Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016
Floor Speech
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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, the funding levels provided in this bill are unrealistic and unsustainable and clearly demonstrate that our current budget process has failed. This bill reveals where the majority's priorities lie, and they clearly do not lie in serving the most basic function of government: to provide for the safety and well-being of its citizens.
This bill makes major cuts to critical HUD programs. The public housing capital fund is slashed by $200 million, barely reaching its 1989 level, almost 30 years ago. This will cover less than half of the basic maintenance needs and does nothing to address the $25 billion in deferred projects.
For the first time since 2007, this body will provide no new funding to provide housing and support to homeless veterans. The Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control program is cut by 32 percent, even as The Washington Post reported 2 months ago that in low-income West Baltimore neighborhoods, more than 3 percent of children under the age of 6 had dangerously high levels of lead in their blood, which we know leads to learning disabilities and can lead to lifelong dependency, not to mention lifelong dependency on the taxpayers.
But perhaps most startling is the bill's failure to provide low-income seniors and hard-working families adequate access to affordable housing through HUD's Section 8 program. Rental assistance helps 2.1 million very-low-income households to rent modest homes in the private market at affordable costs. Households that use vouchers have an average income of $13,000 per year, well below the Federal poverty line, and nearly all include children, seniors.
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Mr. NADLER. When faced with a funding bill that fails to provide any new funding to support homeless veterans and is leaving victims of domestic violence and homeless families with no access to secure housing, we need to take action to support the most vulnerable among us.
I hope that as we go forward, we can find a way to provide these funds so that kids, working families, and seniors are not out on the street., or people with disabilities. Only about one in four eligible low-income families receives Federal rental assistance. Long waiting lists remain in nearly every community, and these long waits are exacerbated by a lack of administrative funding for public housing agencies.
Sequestration has only made this situation worse. As of June of last year, an estimated 100,000 fewer families were receiving assistance from Section 8 due to the sequestration cuts; 100,000 families cut off. These cuts have had a severe impact on communities at a time when the number of very-low-income renters with worst case housing needs remains 30 percent higher than it was before the Great Recession.
Through the fiscal year 2014 and fiscal year 2015 appropriations bills, Congress began the work of reversing the deep cuts in assistance caused by sequestration, but nearly 67,000 vouchers have yet to be restored. My amendment would finally restore those lost vouchers by providing an additional $512 million to the voucher renewal account. This amendment mirrors the President's request and targets 30,000 vouchers to those families and individuals most in need of housing assistance: homeless families; veterans, including those not covered by the VASH program; victims of domestic violence; and Native Americans.
The bill does include important and helpful language directing HUD to target vouchers to the vulnerable populations as they become available but provides no funds for HUD to do so.
My amendment sets aside specific funding for these targeted vouchers to make sure the most vulnerable populations have access to safe, affordable housing.
This additional funding will go a long way toward ensuring that every family that qualifies for rental assistance finds a home. However, at the funding levels for administrative fees in this legislation, it would be impossible for public housing agencies to hire and maintain enough staff to process and renew vouchers.
We cannot continue to undermine our hard-working public housing agencies by failing to provide them enough money to function. My amendment would finally address the undercutting of public housing agencies by providing an additional $490 million to match the President's request.
Mr. Chairman, this is the minimum we can do to meet the vital needs of our lowest-income citizens and of our veterans. I urge adoption of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, we can all agree that this amendment is necessary. We are talking about denying tens of thousands of families and seniors access to an efficient, cost-effective program that keeps families together and lowers the government's costs over the long term. Without this amendment, we will see a spike in homelessness, a spike in medical costs, and a spike in hungry children.
I understand the point of order. I understand that the rules demand an offset for any funding increase in the bill. I also appreciate the chairman's efforts to support Section 8 and public housing. However, when funding levels are as restrictive as this bill provides across the board, it is impossible to offset such drastic underfunding without hurting other people in need.
When faced with a funding bill----
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Mr. NADLER. When faced with a funding bill that fails to provide any new funding to support homeless veterans and is leaving victims of domestic violence and homeless families with no access to secure housing, we need to take action to support the most vulnerable among us.
I hope that as we go forward, we can find a way to provide these funds so that kids, working families, and seniors are not out on the street.
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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, since 1992, the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS has provided a vital safety net. In the United States, 50,000 people become infected with HIV every year, and 1.2 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. More than 500,000 of these individuals will need some form of housing assistance during the course of their illness, but 145,000 individuals have unmet housing needs.
HOPWA combines housing support with additional services to help people living with HIV/AIDS and their families stay in stable, safe housing; manage their illness; and remain active in their communities. Housing interventions are critical in our continued fight against HIV/AIDS, and research clearly shows that stable housing leads to better health outcomes.
Providing stable housing to people living with HIV/AIDS reduces the risk of transmission to a partner by 96 percent; it reduces emergency room visits and expense to the public by 36 percent and hospitalizations by 57 percent. In other words, investing a modest amount in HOPWA today saves us millions, if not billions of Federal taxpayer dollars in the future.
HOPWA is the only Federal housing program to provide cities and States with dedicated resources to address the housing crisis facing people living with HIV/AIDS, and the program traditionally enjoys strong bipartisan support.
Congressional support for HOPWA is clear in this legislation. While nearly every other program in the bill has been slashed by millions of dollars and often funded at levels below the point of actually functioning, HOPWA saw a slight increase in funding during the committee's consideration of the bill.
Some hail the bill's slim $332 million for HOPWA as a victory. I also applaud any additional funding for HOPWA, but I cannot call it a victory to fund this program below its 2010 funding level when wait lists for HOPWA services continue to grow and thousands of Americans die on the streets and in shelters because we refuse to provide a few extra million dollars to provide them with the care they need.
I will not claim that my amendment completely solves that problem. The National AIDS Housing Coalition estimates that, in FY16, they will need $364 million to provide HOPWA services to those who need them and to fund vital administrative support to improve the program.
To reach that goal, we would need to find $32 million somewhere in this bill to transfer to HOPWA, but the funding levels we are considering today are so abysmally low, it is nearly impossible to move that much money without gutting other important programs.
What we do, at the very least, is pass my amendment to restore HOPWA to its FY10 funding level of $335 million, a scant $3 million increase. That funding level makes only a small dent in HOPWA's real need, but it will give hundreds more people and families access to lifesaving services. It is a very small step, but it is in the right direction, and I believe if we have the chance to save even one life, let alone hundreds, we have a duty to act.
To protect those living with HIV/AIDS and to stay within the House rules, my amendment offsets this additional funding to cuts to HUD's information technology fund.
I recognize the importance of providing HUD with phones and computers and understand the chairman and ranking member's concerns about additional cuts to this account, but nothing is more important than, quite simply, saving lives.
We must pass this amendment and give those families battling HIV/AIDS a fighting chance. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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