Hinojosa Appalled By HUD Secretary's Blatant Insensitivity To Poverty In America

Hinojosa Appalled By HUD Secretary's Blatant Insensitivity To Poverty In America

May 20, 2004 -
Washington, DC - Congressman Rubén Hinojosa (TX-15) today issued the following statement in response to remarks made by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Alphonso Jackson during a hearing before the Committee on Financial Services of the U.S. House of Representatives. At the hearing, Jackson informed the Committee that he does not talk about housing programs for the poor because "being poor is a state of mind, not a condition." Please view statement below:

"I have never heard a more offensive and ludicrous statement in all my years in Congress. I welcome the Secretary to come to the 15th Congressional District, spend a night in a border colonia and then re-evaluate his statement. I challenge him to experience life in a home with dirt floors, no running water, power, or sewage and then say poverty is a state of mind.

"When a child goes hungry in our country are their stomach pains a state of mind? When a teenager develops rickets from malnutrition is this a simple case of an overactive imagination? When a senior citizen dies from cholera because of exposure to unsanitary water resources, will the Secretary console their family with these infamous words?
"But through the outrage, the greatest disappointment from today's hearing is to learn that the Administration has charged such an insensitive individual with the goal of providing decent and safe housing to the 32.9 million Americans who currently live in poverty."