Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 3700, the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act, as amended by Ranking Member Waters.

While not a perfect bill, H.R. 3700 has been made considerably better by the amendment offered by Ranking Member Waters. There are other amendments that I would love to see, including my own, but I must tell you that this bill does represent true bipartisanship. It is a major bipartisan step towards helping preserve our scarce housing resources while expanding housing opportunities and homeownership opportunities.

More specifically, this legislation makes critical changes that would help improve and expand the Section 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing Loan Program. This program helps provide low- and moderate-income households with homeownership opportunities in rural areas, like the Seventh Congressional District of Alabama, which I am so proud to represent.

The sad reality is that too often, rural America faces severe barriers and obstacles to obtaining quality and affordable housing. This is largely due to the limited access to affordable mortgage credit.

The Section 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing Loan Program is designed to target rural residents who have a steady low or moderate income yet are unable to obtain adequate housing through conventional financing. Essentially, this program encourages private lenders to extend credit to responsible and creditworthy borrowers in rural America.

H.R. 3700 would help the Department of Agriculture improve and expand the Section 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing Loan Program by delegating loan approval authority to certain participating lenders. This is similar to the authority that the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development currently has for Federal Housing Administration's programs, and this legislative proposal was included in the President's FY 2016 budget.

This is a commonsense and pragmatic measure that will help improve the efficiency of an important rural housing program so that it can reach even more rural families. It is critically important that we continue to provide the necessary tools and incentives to help ensure all Americans are able to realize their dream of homeownership.

I want to commend my colleague from Missouri. I especially want to commend my colleague Congressman Cleaver for his tireless leadership on this effort. I want to thank the chairman and ranking member for their efforts.

I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 3700.
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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment to H.R. 3700.

My amendment is commonsense and straightforward. It simply requires the Secretary of HUD to conduct a study to determine the impact of the decreased deductions on rent paid by elderly, disabled individuals, and families assisted under the Section 8 rental assistance and housing programs.

Being able to assess quality, safe, and affordable housing is critically important to all Americans. The Section 8 voucher program and other rental assistance programs play a vital role in providing this type of housing for our Nation's most vulnerable citizens, including seniors, disabled persons, and low-income families. In fact, nearly all of the households currently under HUD rental assistance include children, the elderly, or disabled individuals.

These rental assistance programs house over 10 million individuals in roughly 4.6 million rental units across the country. It is clear that these voucher and rental assistance programs continue to perform the task for which they were created, which is providing shelter for millions of Americans.

In spite of its enormous success, the Section 8 voucher program, arguably, still suffers under the weight of too many inefficient and duplicative requirements that threaten the overall effectiveness of the program.

As drafted, H.R. 3700 takes major bipartisan steps toward helping preserve our scarce housing resources while expanding housing availability. However, as we attempt to reform these programs, we must be mindful and ever diligent in ensuring that the proposed changes are beneficial to their overall implementation and that there are no negative, unintended consequences on the program's participants. To that end, my amendment allows us to gauge the effectiveness of some of the changes being made here today and their impact on the most vulnerable segments of our population: the elderly and disabled.

We all know that no program is perfect. We must work together to strike a delicate balance and ensure programs are both workable and do what they intend to do without adverse impacts on those who are greatly benefited by them. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. I thank the chairman for accepting my amendment. I think that all Americans win when we act in a bipartisan manner. I am really grateful for your assistance in making this legislation stronger.

I want to thank the ranking member for her leadership on this bill, as well as my colleague, Representative Cleaver, for his leadership on this bill.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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