Economic Justice Issues

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARCIA of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Tlaib for bringing up this subject of the affordable housing shortage across our country. I want to speak about the affordable housing crisis that is unfolding across this country and affecting thousands of my constituents in the city of Chicago.

Throughout the Chicago area, there are just over 90,000 affordable, available rental homes, but the National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that there are over 326,000 low-income renter households. That is right. Less than one in three households in Chicago have access to affordable housing.

The immense lack of housing is making it impossible for low-income communities to stay in our city. It is transforming my district, driving communities of color away from areas where they have lived for many, many decades.

According to the Chicago Community Trust, Chicago has lost more than 100,000 African American residents in the past 10 years alone. The Logan Square neighborhood in my district has lost more than 20,000 Latino residents and nearly 10,000 African Americans over the past 15 years.

Five years ago, Chicago's city council passed an ordinance encouraging transit-oriented development. I believe that improving transportation and mobility for our neighborhoods and tying that to affordable housing is critically important.

However, we know that development, when done incorrectly, can lead to gentrification, displacement, and racially inequitable outcomes. Since Chicago's ordinance passed, only one affordable housing development has been completed; another is getting off the ground.

I am planning to introduce legislation to incentivize equitable transit-oriented development, legislation to create Federal funding for affordable housing to be built near public transit so workers can get to and from jobs, school, and healthcare, as well as take advantage of the city's fine cultural amenities.

This bill will be a crucial step in addressing the enormous problems we are discussing today. If we can address the topics raised by the many speakers who are bringing home the urgency that Congress needs to act in this field of needed affordable housing, we can become a better country.

Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Tlaib for taking the initiative and for hosting this discussion that can benefit our country.

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