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Video Transcript
And okay, thank you good alright come stand behind yes and will do a little go around. So I want to welcome everyone today to talk about the American housing and economic mobility act and I wanna start uh with something I learned when I ran for Congress for the Senate and that is um when you wanna get anything You don't do it on your own. You get some help you, gotta have good allies to make anything important to happen and that is absolutely true. On something as big and as um important as this housing bill and so I wanna start with a very big thank you to my ally and my partner in this congressman cedric richmond who is chairman of the congressional black caucus and has been an important part of the development of this bill, pushing the ideas behind this for A long time and now, as we come together to present this bill, uh taking a real leadership role in it. I also want to thank congressman elijah cummings, who couldn't be with us here today, but as a Co sponsor of this bill and again uh a bill that represents many of the values that allows your has fought for and talked about for a very long time. I want to thank congresswoman barbara Lee, who also couldn't be with us today, but um when it comes to housing barbra has been right at the forefront from the very beginning and I want to thank congresswoman gwen Moore who's Work on housing from multiple angles has always driven in the same direction and that is the importance of safe, affordable housing for our families is an important way to build economic security for all of us and a way to provide a real future for all of our kids. So I wanna thank you all for your work on this. I also wanna thank the leadership conference on civil and human rights uh. You were in this Drafting from the very beginning, the National community reinvestment coalition, the National low income housing coalition and the National fair housing alliance. These are the advocates who day after day year after year, continue to remind America. How important access to affordable housing actually is and I'm very grateful for all of the work you've put in all the good ideas, all the adjustments, all the amendments until we were able to get this thing right. America Facing a housing crisis, a crisis that has been decades in the making this is a crisis that hits Middle class families working families. The working poor, the poor, poor costs are up and over time housing stock is deteriorating. The American housing and economic mobility act confronts the shameful history of government backed housing discrimination and is designed To benefit those families, who've been denied opportunities to build wealth because of the color of their skin. Now I'm just gonna give the basics of what this bill does. It would create three million new housing units across America and independent analysis indicates that it would help bring rents down by about 10 percent across the country and it would produce one point five million new jobs uh. It is Very much uh about how it is that we build a stronger economic future together. This bill also attacks the racial wealth gap head on and the ways it does that it strengthens and discrimination laws and it protects against housing discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status and source of income. It also creates incentives to reform local zoning laws that drive prices up and that Designed to keep residents out the housing crisis is one of our biggest must complicated problems. Big problems require big solutions. I am in this fight for the long haul. This is about our values. I am honored to stand here shoulder to shoulder with congressman richmond as he introduces the House companion to this bill and with our Co sponsor going more so let me just say thank you very much again for being here today and as congressman richardson so to speak up Speak out, let me uh thank uh senator Warren for her incredible leadership on this important issue and uh as the chair of the black caucus uh, I am very humble to uh introduce the companion bill along with congresswoman gwen Moore uh we're often called the conscious of the Congress um. We are 40 - eight members. We represent 78 million people but only 17 million of those people, African American this bill goes to the heart of what we do and why we do it. We fight for working families. No matter where they live. No matter And uh that's just what we do and that's the essence of this bill, uh I'd like to think of this bill as uh a real family infrastructure bill. When you start talking about uh the importance of housing on the development of a family uh also the fact that it's the American Dream and so far uh this country and local governments have really been a Co conspirator and snatching that American Dream from too many families and we need to make sure Even our families were not able to buy, but have to rent that they can afford to rent and that they can still raise a family and they can still pursue the American Dream. So uh. This bill, uh for us, is uh not only uh realistic practical and would create so many jobs and so much investment across the country but it's a marker on who we are as a country so as people Uh during this holiday season, search for the meaning of the holidays, uh and search for what we stand for as a country there's, no better time to remind the American people that what we stand for families, we stand for a fair shake and we stand for government uh being there to help when there's a need and this housing crisis uh is putting too many families in dire straits, so I just want to thank the senator for her leadership and her vision And the fact that sometimes uh we have to think incredibly big and this is some very big thinking. So I wanna thank the senator for that. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you when Stephen well, thank you so much for gathering here and let me join me join senator uh Warren and and uh representative richmond and thanking our tireless advocates uh for being there in the foxhole with us not to roll out this initiative and I'm so pleased to be here uh with them to introduce this really important legislation and, as senator Warner indicated um how Is a crisis across America. There literally is a a gap between affordability of housing, uh and people's ability to provide a stable environment for themselves. Uh in their family and it doesn't matter whether you're in a Red state blue state, rural area um uh the city the village. No matter where you live, that your You do people do not earn enough money to be able to afford a two bedroom House. Um and so um yes, we need to increase wages, but we also need to think about just providing more stable housing for folks when you think about the fact that every single day for the next decade or so 10000 Americans will turn 65 10000 Americans per day will turn 65 years old and that's a huge number of seniors who are gonna be on fixed incomes and they need affordable housing and they're competing against our millennial generation folks who are just starting out. Having their first jobs and are making minimum wage jobs. Don't bother to do the math just trust me. You cannot afford on a fixed income and on the millennial salary and certainly if you're a staffer here on Capitol, Hill you'll find yourself doubling up or tripling up am I wrong about this quadrupling up adjust in order to have a shoulder over your head A source of grave embarrassment to me is to talk about my own community of Milwaukee wisconsin, where Harvard researcher, Matthew desmond wrote a book called evicted and really really illusive dated in this book about um. Then no matter how hard people tried then they found themselves evicted and this has an impact on education and teachers will tell you that their biggest challenge each day is to have the Same, cohort of kids from the second grade to the third grade because families are forced to move to three times a year. Um because they've been evicted it affects employment. Think about your ability or inability to get a job to be close to a job to have transportation for a job when you're constantly being interrupted with evictions or unaffordable housing um and it certainly has an impact on your mental and physical health uh when you're living in the Dilapidated housing, which, by the way, Matthew desmond pointed out cost almost as much as market rate housing, so um. This is a bill that uh is a longtime coming but we are not starting from scratch. I served on the financial services Committee and we put together a National housing trust fund that would be the vehicle for uh, for the money's uh to provide a more low income housing or uh Housing for folks, um and and I worked hard for the creation of this trust fund and now is the time to deliver on the promises. Um that we owe to Americans. You know it representative richmond talked about the meaning of the season and the holiday and every time during this time of year, I think about a real life experience um that one of my family members had she. What do you belonged up to her church and she was on the missionary society and they started going out to give These are all turkeys and he found that people were homeless. They found that people had no you there utilities were turned off um and and so um the meaning of this season. It's really restore basic dignity to people who are working very, very hard um to keep themselves going and thank you so much again, senator Warren and representative richmond I'm so proud to be a Co sponsor of this bill. Thank you so glad you're here come on over Hello I'm diane tell President and ceo of the National low income housing coalition we're, a membership Organization dedicated solely to achieving socially just public policy. That ensures that the lowest income people have safe accessible and affordable homes and, as you heard today, are our country's affordable housing crisis has reached historic Heights. Most negatively impacting the lowest income people today we have a shortage of over seven million homes, affordable and available to them so another way of saying that is for every 100 of the lowest income seniors people with disabilities families with kids there's just 30 Homes that are affordable and available to them. This shortage means nearly eight million of these poorest. Renters are paying at least half of their income towards their rent each month and about a half a million more have no homes at all. So when you have such limited income to begin with an you're paying half of it on your rent you're, just one financial emergency. You know a broken down car a missed day of work, a sick child away from not being able to pay the rent facing possible And homelessness and in the meantime, you face impossible choices between paying for a healthy food or needed medication or paying to keep the roof over your head and we all pay when homelessness and housing poverty exists and we all benefit when we invest in solutions when people are affordably House, we are healthier, our kids do better in school. They earn more over their lifetimes. Healthcare costs go down and opportunities to climb the economic ladder or live in an age with dignity go up So the National housing trust fund allows States to build and preserve affordable homes for people experiencing homelessness victims of domestic violence, veterans other deeply poor Americans, but the program is woefully underfunded, given the extraordinary need so congressman, richmond bill and Congress congresswoman moore's bill, senator warren's bill. It is an ambitious, comprehensive and much needed solution to the housing crisis they're bills wouldn't Tens of billions of dollars into the housing trust fund to create millions of needed rental homes, affordable to the lowest income people. The good news about the housing crisis is that we have the solutions to it and, as a country we can't afford to invest in them. But we lack the political will to fund the solutions at the scale necessary and that's why I'm so pleased and so grateful to be here today to stand with representative richmond representative Moore senator Warren and representative And coming in Lee and substantial who are bold leaders in Congress who have the will the courage and the commitment to do what is urgently needed so the National low income housing coalition stands ready to work with them and other affordable housing leaders in Congress to enact the American housing and economic mobility act to help end homelessness and housing poverty once and for all. Thank you Good afternoon I'm jesse van told the ceo of the National community reinvestment coalition, uh, which is a membership Organization of 600 uh community based organizations nationwide uh, who work for economic Justice. Uh. I wanna thank senator Warren for her leadership. Uh congressman richmond uh congresswoman gwen Moore and the other House sponsors for their leadership in introducing the American housing and economic mobility act uh in the House when we first started having conversations about the drafting and introduction of this bill. I wasn't I was pleased, but not surprised by the names of the leaders championing this effort. Leaders lead uh these leaders have consistently led, on these issues and it's no surprise that they continue to do so with this very important bill. Uh senator Warren and congressman richmond have joined together to attack some of the most enduring messages of this nation's discriminatory past, a gaping racial wealth gap, persistent Generational pockets of economic inequality and immobility. These problems affect uh White black and Brown people like and see it done a great deal of research around the legacy of Red lining and communities around the country decades after government maps marked off entire neighborhoods as hazardous and unsuitable for Bank lending. These neighborhoods are still struggling economically in fact, 75 The neighborhoods Red lines in the 19 thirties are today economically distressed. This bill pursue a vision of transformation for families in those communities and for more affordable housing for hard working Americans who desperately need it. These are concrete and ambitious solutions to real problems in our economy. For those of us who work to provide affordable housing so we've been uh trouble, son that the disconnect between Washington and and our communities in which uh we Rental affordability crisis home ownership at a 50 year low people struggling to afford their housing and a lack of solutions at the federal level to address those problems. Uh this is an ambitious and bold vision to do just that. I also wanna thank you for including in a spill the modernization of the community reinvestment act which is long overdue regulators have proposed ideas that would weaken the law and siphon away billions of dollars from low and moderate income communities the provisions of this bill will modernize and strengthen the law and The obligation that the nation's financial institutions have to lend to all credit worthy borrowers in all communities. Many neighborhoods were suffering before the great recession and a decade later. Uh some of them are worse off. We cannot solve america's affordable housing crisis without the entire financial services industry, exercising leadership and a commitment to building more economic opportunity for more people and this bill would do just that so we're honored uh to stand with senator Warren congressman uh richmond and uh and Co sponsors congresswoman gwen Moore uh to to introduce in the past this bill it's our full endorsement. Thank you again for your leadership and he is Good afternoon I'm debbie goldberg I'm vice President for housing policy at the National fair housing alliance, which is the only National civil rights Organization solely dedicated to ending housing, discrimination in all of its forms and we at the fair housing alliance are proud to support the American housing and economic mobility act the bill addresses longstanding barriers that have prevented millions of people in America from obtaining housing that they need and can't afford and it provides the Opportunity to create economic security and build wealth. This year, the National fair housing alliance has led the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the enactment of the fair housing act. A law that has been pivotal for protecting civil rights and opening up access to housing opportunities. We've come a long way over this past 50 years but we still have a long way to go to ensure that everyone in this country has access to housing that suitable for their families and communities that connect them to the opportunities that they need to flourish by A number of new protected classes under the fair housing act, including particularly source of income, as well as several others, the American housing and economic mobility act, would really advance our efforts to make their housing a reality for all we're also pleased that the bill acknowledges the racial discrimination created and perpetuated by the federal government among others and take steps to redress it the bill would make it possible for families of color and low and moderate income families to become homeowners giving them the opportunity Build wealth and, in doing so, it would help eliminate the enormous racial wealth gap in this country, which undermines our National prosperity. The American housing and economic mobility act represents an important step towards building a more equitable and inclusive America. We commend senator Warren representatives richmond and more and there are other Co sponsors for introducing it and we thank them for their longstanding support of fair housing. We look forward to working with them and other members of Congress to get this bill passed Alright, one more hi, everyone, I'm Robert dava I'm, a senior counsel with the leadership conference on civil and human rights. Uh we're, a coalition of more than 200 National advocacy organizations and uh, including the three you've, just heard from so I promise I'll be brief and uh just wrap things up 50 years after the enactment of the fair housing act uh for decades after the community reinvestment act and 10 years after a housing crisis that did such incalculable damage to the housing economy, there's still so much work to do uh there's. No doubt Thanks to dodd, Frank uh and we were so glad to work with than professor Warren uh and uh and to see her idea for better regulation. Finally, take flight. We now have safer, smarter mortgages than we did before. The crisis and I should add that, regardless of who's in charge of that regulator right now we're still in so much of a better position than we were before, thanks to this law and there are a lot of people looking at how we can improve things like credit scoring uh and how to safely make low lower down payment mortgages to reach more people Home buying more accessible uh but there are too many aspects of our housing policy. That are still standing in the way uh there's, a lot of experts have pointed out. The biggest challenge we're facing right now is on the supply side and factors like state and local zoning rules, reductions in federal investments and historic patterns of discrimination have all reduced supply for the communities that the fair housing act was meant to protect and frankly, for everybody and that's here in dc or in so many other areas around the country and so There's, a dearth of ideas about what can actually be done about the supply. Uh but this bill has created such a thoughtful response on so many fronts that needs to be addressed which is why we hope that there's gonna be a lot more conversation about the coming year we're glad to be part of it uh. We strongly support this effort and I want to thank senator Warren and representatives richmond and more and thank you all for having us here today. Thank you. Thank you so uh. If anyone has any questions, anyone wanna hurt anymore details about the housing bill. We can totally On this, yes, yes
U.S. Senator Elizabeth WarrenVideosEnding America's Housing Crisis