Community Projects

Floor Speech

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Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, my office is bringing home over $17.1 million in Federal funding for 15 community projects throughout the 12th Congressional District this year.

I am so proud to have partnered up with civic and community leaders throughout the district to prioritize the needs of our residents with transformative projects, Madam Speaker, from home repairs to affordable housing, to removing lead out of our water, to helping our seniors with flood recovery resources, to workforce development, to neighborhood revitalization, and also to help decrease pollution in our neighborhoods because our residents deserve to breathe clean air.

We got $4 million for Wayne County, our largest county in the district, and $3 million to the city of Detroit to facilitate lead service line replacement. We all know that our children cannot learn if they are being poisoned with lead-contaminated water.

We received over $1.9 million for our Lathrup Village and the village of Beverly Hills for water main replacement and reliability, which is so critically important for their water infrastructure.

We also got $1 million for our incredible, beautiful neighborhood in Cody Rouge, as well as Detroit's Aviation Sub and Far West neighborhoods. The Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance is prepared to help hundreds of seniors and those in need of home repairs.

We also helped secure $1.1 million, Madam Speaker, to Alternatives For Girls to construct the Dr. Maya Angelou Village to create 45 housing units that are affordable and permanent support housing for at- risk families, mothers with children.

We also were able to secure $1 million for After the Storm for the Metro Detroit Flood Recovery Project, again, helping many of our residents struggling with flooding.

We also were able to obtain $1.5 million for the city of Inkster and the city of Dearborn Heights for their fire station, as well as firefighting resources.

We were able to secure half a million dollars for the city of Dearborn for their Dearborn Industrial Green Beltway to fight pollution. Again, this is one of our neighborhoods that is facing some of the worst air pollution throughout the district.

We secured over $1.2 million for the city of Livonia for their new Livonia Civic Park Senior Center. Again, that is an incredibly important project.

The $17.1 million builds on the tireless work we all have done in each of these previous two budget cycles to invest in our communities with the hard work and the incredible partnership and dedication of my team, but especially our 12th Congressional District chief of staff because she is not just my chief of staff, she is my district's chief of staff. Larissa Richardson helped over the last 3 years in partnership with me to get $52.1 million for community projects throughout our district.

We are just getting started, Madam Speaker.

To our families and our communities throughout the 12th Congressional District, you deserve your fair share of resources. You deserve not just to be able to survive but also thrive. Redford Township Wellness Center Groundbreaking

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Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, I am thrilled to announce that Redford Township is getting a new recreation and wellness center. I would like to congratulate our incredible Mayor McRae and the township's administration and trustees on the groundbreaking ceremony for this new community space in our district. Our team was able to provide $2 million in Federal funding for the community project there.

The event marks a significant milestone for our community, as it will be the first new building focused on recreation and wellness in the township in over 50 years.

The center provides space for residents to engage in health and wellness activities, strengthening our community bonds, promoting healthy lifestyles, and many, many more different programs, again, to create a space for our families and our community.

I congratulate Redford Township. They deserve this space, and I am so excited to have been a part of this positive impact and again look forward to seeing the completion. Nakba

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Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, as the only Palestinian American serving in Congress, I am a reminder to many of my colleagues in this Chamber that Palestinians do indeed exist, we are human beings, that we deserve to live, that we have dreams of freedom and human dignity.

I read this quote: ``When you tell a people to forget its past, you are not proposing peace, you are proposing extinction.'' This is from Peter Beinart.

As we mark 76 years of the Nakba, we honor the thousands of Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed in 1948 and nearly 800,000 Palestinians who were violently and forcibly displaced, many, Madam Speaker, still carrying their keys in hopes of one day returning to their homes, to their villages.

We honor their trauma and the painful loss of their connections to their families, land, olive groves, and villages they grew up in.

We honor all those around the world who have suffered from the impacts of settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. Madam Speaker, the Nakba did not end in 1948.

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