Small Public Housing Authority Act

Floor Speech

SMALL PUBLIC HOUSING AUTHORITY ACT -- (House of Representatives - July 30, 2007)

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Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3067, the Small Public Housing Authority Act.

Like many of my colleagues, I represent a rural district where most of the public housing authorities operate in small communities. In fact, many of the PHAs in my district administer fewer than 200 housing units and some even have part-time directors or directors who split their time between public housing authorities. For many of those small public housing authorities, excessive paperwork requirements and outdated regulatory burdens continue to create an unnecessary distraction from their important work of providing affordable housing for underprivileged families.

For example, the 1992 Public Housing Reform Act requires PHAs to submit both a 5-year and an annual plan to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. While the annual plans were designed to address changes to the 5-year plan, small PHAs are already required by law to submit any policy changes, as the gentleman from Massachusetts said, to HUD for review and approval. This yearly report of unchanged plans and policy amounts to an unnecessary Federal mandate. While HUD has taken regulatory steps to streamline this annual reporting for small PHAs that are performing well, a recent example of one of the streamlined plans was 47 pages with attachments. So small public housing authorities just do not have the time and the staff and the resources to complete these annual plans by themselves and in many cases have to use outside vendors or contractors, expensive consultants to do the work that they don't have the computer software to do themselves to complete these annual plans.

For this reason, I have introduced H.R. 3067, the Small Public Housing Act. This legislation would bring long-needed regulatory relief to our small PHAs by exempting those that are 250 fewer units and section 8 vouchers from continuing the requirement of an annual plan if there is no material change in the operations during that year. So if they have some material change they still have to do it, but if it is just business as usual, then they do not have to make that submission. They still have to submit their 5-year plan, as is required by law.

H.R. 3067 only addresses, as I said, the annual plans. This legislation will provide an opportunity where they don't have to spend their much-needed resources and time away from doing what they need to be doing, and that is helping to provide affordable housing for our most needy folks.

I would just want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for his interest in public housing. This bill passed overwhelmingly in the previous Congress. Unfortunately, the time ran out, and we did not get that done from the other body. As a matter of fact, it passed 387-2; so I think there is broad support for this. I appreciate Chairwoman Waters' Housing Subcommittee as well as Ranking Member Biggert and, of course, Ranking Member Bachus for their support for this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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