experience and that community 
aspect, for folks who are experiencing homelessness at any age 
range who identify as LGBTQ, one of the things that is in the 
data quite clearly is that pathways inside are often framed 
inside of connecting with someone who is like them, whom they 
relate to and understand, and can understand the things that 
they are going through.
    I once worked on a project compiling--actually this was for 
LGBTQ young people, again, trans young people--but compiling a 
manual for outreach workers and case managers around transition 
supports for trans women, and it was incredibly detailed 
medical information that is not part of what most people know. 
And finally, I would just say that we have to be thinking about 
seniors broadly, and I think the rest of the panel can speak to 
that.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you for your answer. Ms. Oliva, one of 
the central tenants of tackling our homelessness crisis is to 
stop it before it starts and keep people stably housed. There 
is no denying that the COVID 19 pandemic has exacerbated the 
threat of homelessness for millions of individuals and 
families. But President Biden and Congressional Democrats have 
responded by allocating more than $46 billion for Emergency 
Rental Assistance. Can you explain how the creation of this 
program has helped keep individuals and families housed during 
the pandemic, particularly those on the lowest end of the 
spectrum?
    Ms. Oliva. Yes, I would be happy to do that, and thank you 
for the question. I think it is a really important question as 
we think about how we want to strengthen our affordable housing 
system to be better equipped for the next crisis or another 
crisis down the road. As I mentioned in my testimony, more than 
3.2 million households have been served with the Emergency 
Rental Assistance (ERA) Program between January and November of 
last year. And according to the Treasury's data, 88 percent of 
those who were served with that first tranche of ERA money were 
extremely low-income or very low-income people, which means 
that program is very well-targeted to help the folks who need 
it the most.
    So, folks or households who are in that program can receive 
rental and utility arrears to help them get caught up on rent 
as well as prospective rent to help support stability through 
what are very difficult financial circumstances and help people 
get back on their feet. And it is largely credited with holding 
off a wave of potential evictions after the end of the Federal 
eviction moratorium.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you for your answer.
    Ms. Oliva. Sure. You are welcome.
    Ms. Velazquez. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. My time has 
almost expired. Thank you.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you. Ms. Oliva, did you finish your 
comment?
    Ms. Oliva. Thank you for the opportunity just to finish 
that thought. I think what I was trying to say at the end there 
was, as we know, and as we have heard from Marc and Adrienne, 
homeless assistance systems are stretched to capacity right 
now, and a wave of evictions would have been disastrous for 
those systems, which is why we need more rental assistance 
resources in our communities, permanent rental assistance 
resources that can grow and contract based on needs, so the 
next time we have a crisis, we will be more prepared.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Rose of Tennessee, you are now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you, Chairman Cleaver, and thanks to 
Ranking Member Hill for holding this hearing. I also want to 
thank our witnesses for being here today. I was disappointed, 
however, to see the Democrats' tax and spend reconciliation 
bill attached to this hearing, a bill that has already passed 
the House without the support of a single Republican. That is 
disappointing to see. Now, on to today's topics.
    A few months ago, I visited Independence Again in 
Cookeville, Tennessee, in my hometown, in the 6th District of 
Tennessee, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to 
helping individuals combat drug addiction. They are funded 
primarily through charitable donations, with help from the 
Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse 
Services, in addition to payments that they receive from their 
residents. They also offer financial assistance to individuals, 
when funds are available, to assist those who cannot afford 
their program. Independence Again asks each resident to follow 
a set of rules to participate in the program. These rules 
include attending meetings, respecting curfews, and submitting 
to random drug screenings, all of which are aimed at providing 
structure and promoting individual responsibility. However, 
these common-sense rules are disfavored under the Housing First 
approach.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald, your organization states that, 
``creating pathways to self-sufficiency and independence is at 
the heart of everything you do.'' Could you please speak more 
about the importance of ensuring that individuals leave 
programs like this with the ability to maintain a stable job, 
in addition to their sobriety?
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Absolutely. Homeless people have 
problems. You couldn't live on the street without having 
trauma, and, as I said, they need a three-legged stool 
approach. The reason the paid work that we offer at $15 an hour 
is so effective is because amongst the poorest people, money, 
of course, is essential. We do not put people out on the street 
to clean buildings if they are using because it is not good for 
the community, so it does mean drug testing. It does mean very 
intense case management and drug services. The other thing I 
want to say is 70 percent of our staff are graduates of our 
program, and I think that has been key to our success. The 
other men, because they are staff, obviously see them as role 
models and it gives them hope. Hope is very important.
    If you want people to give up drugs, if you want people to 
go to work, they need to have hope that they will achieve that. 
And there is no one who knows better--I learned everything I 
know from the homeless people we serve. They are the experts 
and the homeless people on our staff, formerly homeless people. 
Do we have rules? Yes. Do you need to be drug tested? Yes. 
Violence--we have a security team mostly of graduates. They 
don't permit violence. We have metal detectors because we have 
to protect the whole, and we don't allow guns.
    So, yes, there are requirements for doing this. We don't 
throw anyone out on the street, though. You don't get paid for 
work. If it is a serious criminal thing, we call the police 
like anybody else because you have to protect the whole, all of 
the other people who live there. So, yes, we have rules. You 
have to, and people want to pay child support.
    Mr. Rose. Ms. Karr-McDonald, I see my time has expired, so 
I yield back.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Rose. The Chair now 
recognizes Mrs. Beatty of Ohio, not Cincinnati.
    [laughter]
    Mrs. Beatty. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's, ``of the 
Chiefs,'' and I am about to be, ``of the Bengals.'' But with 
that said, and to our ranking member, thank you so much for 
holding this hearing today, and also, thank you to all of our 
distinguished witnesses for being here today. Certainly, we 
know our chairman has spent a lifetime fighting and being an 
advocate for those in need of housing, just as you, as 
witnesses, have made a commitment to that.
    With that said, let's talk about the American Rescue Plan, 
the rescue plan that Democrats passed earlier this year and was 
signed into law by President Biden. And I am just so proud that 
I could be a part of that because it funded approximately 
70,000 emergency housing vouchers for persons at risk of 
homelessness or survivors of domestic violence or human 
trafficking, something I have also spent a lot of time with 
prior to coming to Congress and now in Congress.
    I guess I want to start with you, Ms. Roman. Can you tell 
me what kind of impact this is going to have on the homeless 
data, that we have been able to do this?
    Ms. Roman. Right. There are about 580,000 people homeless 
on any given night. This would be 70,000 vouchers, so it would 
certainly not solve the problem, but it would have an impact on 
it and really turn the corner. I will say that the vouchers, 
however, are not going to only go to people who are literally 
homeless. There are other categories of people who are also 
eligible. And as I mentioned in my testimony, the fact that the 
systems are so beleaguered and overrun at the moment makes it 
more attractive to house people with fewer problems, rather 
than people with more serious problems. Housing people with 
more serious problems, though, has the benefit of clearing them 
out of the shelter system so that we can reduce homelessness 
overall. There are a lot of challenges going on. Also, 
partnering with healthcare and behavioral healthcare systems so 
that people do get the services and so forth they need in the 
housing is a challenge.
    Mrs. Beatty. Thank you for mentioning that it goes to other 
things. In the session before, I think it was, I worked with 
Congressman Steve Stivers, and we did a bipartisan effort to 
make sure that Congress appropriated $20 million for family 
unification vouchers, and that was the first time that this 
program had been funded since 2010, and each year it has 
continued to be funded. Is this helpful? Would it be impactful 
for that population? As most of you know, it is for those who 
have aged out of foster care and families at risk of being 
split up due to a lack of housing. What kind of impact is it 
having on that? And the reason I am asking you as an expert to 
respond to this is because we have so many people, whether it 
was Build Back Better or the Rescue Plan, who didn't vote to 
support this, and then we want to always be protective of our 
children or anti-human trafficking.
    Ms. Roman. Yes.
    Mrs. Beatty. Help me and others understand that when they 
cast that vote, and it is so important for those watching to 
know when you look at us and the responsibility that we have to 
this population.
    Ms. Roman. Sure. Quickly, I will just say that a lot of 
people who have behavioral health issues, mental health and 
substance abuse issues and who are homeless, have those issues 
because of being homeless. They weren't the issues that caused 
their homelessness. Their health is causing those issues, so it 
really is important to have these resources. And another thing 
I will say is we have been talking about the fact that all of 
these resources are going in, but the homeless numbers are not 
going down. The reason the homeless numbers are not going down 
is something that is totally outside the ability of the 
homeless system to control, which is the people coming in. More 
people are coming in, and one of the systems that is sending 
people into homelessness is foster care, so the vouchers that 
you provided are really important. They are a hugely effective 
prevention mechanism to stop people from exiting foster care 
and, sadly, becoming homeless.
    Mrs. Beatty. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman. And thank you to the witnesses.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Mrs. Beatty.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Steil of Wisconsin for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Steil. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate 
you holding today's hearing.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald, I want to build on what my colleagues 
have been discussing today, in particular, as it relates to 
Housing First. As you know, and I think we are all really well 
aware of, there has been a big shift in HUD and among 
practitioners to Housing First, and my concern is that the 
shift is really ignoring the fact that many homeless 
individuals need more than just a home. They need support to 
overcome, maybe it is addiction, maybe mental health, or other 
challenges. It really reminds me--I went to a homeless shelter 
in Kenosha, Wisconsin, called the Shalom Center. It provides a 
lot of those key wraparound services. I remember the tour. I 
was actually walking, and a local church group was preparing 
dinner that evening. It was a little before 5:00, and I met a 
young man, and I asked him if he was going to have dinner. He 
said, well, he was going to have breakfast, because he just 
woke up, and I was kind of shocked. I was thinking, geez, it is 
almost 5:00. And I asked him why, and he said he was going to 
work the night shift at the Amazon facility just down the road, 
which pays well north of $15 an hour, often $18 to $20 an hour, 
depending on your exact shift.
    And the Shalom Center had provided some assistance. This 
young man fell on hard times through probably no fault of his 
own, and didn't have a family support structure where he could 
go, and he found himself receiving the help of the Shalom 
Center. And they not only provided him with shelter, but they 
also provided him the connection to a local job to make sure 
that he could get back on his feet, not only to stabilize what 
was going on in his life but also really to provide that next 
step so he could get out on his own into an apartment, and 
then, hopefully someday, be able to own a home and move along 
in his progress in his life.
    My concern with the Housing First policy is that sometimes 
it is missing some of the other key components of homelessness. 
So, could you comment, just in your experience, to what extent 
do non-housing-related factors--think about addiction or mental 
health challenges--contribute to homelessness? And then, 
assuming that is a big factor, can we really address some of 
the key challenges of homelessness without these key wraparound 
services?
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. I think that what is available today, 
true permanent housing is certainly essential and designed and 
funded to serve people who are chronically mentally ill, suffer 
from other disabilities, and some moms with very young kids, 
and that is important. As I said, we have 14 buildings, but 
that is not the majority of the people who live on our streets. 
They have systemic, lifelong problems due to terrible 
education. Yes, totally foster care. We have tons of young 
people who come out of foster care and incarceration. We can't 
lose sight of that piece. When you come out of prison, how are 
you going to get a job? Where are you going to live? And that 
is a very substantial part of the population we serve. Yes, 
they need--
    Mr. Steil. If I can, I just want to continue this dialogue, 
and I totally agree. I look at some of the work that you have 
done with The Doe Fund, and then the question starts to become, 
how have the Housing First policies impacted The Doe Fund?
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Yes. When this policy was really first 
embraced in 2016, we lost all of our HUD money because we were 
not a permanent housing solution but one that transitioned 
people to independence, and you need both. And to say that, 
well, these people can't live in this housing, the permanent 
housing, and there is no way that out of homelessness with a 
residence, that is critical to us.
    Mr. Steil. We have limited time unfortunately.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Yes.
    Mr. Steil. Would you say the Housing First policies have 
negatively harmed vulnerable populations with whom you work?
    Ms. KarrMcDonald. Yes, because they don't qualify.
    Mr. Steil. I appreciate it. I am only cutting us off 
because I am cognizant of the time. I appreciate your 
testimony. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you holding the hearing, 
and I yield back.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes the 
gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Green. Thank you very much. This hearing is exceedingly 
important because, like you, I have persons who are living 
under an overpass near my office, and it is heartbreaking to 
see young people there, to see persons who appear to be 
associated with the military in one way or another, or at least 
they were veterans or they claim to be, but my question has 
more to do with how we approach the problem. There is a debate 
that looms which deals with whether we should have these 
services and resources centralized for persons who experience 
homelessness or whether they should be decentralized; whether 
we should take a holistic approach and have all of the 
resources in one area or decentralize them and have them all 
over a given city, as well as the housing integrated into 
communities.
    And I bring this up because I think that the 
intentionality, to a certain extent, as it has been explained 
to me with reference to Skid Row, the intentionality was to do 
good, to help people, but then you have a concentration of 
people and services. On the other hand, there are many people 
who need the services, but they can't get to them because they 
don't have transportation. So if you decentralize, then 
transportation becomes a real issue for people who are 
homeless. The question that I have is for persons who can help 
me with the question of centralized or decentralized or maybe 
some other model.
    Mr. Dones, sir, would you care to respond, please?
    Mr. Dones. Sure. Thanks for the question. I think it is 
important that we create avenues for folks to get as much as 
they can in one-stop shops. I think that doesn't have to be 
Skid Row. I think there are a lot of ways to do that. I think 
of Central City Concern, for example, in Portland, Oregon, 
which leverages a federally-qualified health center to create 
an integrated model of housing and healthcare where all of the 
supports are onsite. And I think it is very possible to do in a 
way that doesn't create the sort of troubling trends of the 
concentration or suffering or poverty that we have seen in 
other jurisdictions.
    And I do briefly apologize. I do have to respond to some of 
the lines of questioning about Housing First, which seems to 
confuse what Housing First is.
    Mr. Green. Could you do this for me?
    Mr. Dones. To be really clear, Housing First is not housing 
only. There have always been services involved, and we just 
have to have that as what is true in this conversation.
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Dones.
    Ms. Oliva, I would like for you to respond to the question 
that I posed. Thank you.
    Ms. Oliva. Thank you for the question, sir. I agree with 
Marc in that there are a number of ways that we can be 
providing both housing and services to people who are 
experiencing homelessness, and I would say a couple of things 
about that. Whether it is centralized or not centralized, I 
think it is important to ask people who are experiencing 
homelessness how they would like to receive and what kinds of 
services they would like to receive, and really providing 
choice for folks to access the kinds of housing supports and 
service supports that they want and need.
    And I also just have to make sure that we are correcting 
the record on Housing First. Housing First is not a program. It 
is an approach, and it actually provides folks with a choice 
about what they want and need. It is not a one-size-fits-all 
approach, and it is not housing only. Those are really 
important pieces of this discussion that I think have been 
mischaracterized in this hearing.
    Mr. Green. Okay. Thank you for your comments on Housing 
First as well. Mr. Dones, I thank you, too.
    Let's move on now, if we may, to Ms. Karr-McDonald. Ms. 
Karr-McDonald, you have indicated, or it has been indicated, 
that there are drug tests that are required. Can you give me an 
indication as to what are the consequences if you fail the drug 
test, please?
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Yes, and thank you. It is really not 
having people go out to work, because, first, they work in 
communities all over New York City, and you can't be high. 
Second, and maybe the most successful part of it, is that 
people want to make money, and that is what they lose. All of 
the people want to have their own housing. They want to get 
back with their children. They want to be functioning members 
of society, but they can't do that if they are continuing to 
get high.
    Mr. Green. My time has expired. Thank you very much, Mr. 
Chairman. I greatly appreciate it.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Green.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. 
Taylor.
    Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking 
Member Hill. I think this is an important hearing. I appreciate 
the witnesses being here. I remember Ronald Reagan's time-held 
comment that the best social program in the world is a job, and 
so employment is really a key feature to helping people not 
need whatever the social program is that we are discussing. We 
are here talking about homelessness, which is very serious and 
something that we continue to try to address in our society. We 
have seen different places have different levels of success. It 
certainly seems I hear a consensus about the wraparound 
services addressing drug addiction and addressing mental health 
as well as housing and employment in trying to help a person 
sort of get back on their feet, and once they are fully 
employed, they can be a contributing member of society. I think 
that is probably ultimately all of our objectives, what we are 
trying to see.
    One thing I will express concern about, and I think it is 
germane particularly in this committee, is that I believe that 
one of the big drivers of inflation last year was the rise of 
rent and making housing more expensive as a result of the 
excessive printing of money by the Federal Reserve that was 
driven by the deficit spending that was so profligate over the 
last 2 years, particularly in the last year. I am worried that 
we are going to see another wave of homelessness--I think I am 
concurring with some of our witnesses here--as a result of the 
inflation that has driven it. So, it is interesting. We are 
borrowing money and creating inflation, trying to put it into 
homelessness, which actually will create more homelessness. I 
am not sure that is the correct way to address this problem.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald, you were in the middle of saying 
something about your work in New York City, and I want to just 
commend you for your work and success. Clearly, you have had a 
lot of success, and it seems like your focus is not just 
housing but also the wraparound services. And I think you were 
in the middle of saying something when you were cut off.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. I was going to say that is why we start 
in order to be successful in our people earning money while 
they are with us so that makes them able to save money and 
contribute to child support.
    Mr. Taylor. Sure. And could you just build on--
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. For the vast majority of people, a job 
is essential to independence. It is independence.
    Mr. Taylor. Sure. And focusing on jobs, on economic growth 
is the key. Texas has been an enormously successful State in 
its job creation, and, from an employment point of view, has 
completely recovered from the pandemic while other States, 
which have, and, again, these are choices that different local 
leaders have made, but shutting down harder during the pandemic 
has hurt a lot of businesses, and they are having a harder time 
recovering from an employment point of view, which exacerbates 
that homelessness, right? Joblessness and homelessness kind of 
almost seem to go hand in hand. Would you agree, Ms. Karr-
McDonald?
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Absolutely. I was actually going to tell 
you about a current participant. We got a big contract with 
what's called the Cleanup Corps, New York City Cleanup Corps, 
to clean the streets in much broader areas and in poor 
neighborhoods because of the pandemic. This young man entered 
that way through that recruitment process. At that time, he 
lived with his brother. He had a long, long history of 
substance abuse, and a lack of education and training, and when 
his brother moved out of State, he called us because he was 
homeless, and we already employed him. And the result, as it is 
in so many cases, has been that he was on a local TV show 
talking about the Cleanup Corps. In the same week, he got to 
see his daughter, whom he had previously been estranged with 
for many years, and he went to her 9th birthday party. And she 
told him he was her hero.
    Mr. Taylor. Wow.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. And I hear children saying that 
frequently.
    Mr. Taylor. Wow. Mr. Chairman, I see my time has expired, 
so I yield back.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you very much. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Vargas of California for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Before I say 
anything else, Ms. Karr-McDonald, thank you. God bless you. I 
can't tell you how much I have appreciated your testimony 
today, honestly. It reminds me of Jesus' admonition in John 15, 
that you love one another as I have loved you, or Matthew 19, 
that you love your brother as yourself.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Yes.
    Mr. Vargas. I never met your husband, but I assume that he 
probably had that in mind, too. But I have to tell you, I 
assume you are a Republican, because all of the Republicans are 
asking you questions. And I have to say that normally, when we 
talk about homeless or people who are incarcerated or 
undocumented people, I don't always hear my brothers and 
sisters on the other side of the aisle talking about them as 
though they were humans or our brothers and sisters. Sometimes, 
especially with undocumented people, the conversation goes so 
sideways. Just listening to you is so uplifting, so God bless 
you, and I mean that. God bless you.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Thank you.
    Mr. Vargas. And, again, all of your work that you have 
done, I am just so pleased with that. Putting that aside for a 
second, I have to say that we have talked about this a little 
bit. It is the price of housing that has gone up so 
dramatically that has caused so many people to be homeless. I 
remember when I bought my house that I still live in, in 1993. 
We paid $176,000 for it. That is what we paid. Today, if you 
factor in inflation, it calculates at about $330,000. My 
neighbor just sold his house, and he bought it about the same 
time I did. He sold it for $1.6 million. How can you afford 
that? It is ridiculous, and that is why we have so many 
homeless, too, the price of housing in California, because 
everyone wants to move. People say they are all moving away. I 
have to tell you, every time someone puts a house up, they sell 
it in about a week. It is because people love to live there. We 
need more housing, so I appreciate that.
    I do want to ask one particular question. My good friend 
and colleague, Salud Carbajal, asked me to ask about the Naomi 
Schwartz Safe Parking Program Act he has proposed, because so 
many people now live in their cars, that they have this grant 
where the cities and localities are going to help people 
transition from their cars, but at least have a safe place for 
a while. I understand, Ms. Roman, that you know a little bit 
about this? May I question you on that quickly?
    Ms. Roman. Sure.
    Mr. Vargas. What do you think about it?
    Ms. Roman. I will tell you the truth. A while ago, I would 
have said that I didn't think it was such a great idea, but I 
have really been changing my mind about it. There are a lot of 
people who, really, their only asset is their vehicle. If they 
were going to stay in a shelter, they would probably lose their 
vehicle, because there is no place for them to park, especially 
in California and in the West. If they are going to get to a 
job, they need a car. As we have said repeatedly, and I think 
the witnesses have said that 40 percent of people who are 
homeless are working. Most people who are homeless get out of 
homelessness by working.
    The average length of time people are homeless is 6 weeks, 
so a car or vehicle is really important. It is an asset. If 
they can't park it legally someplace, they will get ticketed. 
And if they can't pay the tickets, they may get cited or 
incarcerated because of that. It allows them to get their kids 
to school, to get themselves to work. I think it is a good 
model.
    Mr. Vargas. So, you think it is a good idea. Okay. I do, 
too. This is such a complicated issue.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald, going to you, even though I am a 
Democrat, I almost feel like I owe you this time. Obviously, 
you are dealing with really hardcore issues, it sounds like. 
How about families? Do you deal with any families?
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. We started much more recently in our 
permanent housing, and it is a different animal. They need the 
same help, but they are very young children and those children 
need that person at home, and so they can't go to work in the 
beginning for sure. And there is no daycare. And I just want to 
tell you I am not a Republican.
    [laughter]
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. I am not. I don't say I am a Republican 
or a Democrat, but I am not a Republican at all, and I am not a 
Democrat.
    Mr. Vargas. I will tell you a little secret. I like 
Republicans.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. Me, too. French Hill is my friend.
    llaughter]
    Mr. Vargas. He is my friend, too.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. And I know a lot of other amazing 
Republican leaders, for example, Arthur Brooks. Do you know 
Arthur? He used to be the head of the American Enterprise 
Institute. He has been so helpful to me, and has been one of 
our great champions. He is a Republican. So yes, and we have 
had huge fans who are Democrats.
    Mr. Vargas. Thank you.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Ms. Karr-McDonald. Thank you, 
Evangelist Vargas. I appreciate your comments as well.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 
Sherman, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Sherman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so much 
for including in this hearing my Homeless Assistance Act, which 
is designed to allow Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) to share 
data with local government agencies, and with nonprofit 
organizations engaged in continuum of care. And according to 
research done by the Pew Charitable Trust, this sort of data 
sharing paved the way for the State of Virginia to become the 
first State to, in their words, functionally end veteran 
homelessness. We passed this bill in 2020 through the full 
House, and I look forward to getting the support of our 
colleagues and passing it again, and hopefully, the Senate will 
take it up.
    I think a lot of people have made the point that housing is 
too expensive, rent is too high, and it is a matter of supply 
and demand. Rent isn't expensive everywhere, but it is 
expensive in my district, and in Juan Vargas' district, and in 
many of the other districts that are represented here. I turn 
to colleagues in other parts of the country where you can build 
an apartment for $100,000. My city is trying to build just a 
shelter for homeless people and is spending $500,000 or 
$600,000 to do so. We have to bring down the cost of 
construction, and that means allowing people to build, which 
gets very controversial at the local level.
    Ms. Oliva, given the complex nature of housing policies, we 
have to look for ways to increase the supply of affordable 
housing and provide those families and individuals in need with 
assistance. Do you believe that the passage of the Ending 
Homelessness Act, proposed by our colleague, Mr. Torres from 
New York, would help prevent families who fall on hard times 
from experiencing homelessness? And, of course, this is a bill 
that provides $3 billion in short-term rental assistance to 
targeted low-income people who are living paycheck to paycheck 
and are at risk of being evicted. Ms. Oliva?
    Ms. Oliva. Thank you so much for that question, sir. Rental 
assistance is a key component of our strategies that we need to 
have in place in order to address the homeless and housing 
affordability crisis. Really, what we have been talking about, 
and what is included in Build Back Better as well, and is 
partially included in the bill that you are talking about, is a 
three-pronged approach: making sure that we are keeping the 
units that are affordable in our communities in place by 
creating funds to address the backlog of needs in public 
housing; increasing the supply where we need it in this country 
for affordable housing. But I think one of the most important 
pieces, as you pointed out, is really about increasing 
affordability through an expansion of the Housing Choice 
Voucher Program. That will allow units that are created with 
those supply dollars to actually be affordable to folks who are 
at the lowest incomes, including incomes from zero to 30 
percent or 50 percent of the area median income.
    And right now, in Build Back Better, the version that 
passed the House, it includes an increase in the Housing Choice 
Voucher Program that would serve about 300,000 households after 
it is phased in, including 80,000 households experiencing 
homelessness, 700,000 people in total, including--
    Mr. Sherman. Let me squeeze in one more question for you.
    Ms. Oliva. Yes.
    Mr. Sherman. We need to build 328,000 new apartments every 
year. We think we need 328,000 just in the L.A. area. What 
policies do you advocate in order to create additional 
apartments units?
    Ms. Oliva. Yes. What we really are focused on is ensuring 
that we have affordable housing that is affordable to folks who 
are at the lowest incomes. And so, the most targeted program to 
do that is the National Housing Trust Fund.
    Mr. Sherman. I don't know if I can squeeze in one more 
question.
    Ms. Bush, we have Section 8. Two-point-one million 
households are deficient in their rent. Perhaps for the record, 
you can tell us what we can learn from the private sector to 
make the Section 8 Program more effective?
    Chairman Cleaver. Very quickly.
    Ms. Bush. Thank you for the question. I think we always 
need to concentrate our thoughts on affordability, what is 
affordable to extremely low-income constituents and build with 
that in mind, and leverage both the power of the government but 
also the private sector to make sure we are addressing those 
needs. Thank you.
    Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
    Chairman. Cleaver. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Mr. 
Lawson of Florida. Mr. Lawson, we are pleased to see that you 
are continuing to recover. We're glad to you have you here in 
the hearing today. You now have 5 minutes.
    Mr. Lawson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the 
great job that you are doing with this subcommittee.
    Homelessness is a big issue in my district, especially in 
Duval, and in the Jacksonville area, and here in Tallahassee. 
My question is to the whole panel, and anyone on the panel can 
respond to it. A November 20, 2021, report from the Florida 
Council on Homelessness said it is too early to know the 
effects of COVID on homelessness, but some reports show crowded 
facilities, with many being turned away due to lack of supplies 
and staff. Facilities all over the country report high rates of 
burnout among staff, particularly due to rapid turnover and 
short staffing. How might Congress--and I don't know whether we 
can do it--better assist these shelters to ensure facilities 
are receiving enough supplies and providing staff with 
additional support in order to continue to help people in need? 
And anyone on the panel can address it.
    Mr. Dones. I would be happy to go first, Representative. In 
our jurisdiction, quite frankly, we need funding in order to 
pay people more. As I mentioned in my opening testimony, folks 
are making poverty wages trying to end homelessness, and the 
burnout rates are expansive and folks are simply leaving, and 
we need to be able to continue. At the local level, we have 
cobbled together money to do emergency funding like hazard pay 
kinds of things. We need money to continue to do that. That 
would be the most helpful thing that our jurisdiction could 
receive from the Federal Government right now.
    Mr. Lawson. Does anyone else want to respond?
    Ms. Oliva. I would be happy to go next.
    Mr. Lawson. Okay, Ms. Karr-McDonald.
    Ms. Oliva. Oh no, this is Ms. Oliva.
    Mr. Lawson. Okay. I'm sorry.
    Ms. Oliva. I just wanted to sure that was clear for the 
record.
    Mr. Lawson. Okay.
    Ms. Oliva. I agree with Marc completely that we have to 
invest in our workforce in order to make sure that workforce is 
stable and well-trained, and sort of not also dealing with 
housing instability while they are trying to solve the housing 
instability for people that they are serving. I talked to a 
person who is experiencing homelessness who told me that they 
had cycled through 10 case managers in their time at a 
particular program, and that is not good for the case managers, 
but it is also really not good for them to build their own 
rapport with somebody and really get the services that they 
need.
    That said, the answer to homelessness and to addressing the 
needs that are in shelters is permanent housing, affordable, 
safe, permanent housing in jurisdictions across the country, 
and that means that we need to increase the supply of 
affordable housing and the affordability across the country 
with the investments that I talked about earlier in the 
National Housing Trust Fund and an expansion of the Housing 
Choice Voucher Program. That will make everybody's job easier, 
and it will serve people in the way that they have asked to be 
served.
    Mr. Lawson. Okay. I am going to try to get in this next 
question. This is very important to the panel. Making more 
vouchers available would mean that fewer people would live in 
shelters or motels or on the streets or in overcrowded homes. 
Do you agree with that statement, and if more vouchers were 
widely available, how do you suggest we quickly get individual 
families in shelters approved to get them into homes?
    Ms. Roman. I can start on that. Definitely, more vouchers 
are what are needed, and I think we need to also use those 
vouchers strategically for the people with the highest needs. 
What would help them get into housing quickly is if PHAs have 
flexibility or exercise the flexibility to reduce some of their 
requirements in terms of documentation and so forth. If we also 
had a more organized sector that was doing landlord 
coordination, landlord cultivation to find units. And also, we 
need to pay the homelessness sector to do navigation to help 
people who are homeless find units. It is not really practical 
for someone who is living in a shelter to be going all around 
town talking to landlords trying to find a unit, so we need to 
build up more infrastructure there. That is happening, but it 
could be happening faster.
    Mr. Lawson. Okay. I have another question, but I will yield 
back my time. But I just want to say this, Mr. Chairman, before 
you cut me off. We have been talking about this homeless crisis 
for the last 4 years, and we have the ability in Congress to do 
something about it, and all of us should be. With COVID and 
everything else, we allocate money for everything else, but we 
really should take people off the streets, and give them a safe 
environment, a place to live, put a roof over their head. This 
winter is going on and everything else, but we are not doing 
it. We are debating what vouchers are all about instead of 
putting money where it should be. And so I admire, Mr. 
Chairman, the work. The chairwoman wanted to do something about 
it because it keeps escalating. And with that, I yield back.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Lawson. That is why we are 
doing Build Back Better.
    Mrs. Axne of Iowa, the Vice Chair of the subcommittee, is 
now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 
witnesses for being here. This is such a critical subject for 
this committee to be working on, and unfortunately, as we have 
heard, there has not been as much progress as we would like to 
be seeing here. After numbers were dropping from 2007 to 2016, 
we have now seen increases in the number of people experiencing 
homelessness for each of the last 4 years. And sadly, right 
here in Iowa, that includes an increase of 14 percent just in 
this last year, which is unfortunately the third-largest 
increase in the country.
    But one of the things that really jumped out at me is the 
large increase in the number of unsheltered people, which is up 
more than 25 percent in the last 4 years, and that is 
especially true in our rural areas where 44 percent of people 
experiencing homelessness were unsheltered. I have been working 
specifically on that issue since I think we all recognize that 
sometimes what works in cities might not work in rural areas in 
the same way.
    I would like to start by asking you, Ms. Roman, can you 
describe some of the specific challenges of working on rural 
homelessness?
    Ms. Roman. Sure. A big challenge is that there is just not 
the homelessness infrastructure in rural areas in the numbers, 
because there are not as many people who need it, so, numbers-
wise, not percentage-wise. There is not necessarily an entire 
homelessness infrastructure of shelter and services and so 
forth in every community. And because of that, people also 
double up, so it is not necessarily as obvious that they are 
homeless or that there are housing problems. I think that 
probably what is needed is more direct assistance to households 
just to get re-housed, and a lot of kind of intermediate things 
that we have in the bigger cities could be avoided and just 
help people get into housing more quickly.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you for that. And I have a bill we are 
considering at this hearing to work on those exact issues and 
to expand the uses of homelessness funding for rural areas. I 
think you have seen the bill. Do you think that this would help 
get people sheltered in rural areas?
    Ms. Roman. I do think it would help a lot. When the 
McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act was reauthorized, we got 
something similar to this for rural areas, but it has never 
been implemented just because of financing reasons. But I do 
think that focusing on relocation assistance, on short-term 
lodgings, on repairs and things like that, would work very well 
in rural areas and help us decrease the numbers there.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you. And are there any additional 
flexibilities that you would recommend to this legislation?
    Ms. Roman. I don't have anything right now, but we can look 
at it and get back to you about that.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you. I would appreciate that.
    Moving on, Ms. Oliva, I know you have done a lot of work in 
this area as well. Do you have any thoughts on this bill? You 
brought up a few things, and I heard resources, needing more 
people to help out. Many of you have mentioned that. But do you 
have any thoughts on this bill and any additional uses for the 
funding that you would suggest?
    Ms. Oliva. Thank you for the question. I believe in my last 
year in service at the Department of Housing and Urban 
Development, we were proposing something similar to what your 
bill reflects, which is to make the Continuum of Care Program a 
little bit more flexible for those rural areas, especially 
since we don't have a program that is specifically designed for 
rural areas. So, I think the bill makes a lot of sense. I have 
actually talked to the folks at the Housing Assistance Council 
about their thoughts on the bill as well, and those 
flexibilities are going to be really important. Things like 
bringing housing up to code, those are the kinds of things that 
our rural communities have been asking for.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you. Well, I will tell you what. My goal 
here is to make some simple changes just to make sure that we 
are helping these rural areas with homelessness. And to your 
point, it is a different approach that is needed in our bigger 
areas. We don't have connectivity necessarily for the 
homelessness in the way that we do in some of our larger urban 
areas, so I am hoping that we can get this bill through so we 
can address those different solutions as you have all talked 
about here and put those into practice very quickly. This idea 
actually originally came from HUD under the last 
Administration, and I am hoping we can recognize this as the 
common-sense solution that it is.
    Thank you so much for the work that you are doing, and 
thank you for answering my questions. I yield back.
    Chairman Cleaver. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Torres of New York.
    Mr. Torres. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The solution to 
homelessness is affordable housing. If we did not have zoning 
laws that made it illegal to build affordable housing, we would 
have more affordable housing and less homelessness. If we had 
more Federal funding for creating and preserving affordable 
housing, we would have more affordable housing and less 
homelessness. In the end, homelessness is a public policy 
choice.
    I have a few thoughts to offer on street homelessness in 
particular. For me, there is something profoundly dehumanizing 
about the American discourse surrounding street homelessness. 
We often speak as if those living on the street are quality-of-
life conditions to be cleaned up or sanitary conditions to be 
swept away. We often speak of the street homeless as nuisances 
to be cycled in and out of the criminal justice system, and 
most people pass by the street homeless every day without even 
the barest acknowledgement of their basic humanity. For me, the 
street homeless should be seen not as threats to our quality of 
life but as people in need of housing and services. The 
homeless should be seen not as an aesthetic blight on our 
society, but our society should be seen as a moral blight on 
the homeless who have been left to languish on the streets 
unhoused and uncared for.
    Even though most homelessness is essentially a consequence 
of the affordability crisis, I do believe there is a mental 
health dimension to chronic street homelessness. And for me, 
the intersection of housing and healthcare underscores the 
urgent need to invest in supportive housing, which is housing 
with services.
    My first question is to Ms. Roman. Is it fair to say that 
supportive housing is not only the most humane but also the 
most cost-effective approach to addressing the most chronic 
forms of street homelessness?
    Ms. Roman. Definitely housing with services, permanent 
supportive housing, has proven effective over the years in 
reducing chronic homelessness quite substantially and would do 
the same for unsheltered chronic homelessness, yes.
    Mr. Torres. And it is more cost-effective than psychiatric 
hospitalization, correct?
    Ms. Roman. There is a lot of data that indicates that for 
people with behavioral health disorders, housing and services 
is less expensive than leaving them on the street or in 
shelters and overusing emergency assistance.
    Mr. Torres. Right. It is more cost-effective than 
psychiatric hospitalization, than the shelter system, and the 
criminal justice system, and yet, there are more people in 
America who get mental healthcare from jails rather than from 
supportive housing developments. Indeed, one of the largest 
providers of mental health in the United States is Rikers 
Island, the New York City jail system. In Fiscal Year 2020, it 
cost New York City nearly half-a-million dollars to incarcerate 
an individual on Rikers Island. In Fiscal Year 2017, it cost 
New York City $73,000 to provide emergency shelter to a family, 
and $38,000 to provide emergency shelter to an adult. So, even 
if you have no compassion for the poor, even if you have no 
core belief in housing as a human right, the fact remains that 
permanent housing for those in need is far less expensive than 
incarceration or temporary shelter. Ms. Roman, do you share 
that assessment?
    Ms. Roman. I do share that assessment, yes. That is what 
the data indicates.
    Mr. Torres. And the Ending Homelessness Act, which codifies 
housing vouchers for all, would radically reduce homelessness 
in America. I know of no other policy that would create so much 
affordability, for so many, so quickly. If the United States 
were to implement housing vouchers for all, hundreds of 
thousands of units, maybe even millions of units would become 
affordable to families almost overnight. Does anyone have any 
thoughts on the importance of housing dollars for all?
    Ms. Roman. Certainly, that is the case. There is a supply 
issue. Having housing vouchers would generate some supply, but 
there would need to be a subsidy for other supply. That is the 
solution. I will also just say briefly that when I started 
working on housing issues, which was in the late 1970s, we had 
poverty, we had mental illness untreated, we had substance 
abuse disorders. We did not have homelessness, and that is 
because there was an adequate supply of affordable housing at 
the time.
    Ms. Oliva. And if I may, I would just add to everything 
that Nan just said, which I agree with, that if we were to go 
to the universal housing voucher model, we would be lifting 9.3 
million people above the poverty line, and people of color 
would benefit from that quite a bit. I think it is incredibly 
important to be thinking about this in the way you just laid it 
out, Representative Torres.
    Mr. Torres. We have the power to create affordable housing 
on a mass scale instantaneously. What we are lacking is the 
political will, so I will leave it at that.
    Chairman Cleaver. Did you get a full opportunity to raise 
your questions, Mr. Torres? I didn't know if you--
    Mr. Torres. I don't know if I can make one more comment. I 
don't want to--
    Chairman Cleaver. Please. I am going to allow Republicans, 
Democrats, and Cincinnati Bengals--anybody to make sure you got 
your final thought out.
    Mr. Torres. There is a local example in New York City that 
illustrates the power of housing vouchers. New York City 
recently passed a law that raised the value of City vouchers to 
the same standard as Section 8. Before the law passed, there 
were only 564 units affordable to those with a City voucher. 
After the law passed, there were 72,000 units affordable to 
those with a City voucher tied to Section 8. That is one 
example of the sheer power of the Housing Voucher Program to 
create mass affordability and to do so instantaneously, and I 
will leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Cleaver. The Chair now recognizes the gentlewoman 
from Massachusetts, Ms. Pressley, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Chairman Cleaver, and thank you to 
our witnesses for being here today. The pandemic has drawn new 
attention to the eviction crisis and how it contributes to 
homelessness, race and gender. Evictions are devastating, 
disruptive, and violent events that not only destabilize 
families in the short term but also make it more expensive and 
challenging to rent safe housing in the future, apply for 
credit, borrow money, or to purchase a home.
    In Massachusetts, Black renters are 2.4 times more likely 
to have [inaudible].
    Chairman Cleaver. We are having a problem. I apologize, Ms. 
Pressley. We are trying to get it straight here. Why don't we 
proceed with the next Member and try to get Ms. Pressley's 
audio straightened out? Actually, it is visual as well now. 
Then we will come back, Ms. Pressley, to you so that you have 
your complete 5 minutes of time.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. 
Barr, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and first, I want to 
recognize my fellow Kentuckian, Adrienne Bush, who is 
testifying with us today. Adrienne, how are you? As executive 
director of the Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky, 
Adrienne and her team have done some truly life-changing work 
in the Commonwealth. And while we may disagree on the merits of 
the Federal Government's exclusive reliance on the Housing 
First policy, I do want to thank her and her team for their 
advocacy on behalf of the over 4,000 street and sheltered 
homeless and disadvantaged Kentuckians.
    In the first 5 years after 2014, when the U.S. adopted 
Housing First as its exclusive solution to combating 
homelessness, unsheltered homelessness increased more than 20 
percent, despite substantial increases in Federal funding. This 
increase came after a decade of decline in homelessness of 
roughly 31 percent between 2007 and 2014.
    In California, which doubled down on Housing First by 
requiring all State funding to go to Housing First programs, 
the results are even more telling. Between 2015 and 2019, 
unsheltered homeless in California rose 47 percent.
    In my view, the data is clear: Housing First has been a 
failure. Last year, I introduced the Housing Promotes 
Livelihood and Ultimate Success Act (Housing PLUS Act), which 
would make more inclusive the allocation of grant money to 
combat homelessness. We tried an exclusive Housing First model, 
and it did not work. Now, we should expand the toolkit and 
bring more providers into the fold.
    Ms. Karr-McDonald, what impact would an approach like the 
one I proposed have on combating homelessness, and will 
allocating Federal funds to more rather than fewer qualified 
providers, including The Doe Fund, help transition people out 
of homelessness?
    Ms. Karr-McDonald. As I said before, homelessness is not 
made up of a monolithic group of people, and I think it was a 
disservice to stop funding any transitional programs that 
provided housing as well as more communal services. I think one 
of the great benefits to us and to the people we serve has been 
our ability to form strong communities of upwardly mobile 
people and get support from the staff who are vastly--the 
majority are formerly homeless folks. I think there have to be 
a multiple of answers to a very complex issue.
    We are fortunate because we are a social enterprise, so we 
get contracts for the work we do and a lot of donations because 
of our high visibility on the streets, but social enterprise 
can be a poor piece of some homeless programs. We earn the 
money that allows our guys to get paid at $15 an hour and save 
money and all of those things because we run businesses, and 
they are competitive with for-profit businesses.
    Mr. Barr. Ms. Karr-McDonald, my time is running out, so I 
will reclaim my time, but I do appreciate the fact that The Doe 
Fund and similar organizations do provide the wraparound 
services. And we need to identify homelessness as not just a 
problem of lacking a roof over your head, but there are 
underlying causes for homelessness, whether it is mental 
health, lack of case management, lack of skills or financial 
literacy, or what have you, substance abuse disorders. We need 
to meet these folks where they are, and I subscribe to my good 
friend, Juan Vargas', citation to Scripture that we need to 
really care for these people. Not just warehouse them, but care 
for them, and that is why I oppose Housing First.
    And let me just briefly engage my constituent, Ms. Bush. 
Your testimony today strongly advocates for the use of Housing 
First, and, of course, your coalition is based in my district. 
This issue was brought to my attention by another constituent 
organization in Franklin County, and when I was visiting that 
transitional housing facility that catered to women recovering 
from substance abuse disorders, what one of the ladies told me 
was, please, please, please--she begged me not to force her to 
live in a shelter where there are other active users.
    The Housing First approach would have forced her to be 
surrounded by other people who are in active addiction and 
using drugs, and you can understand that was going to 
compromise her recovery. So, I invite your feedback on that.
    Ms. Bush. Sure, and thank you, Congressman. It is always 
good to see you, even over a camera on the computer. Janet 
Gates, the director of the Franklin County Women and Family 
Shelter, is who I think you are referring to.
    Mr. Barr. Yes.
    Ms. Bush. And she is a good friend of mine. We have known 
each other for a long time. And having done this work in a 
rural community--I have spent 15 years of my life in Eastern 
Kentucky--I have worked the overnight shelter shift. I know 
that we have those in varying stages of recovery and that any 
sort of substance use issues may have come right after becoming 
homeless. You do want to be careful. I will say that the 
Franklin County Women and Family Shelter seems to have pivoted, 
because their mission really is tied to recovery, and so they 
are a recovery facility, and thanks to Community Development 
Block Grant (CDBG) funding, things that may be more appropriate 
to the recovery funding, and, quite frankly, more generous than 
how the Emergency Solutions Grant Program is funded, they may 
end up being in a better place.
    And I just want to say that I have worked in a transitional 
housing program that was Continuum of Care-funded back in the 
2000s. I have done transitional shelter. I became a Housing 
First advocate because I saw that is what works from my 
perspective. And I think you are absolutely right, we need to 
meet people where they are. One of the things I like about 
true, high-fidelity Housing First programming is that it does 
meet people where they are, and it prioritizes choice and 
opportunity. Thank you.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you. Ms. Pressley, again, we 
apologize. I am not sure what happened, but you are now 
recognized again for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will try this 
again. Just getting to my first question here for Ms. Oliva, 
could you speak to how the policy of reporting evictions on 
consumer credit reports worsens the homelessness crisis and 
makes it harder for people to find safe, affordable homes, and 
to access the financial tools that they need to be successful?
    Ms. Oliva. Yes. Thank you so much for that question. I 
think it is really an important question as we think about 
homelessness prevention and eviction prevention overall. We 
know that evictions perpetuate cycles of homelessness and 
housing instability, and that a lot of landlords use consumer 
credit reports during their initial tenant screening, and then 
they may choose to not rent to a tenant who has a history of 
eviction. That happens even when an eviction filing is 
ultimately withdrawn. Sometimes, those withdrawn filings still 
show up on a tenant's credit report without the additional 
context or ability for that tenant or prospective tenant to be 
able to explain what happened or what that particular context 
was.
    And then, you also noted that this is a particular problem, 
especially for renters of color. And, in particular, Black and 
Latina women are more likely to be evicted than their male 
counterparts [inaudible] for evictions. So, it really does have 
a huge impact [inaudible] to people not being able to exit 
homelessness.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you. It is clear that the U.S. credit 
system is one that perpetuates racism and economic justice 
while its benefactors attempt to sort of pass it off as an 
objective metric of financial trustworthiness. In reality, this 
policy further entrenches injustice and acts as a barrier to 
families' ability to realize their basic human rights to 
housing and opportunity. And we know that prior to the 
pandemic, it was estimated that around 3.7 million evictions 
are filed every year, so that is at a rate of around 7 per 
minute. But even though this data is very jarring, it still may 
not show the full story of the eviction crisis.
    Ms. Oliva, do you mind just defining what are illegal 
evictions, and how prevalent are they and how are they carried 
out?
    Ms. Oliva. Sure. An illegal eviction is an eviction where a 
landlord doesn't follow State or local laws and includes a 
number of tactics like changing the locks, and removing 
somebody's belongings from a unit without a court order. We 
have heard of people who actually removed the front door to 
units as a method of an illegal eviction, or turning off the 
utilities. But I would also note that sometimes just the threat 
of an eviction from a landlord for all the reasons that we just 
talked about, about the kind of impact and eviction can have on 
somebody's record, can actually incentivize a family to move 
out of a unit. These are illegal, so we don't know exactly how 
many are affected, but what I would note is that a lot of 
times, they happen because landlords have access to legal 
counsel. About 90 percent of landlords have access to legal 
counsel when they are filing an eviction, but only 10 percent 
of tenants have access to legal counsel when they are fighting 
an eviction.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you. Thank you for that. And so, Ms. 
Oliva, what if landlords were required to inform tenants of 
their rights? Would that help to crack down on these illegal 
evictions, again, illegal, and also incredibly demoralizing in 
so many ways, given the imagery that you provided there about 
what often happens? But what if landlords were required to 
inform tenants of their rights? Do you think that this would 
crack down on these illegal evictions and reduce the numbers?
    Ms. Oliva. I guess what I would say to that is that the 
more that tenants know about their rights, the better, and the 
better equipped they are to fight back against illegal or 
unjust practices. But they also need access to counsel and 
strong local and State tenant protections. And then, at the end 
of the day, if we could make housing more affordable to more 
households through an expansion of the supply and an expansion 
of our affordability programs, like the Housing Choice Voucher 
Program, all of that would lessen the burden on these tenants, 
especially extremely low-income tenants and tenants of color.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you. I am almost out of time here. I 
would add to that, if they were required to provide 
justification for an eviction in writing, that might also 
combat it. But that is why I have introduced the Housing 
Emergencies Lifeline Program (HELP) Act, not only to prohibit 
the reporting of eviction data on consumer credit reports, but 
it funds legal counsel for those facing eviction and cracks 
down on illegal evictions in that exact way. I hope my 
colleagues will support this legislation as a critical part of 
our larger, long-overdue strategy to end homelessness.
    And I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Cleaver. We messed you up, so if you have--
    Ms. Pressley. I am all set. Ms. Oliva answered my 
questions, and I also was able to speak about my legislative 
solutions in response. So, thank you.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you.
     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.
    If there are no pertinent questions or comments, this 
hearing is now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:26 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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