Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly Act of 2007
SECTION 202 SUPPORTIVE HOUSING FOR THE ELDERLY ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - December 05, 2007)
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Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in strong support of H.R. 2930, the Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly Act of 2007. I would like to thank my colleague from Florida for all of his good, hard work and the leadership of the committee, the Financial Services Committee, for the work they have done on this.
Affordable housing with supportive services is a key component for seniors seeking to stay in their homes and to ``age in place.'' The section 202 housing for the elderly program is the primary HUD program that provides housing exclusively for low-income elderly households. H.R. 2930 reforms the section 202 elderly housing program making it more effective and efficient and better able to meet the housing needs of our elderly.
Today, we are facing a growing elderly housing crisis in this country. According to the 2005 census data, there are approximately 3.6 million seniors living below the poverty line. Among senior renters, 1.29 million have worst case housing needs, meaning they spend over 50 percent of their income on housing.
The section 202 program has been an important tool in addressing these serious housing needs by providing capital advance grants to nonprofit housing sponsors to build new elderly housing facilities and project rental assistance contracts to subsidize very low-income elderly residents of these facilities. Many nonprofit sponsors are faith-based organizations with a mission to serve the elderly. As a condition of receiving a capital advance, which does not have to be repaid, a nonprofit sponsor must make housing available for a period of no less than 40 years. As a result of these efforts, the section 202 program currently supplies over 320,000 units of housing to very low-income elderly citizens.
While the section 202 program has been successful at providing much-needed housing resources to our very low-income seniors, it is estimated that 10 seniors are waiting for each unit that becomes available. Participants and developers of the section 202 housing program maintain that the current regulation and HUD administration of the program can be time consuming and bureaucratic. H.R. 2930 will improve the section 202 elderly housing program by streamlining and simplifying the development and preservation of HUD's section 202 properties and by increasing participation by not-for-profit developers, private lenders, investors and State and local funding agencies.
I do want to point out to my colleagues that the bill we are considering
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on the floor today includes several changes to the bill reported out of the Committee on Financial Services on September 25. While the bill as reported did have a $94 million cost for fiscal year 2008 and a $212 million cost over 5 years, those costs have been removed by the elimination of the mortgage sale demonstration program and the subordination or assumption of existing debt provisions. The Congressional Budget Office now reports the costs associated with this bill to be insignificant.
I would also like to thank my colleagues and Chairman Frank in particular for his willingness to work with me on a provision to resolve a problem that non-metropolitan States like my home State of West Virginia have experienced when attempting to qualify for funds under the section 202 program. It is important to recognize that the need for housing for the very low-income elderly extends beyond metropolitan areas and it needs the flexibility for rural and suburban areas to be able to qualify for these funds. The very low-income elderly of rural West Virginia deserve the very same resources available to the elderly in the larger areas.
H.R. 2930 now includes provisions to establish a national competition for non-metro elderly housing funds and will allow regional offices to administer elderly housing allocations. This greater flexibility will help create more elderly housing units in rural States like mine.
I would like to pause and thank the housing advocates in my State of West Virginia for bringing this issue before me in a very timely manner so we could fix this while we are dealing with the section 202 program. So I want to thank my fellow West Virginians for helping us out here.
Mr. Speaker, the affordable rental housing crisis in America is having a profound effect on renters of all ages, especially our seniors, and this bill will help ease some of the affordability problems plaguing our senior population.
I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2930, the Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly Act of 2007.
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