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House Subcommittee marks up 2002 housing bill From: Grant ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 13:45:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Grant Subject: House Subcommittee marks up 2002 housing bill This will give a sense of different positions on housing amoung congress people. --- Wayne Sherwood wrote:HOUSING NEWS HIGHLIGHTS -- TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2002 -- SUPPLEMENT HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE MARKS UP HR 3995, THE HOUSING BILL OF 2002 from Sherwood Research Associates This afternoon the Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee marked up HR3995, the Housing Bill of 2002, and sent it to the full committee which is scheduled to act Thursday. Because of the way that our wonderful American democracy works, I cannot tell you what is in the bill, even though I was in the subcommittee room today. This is because at the outset, a "substitute amendment" was offered by Rep. Mark Green (R-WI), vice chair of the committee, who chaired in place of Rep. Marge Roukema (R- NJ), chair of the subcommittee, who was not present. As far as I could see, no one among the general public had a copy of the substitute amendment. After one amendment by Rep. Sue Kelly (R-NY) passed, the substitute amendment was then approved in place of the original HR3995 and sent to the full committee. Lobbyists will no doubt be able to get copies of the substitute amendment (which was also called the managers' amendment or "the base bill") this afternoon, and Rep. Kelly's amendment to the substitute amendment as well. As a mere newsletter reporter, however, I didn't get the bill right after the mark-up, so I will have to wait a little while longer, along with you, to see what it contains. I can offer you a few snippets from the discussions today to whet your appetite, but things happened so fast that I cannot assure you that I actually understood what was happening. WS The subcommittee convened about 2:05 PM Rep. Green (R-WI) Opening statement. [Chairing the meeting] The bill includes a housing production and preservation program within the HOME program. It includes a provision to help convert elderly public housing into assisted living places. It requires a housing impact analysis of any significant federal action. It reauthorizes HOPE VI, HOPWA and several other programs. The substitute amendment also includes the President's homeownership initiative, i.e. the American Dream Downpayment Fund within the HOME program. We will consider a few amendments today. There will be other amendments considered at the meeting of the full committee on Thursday. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) Ranking minority member. The Managers Amendment before us today reflects several changes that they made in response to objections that we were making, and we appreciate that. As a result, today's subcommittee action will be pretty much pro forma and routine. This bill will improve FHA. It will clean up some problems with the Public Housing Assessment System (PHAS). It supports homeownership. The more controversial questions will come up on Thursday in the full committee, such as the level of resources that Congress is going to commit to low income housing. On Thursday we will focus on just a few significant amendments. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) I strongly support our low income housing programs including public housing. I think we should be bringing back the public housing Drug Elimination Program (DEP). We should recycle any unused Section 8 money and use it for low income housing. There is an extreme crisis of housing affordability in northern California, especially in Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area. There is a lot of "at risk" housing in my area. I will offer an amendment on Thursday for the "protection of innocent tenants" to clarify what Congress really intends (in response to the recent Supreme Court decision in the Rucker case). Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH). Talks about recent housing conference that was held in Cleveland area. I'm pleased that we're moving ahead with this bill. I would like more money for technical assistance to Community Development Corporations. I will offer an amendment on that today. Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) I want to thank Ms. Roukema for holding so many hearings on affordable housing needs and programs, and for listening to what the witnesses actually said. This bill takes many of the things they said into account. We haven't addressed ALL of those concerns, but the chair deserves praise for doing a lot. I intend to offer some amendments. Thanks to the chair for expanding the language of the base bill. The amendments are related to the HOPE VI program that take some actual experiences of our communities into account. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) I would like to clarify that I will offer my amendments on Thursday, not today. Rep. Barney Frank: Let the record show that this is the first time that Rep. Tubbs Jones has ever backed down on anything. The chair then offered the substitute amendment as the "base text." Rep. Sue Kelly then offered an amendment to the "base text," which was approved. The "amendment in the nature of the substitute" was then approved. The bill was then approved and sent to the full committee. Adjourned about 2:35 PM. Note: "Housing News Highlights" (HNH) is primarily a search service provided by Sherwood Research Associates (SRA). HNH also provides occasional Washington DC news about public and assisted housing. Articles are usually presented in abridged form with omissions indicated by asterisks. 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