Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to stand here today with my colleagues in support of S. 1481, the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act of 2009. This is a reauthorization and improvement upon the existing section 811 supportive housing program. Passing this bill today would send the legislation to the President's desk. I think this is the third time we've had this bill before the House over the last 4 years. It would pave the way to provide thousands more affordable housing units each year across this country to low-income persons with physical and mental disabilities. Importantly, the bill before us today costs the same amount as the existing 811 program. It just makes some very important improvements to efficiently expand the use of these important dollars.

That is why I want to first just thank all the people who have brought this bill before us today, Senators MENENDEZ and JOHANNS in the Senate as well as the ranking member of the full committee in the Senate, Senator Dodd; here in the House, the chairman of the full committee, Representative Frank and Representatives CAPITO and BIGGERT for their tireless advocacy on the issue of supportive housing, as well as really hundreds of staff both on the inside of this building and those advocates who have worked on this issue for a number of years.

And lastly to the Melville family, this bill is titled the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act. Frank Melville, who unfortunately passed away a few years ago, and his surviving wife, Allen, created something called the Melville Charitable Trust; and that trust today is one of the primary funders of supportive housing advocacy around the Northeast and around the Nation. And I think this legislation, should it find its way into passage, will be a fitting testament to Frank Melville's legacy.

Madam Speaker, the 811 program is the primary program for the development of supportive housing around the country. The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that around this Nation, there are about 1.3 million individuals, nonelderly disabled, people with physical disabilities or sometimes very severe mental illness, who are living in substandard housing. Supportive housing is a cost-effective means to provide those individuals with an ability to thrive independently. They are housing units, sometimes built together, sometimes done on a scattered-site basis, that are partnered with a modicum of support services, sometimes transportation help, sometimes medication adherence, that allows them to live independently.

It's the right thing to do for them, and it's the right thing to do for the government. It saves us billions of dollars. Because often, especially with respect to the individuals who have severe mental illness, the alternative is for those people to live in institutional settings, whether it be in hospitals or in jails. For those with physical disabilities, it is often a very, very difficult life to live in nonsupportive housing units.

The problem is we are not building enough of these units. Over the last few years we've built less than 1,000 across the country with 811 dollars. And it's sometimes taking up to 6 years from the point of application to the point of completion when you're dealing with an 811 project.

This bill, by reordering the way in which we run the program, would triple the number of housing units that we can build through the 811 program across country. It does this by providing better accountability and cost efficiency to the program, by transferring 811 vouchers to the larger section 8 program. And this frees up funds to support efforts to leverage 811 capital dollars with low-income tax credits, private dollars, and State partnerships. That's what this is really all about, trying to take our Federal dollars and leverage them with other sources of funding, whether it be through State and municipal funds or whether it be through private dollars, which I think is really the future of supportive housing development.

It also makes a number of other important efficiencies by allowing States and State housing agencies to do much of the bureaucratic paperwork that sometimes bogs down these applications.

Years ago, Madam Speaker, when this country and States across the Nation made the decision to close down our institutions that housed individuals with mental and physical disabilities, we made a promise to them. We told them that we'd find them new housing out in the communities, better opportunities for those individuals to live on their own. We haven't lived up to that promise over the years.

And in Connecticut, those of us who have worked on this issue for years, we often wear a badge when we're working on this issue in the State Capitol that says, Keep the Promise. This legislation, I believe, thanks to the great work of my Republican colleagues and Senators who worked so hard on it, is a step towards doing just that.

Again, I'd like to thank all of the people who have made this prospective final passage possible.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank, again, Representative Frank for his generosities, despite my leaving the committee. And again, to Representative Biggert in particular, for her advocacy on this issue over the years.

For people that are born with physical and mental disabilities, what I think we strive to do as a society is give them a chance at independent life, give them a chance to succeed just like everyone else. And there is nothing more fundamental to that success than a roof over your head, than a place to live and a place that has some appropriate supports, recognizing the challenges that you face. This bill, where we can potentially triple the number of supportive housing units that we build across the country without spending an additional dime, is both, I think, a compassionate response to those people and a responsible way to run this program.

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