Economic Justice Issues

Floor Speech

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Mr. EVANS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, my colleague from the great city of Detroit and from Michigan, for showing this leadership.

``None of us are home until all of us are home.'' This is the slogan of Project HOME, an organization in my district that empowers individuals to break the cycle of poverty and homelessness, starting with permanent supportive housing.

Safe, affordable housing is the basis of stability and well-being. Secure housing improves health outcomes, helps children perform better in school, and can break generational cycles of poverty. But given the skyrocketing cost of rent, which is outpacing incomes, secure housing is out of reach for many low-income families.

Lacking a fixed address makes it harder to land a job, enroll children in school, apply for assistance and benefits.

The affordable housing shortage is a crisis in my district and in many other cities and neighborhoods across the Nation.

I represent Philadelphia, a city which has a poverty rate of around 25 percent. Let me repeat that, a city with a poverty rate of about 25 percent. Most low-income renters spend at least half of their income on housing. This leaves no room for unexpected expenses such as medical bills, which can quickly send vulnerable families into housing inability, eviction, and, sometimes, homelessness.

We must increase funding for programs that help the most vulnerable, including children, people with disabilities, and seniors, such as homeless assistance grants and the housing choice voucher program.

Those living in poverty, including 400,000 in the city of Philadelphia, are struggling to find safe and affordable places to live. Over 40,000 families are on the Philadelphia Housing Authority waiting list--40,000 are on that list.

Most low-income renters in Philadelphia receive no government assistance with their housing costs, driving many to rely on alternative arrangements to secure shelter.

These are steps that we can take to address this growing crisis. We must invest in preserving existing public housing and improving health and safety through increased funding for the Public Housing Operating Fund and the Public Housing Capital Fund.

In the city of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia City Council recently passed a right to counsel law, providing attorneys for low-income families facing evictions.

But millions of Americans in other cities and communities face evictions every year. This lack of access to legal representation has led to unjust evictions. I am an original cosponsor of the Eviction Protection Act, which creates grants to provide legal representation to those facing eviction.

It is not an accident that two Members who stood up here are also members of the Ways and Means Committee, as I am. We all recognize that we can use the Tax Code to lift our neighborhoods and boost our stability in housing.

Yes, we can use the Tax Code. I am happy that my colleagues are from the Ways and Means Committee, and we should work together on that.

I support the expansion of the low-income housing tax credit-- especially the credits for securing extremely low-income households--to bring capital to underserved regions.

Access to affordable housing is a right. It is time Congress acknowledges that fact. All Americans deserve quality homes--all Americans. None of us are home until all of us are home.

I want to stress that message: None of us are home until all of us are home.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, again, from Detroit, Michigan, for her leadership in bringing us together to talk about a subject that is very key to a lot of our survival. It is extremely essential that we have that opportunity, but it starts with leadership, and it starts today. We need to be relentless on this subject, and we need to be no nonsense.

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