Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, delivered the following opening statement during a Housing and Insurance Subcommittee hearing entitled, “PHA Oversight: How Scandals and Mismanagement Harm Residents and Taxpayers.”

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased that we’re having this hearing today. I am someone who has worked very hard to improve public housing. As a matter of fact, I have legislation that first showed up in Build Back Better and I have the “Housing Crisis Response Act” that would provide $65 billion to address the backlog of public housing repairs that threaten residents’ lives.

We know that when poor people are piled on top of each other, without the proper resources and the deterioration that is taking place, there are going to be problems. And if [the witness] would contact me, I’ll work with your representative to see what we can do about following up on the concerns. But I do not want to demonize all public housing. As [the witness] has said, the larger percentage of them are operating successfully. It is only about five percent that we have these problems with. We should work on correcting them but not on demonizing them. I yield back the balance of my time.

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