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Universal Vouchers Hearing Statements
Universal Vouchers: Ending Homelessness and Expanding Economic Opportunity in America
Waters at Hearing on Ending Homelessness: We Must Move Forward on Legislation to Make Housing Vouchers Universally Available
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, gave the following closing statement at a full Committee virtual hearing entitled, “Universal Vouchers: Ending Homelessness and Expanding Economic Opportunity in America.”
Today’s hearing has highlighted the need to move forward urgently on legislation to make Housing Choice Vouchers universally available. First, if we had this in place prior to the pandemic, so that a housing safety net kicked in automatically like it does with food stamps, we wouldn’t have had to scramble to put together the emergency relief packages we did. We don’t reinvent FEMA and disaster assistance every time there is a natural disaster. My Republican colleagues know that being fully employed doesn’t guarantee being able to afford housing, it takes nearly three times the federal minimum wage to be able to afford a modest apartment nationally. Many people who are experiencing homelessness are in fact working. Finally, my Republican colleagues are simply wrong about the effectiveness of Housing First...
Click here to read her full closing statement.
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Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance Chairman Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) Opening Statement.
Tweets of the Week
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Member Spotlight
| Congressman Al Lawson (D-FL) |
This week, at the Committee on Financial Services hearing entitled, “Universal Vouchers: Ending Homelessness and Expanding Economic Opportunity in America,” Congressman Al Lawson (D-FL), asked the witnesses about their support for the universal voucher program. Congressman Lawson serves on the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions, the Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance and the Task Force on Financial Technology for the 117th Congress.
Watch the entire virtual hearing here.
Weekend Reads
June Committee Calendar
- Tuesday, June 15 at 10:00 AM ET: The Task Force on Financial Technology will convene for a virtual hearing entitled, “Digitizing the Dollar: Investigating the Technological Infrastructure, Privacy, and Financial Inclusion Implications of Central Bank Digital Currencies.”
- Wednesday, June 16 at 10:00 AM ET: The Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance will convene for a virtual hearing entitled, “Flexible Federal Funding: Examining the Community Development Block Grant Program and Its Impact on Addressing Local Challenges.”
- Wednesday, June 16 at 2:00 PM ET: The Subcommittee on National Security, International Development and Monetary Policy will convene for a virtual hearing entitled, “Schemes and Subversion: How Bad Actors and Foreign Governments Undermine and Evade Sanctions Regimes.”
- Wednesday, June 23 at 10:00 AM ET: The full Committee will convene for a hybrid markup.
- Tuesday, June 29 at 10:00 AM ET: The full Committee will convene for a hybrid hearing entitled, “A Biased, Broken System: Examining Proposals to Overhaul Credit Reporting to Achieve Equity.”
- Tuesday, June 29 at 3:00 PM ET: The Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion will convene for a virtual hearing entitled, “The Legacy of George Floyd: An Examination of Financial Services Industry Commitments to Economic and Racial Justice.”
- Wednesday, June 30 at 10:00 AM ET: The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will convene for a virtual hearing entitled, “America on “FIRE”: Will the Crypto Frenzy Lead to Financial Independence and Early Retirement or Financial Ruin?”
- Wednesday, June 30 at 2:00 PM ET: The Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions will convene for a virtual hearing entitled, “Addressing Climate as a Systemic Risk: The Need to Build Resilience within Our Banking and Financial System.”
All hearings are livestreamed on https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/live/.
For virtual hearings, all Members and witnesses participate remotely with no in-person participation in the hearing room.
Chairwoman’s Corner
Waters Applauds HUD’s Efforts to Restore Obama Era Mandate to Redress Housing Segregation and Inequitable Development
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, released the following statement on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) efforts to restore the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule.
“I am pleased that Secretary Fudge has begun to reverse the previous administration’s actions that gutted the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Rule,” said Congresswoman Waters. “Under President Obama, HUD instituted the AFFH Rule to fully enforce provisions of the Fair Housing Act and strengthen local jurisdictions’ fair housing planning requirements. Instead of continuing the efforts to hold localities accountable to remedy racial residential segregation and ensure equitable investment in every community, the Trump Administration weakened protections by altering the definition of AFFH to focus on housing production, not fairness, absent accountability mechanisms. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, these changes left communities all the more vulnerable to heightened housing discrimination. Since the Trump Administration began its attack on civil rights in this country, I have been sounding the alarm on the importance of preserving the 2015 AFFH and 2013 Disparate Impact regulations. In December 2020, I called on then President-Elect Biden to take immediate action to undo the damage done by the previous administration.
“I look forward to doing everything I can to help the Biden Administration and Secretary Fudge prioritize racial and economic justice by strengthening critical protections for those who have been historically and systemically excluded from equal housing opportunities. As we continue to push for housing as infrastructure and other important reforms to housing programs, we must ensure that robust fair housing regulations, oversight, and enforcement—including fair housing planning requirements—are in place to fully realize our promise to build back better and more equitably for generations to come.”
Click here to read her full statement.
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