Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2020

Floor Speech

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Ms. PRESSLEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of my amendment which would provide increased funding to support the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Family Self-Sufficiency Program.

Access to stable, safe, and affordable housing is a fundamental human right. In my district, the Massachusetts Seventh, one of the most diverse and unequal districts in our Nation, we are distinctly aware of the connection between housing and economic opportunity.

Affordable housing promotes healthy living and provides low-income people a chance at upward mobility. Without it, families are destabilized, productivity suffers, and entire communities crumble.

Recently, the Boston Housing Authority partnered with Metro Housing and Compass Working Capital, a nonprofit financial services organization which provides financial coaching services and support to Family Self-Sufficiency Program participants in my district.

The Family Self-Sufficiency Program is a voluntary, 5-year program that provides participants in the federally-funded Housing Choice Voucher Program the opportunity to save part of their rent increase when they earn more money at work. The program provides participating families with an FSS savings account.

My amendment provides $5 million in additional funding to the organizations working with individuals and families seeking to improve their financial standing. This partnership, under the auspices of the Family Self-Sufficiency Program, has supported low-income families to build assets, pay off debt, and save for their retirement.

Participants have gone on to earn degrees, purchase their own homes, and start small businesses.

This includes Julia, a woman who, after years of working as a tailor and taking on additional side work for friends, learned about the FSS program. Julia used Compass' financial coaching to launch JDLS Couture, a tailoring and design business in Boston.

This includes Ernise, a resident of Cambridge, who graduated from Compass' program last year. Ernise joined the program while unemployed, saying that before she joined she was ready to give up. Ernise found full-time work, paid off debt and increased her credit score, and built enough savings to begin the home purchasing process.

My amendment will support a program rooted in financial empowerment and independence, a proven program.

We must also work to enact policies to guarantee housing for all and leverage the resources to make it a reality.

I encourage my colleagues to support my amendment.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

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Ms. PRESSLEY. Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment, which underscores the importance of investing in safe, efficient, people-centered transportation systems for all communities across the country.

I view every issue through a lens of equity and health. Without access to safe, reliable, and inclusive modes of transportation, our collective well-being suffers; our families suffer; our communities suffer.

For far too long, our Federal transportation funding and policies have created a landscape which has exacerbated inequities and disparities, particularly for low-income communities, people with disabilities, our youth and seniors.

In my district, Black and Latino commuters are more likely to experience longer travel times than their White peers. These unequal burdens make the promise of economic mobility further out of reach.

I recently rode the T back home with an advocate named Dianna, who was fighting for transit justice. We spent over 2 hours making a journey of just a little over 4 miles. Broken elevators and outdated infrastructure meant that the wheelchair Dianne uses to navigate ran into constant access barriers.

Just 2 weeks ago, the red line train derailed twice in 1 week, causing massive gridlock across my district and impacting the ability of riders to commute to work, school, home, and everywhere in between.

Unfortunately, this isn't new. MBTA trains have derailed 43 times over the last 5 years, the second highest total of any metro transit system in our country. Many of these derailments place a disproportionate burden on the shoulders of low-wage hourly workers who are rushing to their second- or third-shift jobs, parents or caregivers who are traveling with young children on overcrowded and delayed trains, and riders with disabilities who already experience the failures, daily, of a biased and discriminatory system with ableist privilege as a lens.

Our chronic underinvestment in mass transit bus systems, bicycle- accessible and pedestrian paths have caused income inequality and opportunity gaps in communities throughout the country.

According to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, inadequate access to affordable, reliable transportation has exacerbated health disparities, forcing many low-income patients to miss appointments, oftentimes worsening medical problems.

Mr. Chair, people do not live in silos. They live in intersectionality, and our policies at the Federal, State, and local levels should reflect this reality.

We cannot spur economic development and tackle economic inequities in urban, suburban, and rural communities without modernized roads, bridges, and mass transit, which connects communities to jobs and higher education.

We cannot tackle health disparities without reliable and affordable mass transit systems which enable low-income families, seniors, and people with disabilities to access care.

We cannot tackle the existential threat of climate change without intentionally investing in mass transit systems that protect frontline communities and alleviate the environmental health hazards caused by traffic congestion.

Transit equity is a civil rights issue and an economic justice issue. We must continue to invest in transit infrastructure, multimodal improvements that promote inclusivity and dependability.

My amendment emphasizes the important role that Federal policy and investments make in equalizing access to reliable commuter rail and other mass transit options for all. The BUILD grant program helps to support these types of State and locally driven transit projects.

From investing in bus or commuter rail systems or cycling and pedestrian path projects, the BUILD program helps to drive innovative projects, and it seeks to expand the system, and is people-centered.

Mr. Chair, I thank Chairman Price for his efforts to ensure robust funding for this program, which I do believe gets us one step closer to addressing these inequities across the system, repairing our crumbling infrastructure, as well as expanding our investment in multimodal transit.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), the chairman.

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