Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Madam Chair, I rise to offer an amendment regarding HUD's multifamily transformation plan. I will ultimately withdraw this amendment because I know that there will be Republican opposition, but I think it is important for me to speak out against the ill-advised plan.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is currently in the process of a major consolidation of its multifamily offices, which it has dubbed the multifamily transformation plan. I have been vocal in my skepticism of HUD's assurances that this plan will bring about significant savings without impacting program delivery.

In fact, last year this House approved an amendment to the fiscal year 2015 appropriations bill that required HUD to follow a transformation plan that maintains asset management staff in its field offices. I fought for this amendment because I believe strongly that HUD's plan to consolidate the important function of asset management from 17 hubs overseeing 50 field offices into just 5 hub locations and 7 satellite offices would significantly impair program delivery without resulting in significant cost savings.

Asset management is a hands-on job which calls for an intimate knowledge of the local housing market and frequently requires staff to make on-site visits to troubled properties. That is why it is so important to have asset management staff in local field offices to respond to local needs.

Unfortunately, I have been hearing from advocates that HUD has been failing to replace vacancies in asset management positions in field offices and is only hiring new asset management staff in hub locations. This is unacceptable. There are already two field offices that have completely shuttered because they have no working staff. In Los Angeles, we have already lost 15 asset management staff who have not been replaced.

My amendment would ensure that HUD prioritizes the hiring of asset management staff in local field offices for vacancies that occur in the next fiscal year instead of continuing to consolidate this important function to a select few hub and satellite locations. It would help ensure that our multifamily field offices remain open and operating at current staffing levels. Without this amendment, local multifamily offices will continue to have more vacancies that go unfilled.

I regretfully ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

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Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California. Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. I am very surprised that this amendment is being brought by my friend, Mr. Garrett.

Mr. Garrett's amendment seeks to empower HUD's efforts in enforcing the Fair Housing Act in such a way that relies on the disparate impact doctrine. It weakens our ability to protect Americans from discriminatory policies that deny them access to quality housing, quality neighborhood schools, and other resources.

The disparate impact doctrine is a very effective legal tool that has been used for decades to address seemingly neutral policies that have the effect of discriminating against protected classes.

The disparate impact doctrine provides legal redress for victims of hidden discrimination. It ensures that women cannot be evicted from their apartments solely because they were victims of domestic violence, and it ensures that veterans with disabilities are not barred from living in certain places solely because of the lack of accommodations for their disability. This amendment ignores the realities of harmful discrimination in our Nation today, and it would eliminate well-established, decades-old protections for American families.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

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