Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. And im not talking about doing better during that period of time. Im talking about in terms of moving up the economic ladder that actually if you square away someones housing situation, that thats the best way to situate them so that they can deal with their health, their education and whatever family problems they may need to contend. Like your thoughts in that area. My thought is that as i mentioned before, the things that we have been doing and the programs, theyre lifesaving. Theyre a safety net. Do i think we can do better . Absolutely. And do i think we should be spending a little more time and effort concentrating on developing the potential of our people . And the answer to that is yes, particularly in light of the fact that we have so many fewer people than our competitors and its going to be absolutely essential that we do that. One final question. I used to run a social Service Agency in honolulu and one of the things that we came to understand before the vernacular was established was that especially somebody who has a concurrent Substance Abuse problem or Mental Health challenges or employment issues that they have no fighting chance to contend with any of those issues unless you deal with their housing and for many not for profit organizations that provide services or provide housing, in some instances, its a prerequisite to get sober and clean and have your behaviors squared away, in order to receive the housing assistance. Hud and others have figured out as attractive as that may be for the Service Provider and sort of neat as that logic appears to be, the truth is it just doesnt work and thats why Salt Lake City and many other states have adopted and eventually hud adopted this idea of housing first. And id like your thoughts on housing and your assurance that youll look at everything with new eyes but that you appreciate the basic premise which is that unless you put a roof over somebodys head, theyre not going to be able to move up that economic ladder. The program is one of the ones that i want to study and look at the data. You know, i know of one individual who was chronically homeless and having a very difficult time with Substance Abuse who threw that program was able to not only become employed but own their own home. These are our political capital. So those are programs that we will study carefully and see what we can derive from those and how we can take those lessons and multiply them across the nation. Thank you. Thank you, senator. Next but without objection, ill allow senator corker. Thank you for coming by the office. I look forward to working with you on this very important position. I would not be in the United States senate had it not been for efforts as a young businessman leading a nonprofit to help people have decent, fit, and Affordable Housing. This is an outstanding committee, outstanding leadership. Youre going to enjoy working with everyone here, and i look forward to helping you in any way i can. Thank you. We only get five minutes in were supposed to interrogate you and after the first meeting, i shared with a number of people how much i enjoyed the discussion, your interest, and your desire to be actively involved and i got to thinking back and i think there was some concern that youre not a housing expert and that you dont have a background in construction and so forth. I got to thinking, it seems to me that probably running this department is not really brain surgery, so if you can handle that and most certainly can look at this with fresh eyes. One of the items we talked about was native American Housing in south dakota and the interrural areas. Im not sure you had a chance to look at the materials we shared with you but there was a strong concern on the part of the native americans in the rural areas that the current formula in which funds are distributed by hud was not following that which had been recommended by some senior staff and in fact, following an old guideline and im not going to ask you to make commitments but would you please look at and just agree that youll give it fair consideration that we find a fair way to make sure these folks that literally have homes, thats all theyve got, might be 5,000 valued home. That we get these folks the the resources they need so they get a chance at housing as well. Thank you for advocating for them. This is a situation that has weighed heavily on my mind as i learned more and more about it. We have 6 650 million budget pls 66 million but the native American Housing assistance, selfdetermination act has been sort of waiting to be reupped six years. So im looking forward to the senate Going Forward to reauthorize that act in the very near future and the amount of red tape on the reservation, as you know, its astonishing. I mean, on tribal lands, if you want to build a house, you have to get permission from hud, permission from the interior, if you want to put a driveway on it, permission from the department of transportation. This is craziness. So we need to bring back a little bit of common sense and have the People Associated with those tribes involved in that decisionmaking. Theres a possibility that we could coordinate efforts on v. A. Housing on reservations . This is a case where last year i found out the minneapolis reason led the nation in v. A. Loans authorized in the entire nation and they had authorized five. This is a system which is broken. It is. And yet, v. A. Has lots of Different Things they do. This is not part of hud. Nonetheless, it seems like there should be a coordinated effort to get the results for people that live in poverty today. Veterans who shouldnt be looking for a handout but what should be doing is with a service theyre entitled and i hope that perhaps with a fresh look, there could be coordinated efforts to provide that service. I think veterans can be a healing for all of us because we can all agree on that. Also, this south dakota, were a small state. We received funds annually for the grants, cbgs and often in low and moderate income families and allow for less expensive housing to be developed. As a former governor, i remember, we looked forward to being able to utilize cbgs. They were valuable. They extended the amount of money we had available. Can you give me your assessment on cbgs and that theyre critical and if any way, could be expanded in terms of dollars going into very good projects . Just your basic thoughts on the cbg program. Obviously, its one of the major programs of Community Planning and development division. Very important because it gives people a great deal of flexibility. I will be looking to increase the flexibility, but at the same time, have a much better control of the finances. One of the reasons that the finances have not been carefully control and why the Inspector General has been critical, i think, lies with the fact that our i. T. Is so far behind. Our Computer Systems are dated and its much easier for people to, you know, do things under the table. Thats one of the things ill be looking to fix right away. Very good. Thank you. I look forward to supporting your nomination and thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator rand hollande. Thank you for your welcoming reports, chairman. You and the ranking member, dr. Carson, its great to see you and as somebody who represents the state of maryland, i want to thank you. Absolutely. For the good work you did as a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins and the good work youve done in east baltimore and certainly know the city of baltimore and when you and i met yesterday, i mentioned that after the freddie gray tragedy involving the city, president obama established a White House Task force to help Baltimore City by trying to break down some of the silos among different federal agencies and i asked you then whether you would urge the incoming president to continue that white White House Task force. And you indicated yes. I am very much on that page of integrating the silosing hol. The synergy from that will be great. And continuing the White House Task force, i hope we can Work Together to continue that Going Forward. The more we Work Together, the better. Freddie gray actually brings up the issue theres been some discussion of lead paint poisoning because there was significant evidence he had been a victim of lead paint poisoning so im encouraged by your remarks. I would only say theres a lot of talk and you made remarks about regulations hindering progress in certain ways. In the state of maryland, we had a lot of absentee landlords fighting our efforts to put in regulations to stop lead poisoning, so i assume those kind of regulations are good regulations. Absolutely. Im just a little worried of overregulating. As were the founders of this country. And i think we all are. Theres a regulation that is not serving its purpose. We should be getting rid of it. If theres a regulation thats needed to protect the public good, we should probably put it in place and my colleagues have asked you about some of your previous comments as they relate to this new job and i just wanted to do the same thing on some because theres this ongoing conversation about federal Government Programs not creating the opportunity but creating dependency. We all want to use these programs to create opportunity, so people can lift themselves up and become selfsufficient. Thats a shared goal and during the campaign, you did make some disparaging comments about housing subsidies, specifically, along with a lit tany of other things saying that there are people who say im compassionate and pat people on their head and say, there you are, poor little thing. Im going to take care of your needs and you mentioned housing subsidies as one of those. As i understand your testimony today, you see an important positive role for housing subsidies as part of an effort to help families get on their feet as a safety net and move on, is that right . Thats correct. I also agree with you and we had this conversation in my office about the fact and you said this morning, just having a roof over your head doesnt necessarily solve someones problems. You want to expand Educational Opportunities and i could not agree with you more, greater synergy there would be important. I do also want to note though that many of the housing subsidies go to families who dont have children and in fact, if you look at the rental assistance figures, more than 4. 5 million low income household received half headed by seniors or persons with disabilities. Right. And for those individuals, the wraparound help they need to be selfsufficient relates many times to health care. Now, during the campaign, the incoming president tweeted, ben carson wants to abolish medicare. I want to save it and social security. That was october 25th, 2015. 5 20 p. M. You also indicated you want to get rid of medicaid. An Important Health safety net for so many people and given your comments about the importance of wraparound supports, the roof not being enough by itself and the fact that so many millions of people who received rental subsidies are people with disabilities, are you going to advocate within the government abolishing medicaid and medicare. You have to go back and understand the context. Replacing that with something else. Obviously, if youre not going to replace it, youre not going to get rid of major safety nets. Treplace with Health Savings accounts. Now, im quoting the incoming president with respect to your position. He was running against me, remember that. I want the record to show that you said he distorted your position, not me. All right . Thank you, mr. Chair. And thanks to you and the ranking member, i look forward to serve on this committee. Dr. Carson, welcome to your sons, beautiful family and especially to your wife. Gosh, i dont know where to start but thank you for the time you spent in my office. I thought it was interesting that at least one person spent close to four minutes and 30 seconds talking to you about the hypothetical of the Incoming Administration potentially benefitting their business or the family members. That seems absurd to me, but what i like most about the answer to your question, you would not get penned down to a yes or no answer. You said what matters most is the benefit to the people that were trying to serve. That, my friend, tells me youre a very honest person. You could have been attacked for that. I dont know if it was nuanced and the person who asked that question didnt understand what you said or if they just decided that was too principled in answer to take you on, so thank you for that answer and keep those principles in place. As a practical matter, before the fake news cycles start, i doubt seriously that scenario would come up and im tired of the hypotheticals, i want to get to the specific. I was speaker of the house in North Carolina and i was criticized for the means but not the ends for a number of things youre going to have to do too. Ill give you an example of a state minister Government Assistance Program called unemployment reform. Im the only speaker of the house in the nation that ratified a bill that did not extend longterm unemployment benefits. At the time, we were fourth highest unemployment in the nation. Over five quarters we dropped from 10. 4 to 6. 4 . To the National Average while the other states that didnt take action. Whats the best possible thing we could do for someone on government assistance . Get them off of it. Get them a job. Exactly. We want people to have housing. Every child that grows up to be able to realize the american dream. This has to do with the means and in my opinion, the means over the past couple of decades have failed. Its been a bipartisan failure. More recently with democratic leadership, but before that, republican leadership. When you go into housing and urban development, can i get your commitment that youre going to look at every program and determine which ones are actually providing the benefit to the next ben carson who may come up with his mom and be a neurosurgeon and eliminate every single obstacle in the way . You can absolutely get my guarantee on that. Do you think there are any sacred cows in hud that stand in the way . Ive been studying it care l carefully and havent seen one yet. Do you think weve gone from providing housing to warehousing to an unacceptable number of people supported through the federal government . The key to your question was the word unacceptable and yes. Absolutely. Do you believe that hud and the other agencies have creeped their scope over time and you could say that hud needs to be smaller or some other Organization Needs to be smaller so that the people best positioned to provide the safety net, the agency, best position to provide the safety net can do and you can take the lead in others . I believe we need to be much more efficient and that efficiency involves being able to Work Together and stop duplicating services and thats why im very interested in working across sides. Do you think things to improve education outcomes and in my case hope through move forward with criminal justice reform, getting nonviolent offenders into rehabilitated and removi removing. Absolutely. Do you believe social services outside of education that serve at risk agencies, should they create or if ive got an at risk school system, do you think the department of education should grow to serve that need or a better job of using various agencies whose primary goal is to serve that segment of the community . Is. Definitely, we need to do a much better job. If you identify anything tha agency and have them be responsible for the results . I look forward to working with the committee to do that. I appreciate your forthrightness and done a great job in this committee and in your career. I look forward to sportiupporti your nomination. Thank you, sir. Senator cortes. Thank you members of the committee. I look forward to working with you and thank you very much and dr. Carson, welcome. And congratulations on your nomination and welcome to your wonderful family sitting here with you. So theres been a lot of questions with your indulgence, ill get right to them because i know its getting a long day for you and morning and my colleagues have asked a number of questions and i would like to reaffirm some of them. In your role, would you promise to protect the Lgbt Q Community for discrimination. Absolutely. Policies of segregation of minorities in the neighborhoods and would you continue to aggressively enforce the fha dedicated to ensuring access to our countrys housing is free of discrimination, including expeditiously and who athorough investigating race complaints and fair mortgage and strategies to end homelessness . I think the fair housing, in 1968, one of the best pieces of legislation weve had. It was modified in 1988. Lbj said no one could possibly question this. I agree with him. So you would continue. Absolutely. Including the new hud rule that requires local communities that assess patterns of racial and income segregation and make genuine plans to address them . I will be working with the local hud officials and the communities to make sure that fairness is carried out. Okay. I appreciate you taking the time to come to my office and sit with me and in that meeting, you made a number of statements like this morning for your vision for hud, to intervene or not and specifically, you said that we dont want year after year people vegetating in Public Housing. And these comments were a little concerning to me. The Fair Market Rent for a 2 bedroom apartment around 950. In order to afford this level of rent and utilities, a household has to earn 38,000 annually. Nevada, a minimum wage worker earns 7. 25 or 8. 25, if their insurance isnt paid for, about 15,000 annually. In order to just cover that two bedroom rent apartment, that individual making minimum wage would have to work 88 hours per week which doesnt leave much time not only for a funding for education or much other opportunities to further themselves other than just putting a roof over their head for them and their families. That doesnt sound like somebody whos vegetating in Public Housing. And you also mentioned to one of my colleagues that you believe that additional housing funding, rental assistance is essential but when we talked, you said there were limits and do you believe that low income americans should have a limit to public assistance and can you further define that forr me . What im saying is that we have to be cognizant of our fiscal responsibilities as well as our social responsibilities. Would we love to put every Single Person in a beautiful unit forever . Absolutely. That would be ideal. But we dont necessarily have the necessary funding. But the other thing that i emphasize is that safety net programs are important. I would never advocate abolishing them without having an alternative route for people to follow. So how would you help somebody find an alternative if all theyre doing is finding work and coming home . How would you give them . Theres a much Bigger Picture issue here. And that is fixing our economy. And working very hard to create the right kind of atmosphere. When that happens, people have a lot more options in terms of their jobs and people have to raise their salaries. Okay. And then nevada was hardest hit. We were ground zero for the foreclosure crisis. As attorney general of the state, one of my biggest partners was your agency. Aggressively, we worked together to bring relief to homeowners there including what you talked about. Financial relief but also Financial Literacy and education. Through that, i created the home again program and it still is in existence to provide Financial Literacy and home for first time home buyers for individuals to get back into their homes. Is that a program you see you could continue to support and would look to help support in the state of nevada . I will certainly study that program carefully, and work with you to make sure that the goals of that program are carried forward. Thank you. I appreciate your questions, the answers to the questions today. Thank you very much. Thank you, senator kennedy. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Dr. Carson, when you were performing neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins hospital, were you concerned primarily with how much the operation cost and how much money you were generating for the hospital or fixing your patients problem . Primarily with fixing the problem, absolutely. I want you to understand my agenda. Im not interested in taking away the Affordable Housing from people in need. I am interested in seeing fewer people need Affordable Housing. How are you going to do that . Again, it goes back to the conversation we were just having. We have got to give people a springboard to get out of a situation of stagnation and develop their godgiven talents. We have got to create an environment in which we can do through tax reform, through regulatory reform, through trade reform, through a number of things that creates an environment. And then we can also, you know, the people who, for instance, are stuck in those situations, theres absolutely no reason that we cant require some training, some education, some skills which then allow them to be much more independent and move up. So thats really what im talking about. Just not sort of leaving the system as it is and just continuing to feed the system. But really, trying to develop our people and it goes back to what i was talking about before and if were going to compete in the future with nations that have three and four times as many people as we do, we have got to develop our people. Weve got to get the bang for the buck. I want to talk to you about the community and Development Block grant program. As we talked about in my office, louisiana had massive flooding last year and the northern part of our state received about 25 inches of rain in three days. Thats more rain than the city of los angeles in three years. And then in august, south louisiana flooded. About 27 inches of rain in three days. Most of the people who flooded didnt live in a floodplain. They didnt need flood insurance. And the truth is, if you get 27 inches of rain or 25 inches in three days, you can live on mt. Everest and youre going to flood. We had a lot of people hurt bad. The american taxpayer has been very generous through the members of congress. Congress has appropriated about 1. 6 billion to our people, its going to come in the form of community and development and block grants. Now, theres some confusion, our governor has a plan to spend part of that money. He doesnt have a plan to spend the other part. He has blamed hud. Ive spoken off the record with some of the hud officials. They say its the states problem. Frankly, i dont care whose fault it is. Congress has acted. The american taxpayer has been extraordinarily generous. I just want to figure out how to get the 1. 6 billion to folks so they can start rebuilding their lives. Would you commit to me that as secretary of hud and i believe you will be secretary of hud, that you will ask your folks not to break any rules and not to break any laws, but to demonstrate some of the flexibility you were talking about. Yes. To keep the eye on the ball, lets try to get the money into the hands of the folks for whom it was appropriated as opposed to discussing how many lawyers can dance on the head of a pen. Thank you, senator, and i enjoyed our conversation previously. Youre singing my song here. You know, ive been talking to mayors across this country and housing authorities and they all say what you just said. They appreciate the grant money. But they have to jump through too many hoops and too much red tape, and i look forward to working not only with the people at hud, but with the recipients of the grants so we can figure out how to streamline this procedure. And by utilizing the i. T. Technology to eliminate a lot of waste and fraud, i think we can really get a lot of bang for our buck here. Okay. Thank you, doctor. Youll be a great hud secretary. Thank you. Thank you very much. Senator tester. Thank you, and others said before, i look forward to your leadership and appreciate you in this position. I have no doubt youll do a fine job moving forward in the future. Dr. Carson, thank you for putting yourself up for this and as others said, thank you to your family. Thank you. Your view in this position. Others have talked about similarities of how youve grown up with them. You havent grown up with the same similarities as i have. I grew up in the west. And i can tell you that i would not be in the position im this without the homestead act, the measures that president roosevelt took in the dirty 30s. We would have been off the farm and gone from montana. And even today, altugriculture s significant subsidies. I think we both agree that government plays an Important Role in housing and from a regulatory standpoint, we dont enforce things like the packard st stokcard act. You have no control over this, but why the blind trust is so important . Its because we elect people to offices like u. S. Senators and president of the United States, not for personal gain but the betterment of the country and youre not going to be able to tell what happens if that is not put into a true blind trust just like j. Rocker feller did in the u. S. Senate. Not asking to do anything different than before. One problem with coming late, everything has been said but not everybody has said it. Ill say it. Affordable housing and by the way, thanks for coming to my office. I enjoyed it, particularly seeing that buffalo. Darn right. The Affordable Housing is critically important, and i can give you many examples. A holistic view. The Economic Opportunity and the opportunity to create jobs and the opportunity to move the country forward. 8,000 or 10,000 people with business leaders, they cant get new business to come in. If they increase the middle class, youll be a big part of that. And another thing is the 30 year note. Pretty special to the United States. It really is, but it has allowed tons, millions of people who otherwise wouldnt be there so my question to you, do you believe its possible to have a 30 year mortgage without a government guarantee . Yes, i think it is possible. How are you going to do it . The private sector. We have to, but you cant do it overnight. It has to be a gradual change. And thats something that i would want to work with this committee on because i think we cant do it in a haphazard way or an ideological way. We have to make sure that we preserve the dream for the american people. Thats the key. I would love to work with you. And i think that if you take a look at how long 30 years is, 30 years is quite a while and i think a lot can change in 30 years and truthfully, i dont see how it can happen. I know canada doesnt have it and i dont want to be like canada. Theyre good people. I can almost see canada from my doorstep, so they are good people. But i can tell you that its going to be difficult but im willing to listen to ideas and try to move forward. We talked about reducing red tape. Theres an outfit called the Interagency Council on homelessness to address homelessness in different ways. One size doesnt fit all. Are you committed to that . Thats very important. Ive been that close to being homeless myself, so i can really understand that. Super. A lot of folks talked about indian country. When i get done. But housing is a huge problem and its one of the reasons that we hope you come to north dakota and montana when you do your listening session to look at the tribes and the challenges that they have, but one of the biggest sources for federal funding in the housing is block grants and do you have any ideas on how hud can really focus on indian country, because youre right, theres a lot of regulation, but theres also just unbelievable, you come from it. Youve seen it. Poverty. Yes. If you want to talk about at risk kids, all native americans in montana for the most part. Do you have any ideas on how to improve housing because its critically important piece of the holistic puzzle you talked about. Again, going back to the holistic model, its not just a matter of people in houses but understanding whats going on. On those tribal lands. Why is there such a drug problem, for instance, what is facilitating that . Can we start further down the road and see if we can stop some of the Drug Trafficking and then, at the same time, simultaneo simultaneously, work on the housing . As i mentioned before, getting rid of the Regulatory Burden for creating housing on the reservations. I mean, its absolutely absurd and working, i think, with some of the tribal leaders themselves rather than imposing things upon them. I think all of those things will have an ameal raeliorating effe thank you. Thank you, senator purdue. Dr. Carson, thank you for your lifetime of service and willingness to serve again. Please dont take any disrespect from my absence here in the better part of this meeting. Armed Service Committee going at the time with general mattis. It strikes me. Im incredibly impressed with the nominations of this president elect and youre not the least of those by any means. I have always admired your heart for muhumanity. One of my first jobs was a Historic Program and i learned early when i put people around me to judge their hearts and i think president elect trump did a great job in your nomination for this. Im amazed with your quotes here. We dont need to help people achieve a position where we feel good about, rather, we need to put people in a situation that they feel good about. In many cases over the years, bureaucrats, politicians, no offense, have just, you know, done things that make themselves feel good, pat themselves on the back, we took care of this problem, when in fact, you go and you look at the people, and, you know, theyre living in squalor and dilapidated places and theres danger, going outside, worried about whether your kid will come back safe. So we need to be looking at the end product rather than the beginning of the process. Thats what im talking about. You had mentioned Public Private partnerships. Ive served on the Foreign Relations committee and 8 billion up with u. S. Taxpayer money and 40 billion of private money to power a significant portion over the next decade. Talk to us about your vision of how you can get the private sector involved with government to help heal our cities and develop . You had mentioned, housing and urban development, you spent more time talking about development and id like you to elaborate on that as it relates to private investment. Weve got a lot of very talented people in this country in the private sector. And, you know, the low Income Housing tax credit is an excellent example. Its seen over by the congressional finance committee. But, you know, that has allowed an enormous number of places to be renovated and plenty more where that comes from. In detroit, i was talking to a private developer recently about some of the work they do with light and its costing 16,500 and able to take it down to 5,500. That was a way to take down amounts in the city. Theres a lot of money and goodwill in the private sector and i want to work on those programs and study those programs that are working so we can multiply them across the count country. Thank you and god bless you for your willingness to do this. Thank you. Senator hitegin. Thank you, we look forward to that chair. Two little kids chairs. I used to sit over in that one, so welcome to the new members. I sat in that one over there. Its the little kids chairs, sorry. Dr. Carson, you know, theres a lot of people who kind of scratch their head when you were nominated. Thinking, what does he know about housing and how is he going to manage this agency and ive thought a lot about that and a great conversation, thanks for coming but were really in the people business more than the housing business as we look at this agency and i grew up completely different than you. I grew up in a town of 90 people. My dad was basically a seasonal construction worker and my mom was a school cook and like you, i was blessed with parents who really believed in me. Unfortunately, in america, theres so many children who dont have our blessing. And those children have suffered traumatic events in their life. It has limited their ability to grow emotionally. Its limited their resiliency. Its created problems for them that they carry with them the rest of their life and i thought about you as a neurosurgeon, a man who understands brain function. I thought, you know, you just might be the right guy, if you focus on why people are in poverty, not judging people who are in poverty. Right. But doing it in a way we havent thought about before or considered before. So i would really challenge you to take your enthusiasm for change, which we all agree that we are an exceptional country that should provide opportunity, should provide that ability, that you and i both have had. Yes. To come out of poverty, but we absolutely need to understand why people are in poverty. Yes. Without judgment. And thats a critical piece for me. You and i have had a great chance to talk about native american issues. We had a great chance to talk about housing shortage, both of which senator tester raised and hit two issues. One is transitional housing. And the other one is run on Homeless Youth and theyre on the other end of the spectrum of what im talking about in terms of Early Intervention but theyre Critical Services for what we hope to do as a country when we look at judicial reform, when we look at the opportunity to change. Transitional housing is something that i believe is essential to reentry for so many of the people whose Human Capital were wasting every day and i want a commitment from you that you will make transitional housing as we look at judicial reform a major priority in terms of housing and helping in that cycle. I think its very important as you know, we have the herth program. Im not talking about that but longterm transition. People are taken out of situations, whether its disability, or homeless vet, theyre provided Wraparound Services in a location where they feel and are nurtured and have the ability to transition and so we think, okay, you get 30 days and youre out. We have an opioid crisis, a trauma crisis in this country, it cant be dealt with without transitioning people out of those situations. You relate a poignant story. Its very important and i look forward to working with you. I want to talk about another issue we deal with a lot and thats Human Trafficking. Youth trafficking. The abuse of children. A lot of people think, i would like to say, its like when they talk about Human Trafficking or child sex trafficking, they sometimes kind of see this Laura Ingalls wilder and a dark cloud swoops her up in the prairie and now shes in this horrible life. And im not saying that doesnt happen, but these children have been thrown away, they have been given away, and theyre abused every day. If we dont get them off the street and dont protect them at the point theyre leaving their family, theyll be the most serious victims of crime in this country, and so we need to reauthorize the homeless and runaway youth program. We need to do everything that we can to provide that environment, that shelter environment that prevents these children from becoming victims of the most heinous and horrific crime thats committed in this country. Senator, you dont have to convince me. Got to lay it in though. I look forward to working with you and work on trauma and really sealing that as an entry opportunity for change in the early stages, especially in the programs that you run because housing is foundational. Its foundational to Family Growth and foundational to raising healthy americans. Thank you. This is going to be a Great Committee to work with. We are a really Great Committee, youre right. We are. Thats stipulating. Senator cotton . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator brown and carson, sorry for the later arrival. We had nominations for general mattis and pompey popompeo, tha well on Donald Trumps cab mine and look forward to supporting them as well as your nomination, dr. Carson. We spoke about a topic youve already discussed with senator heller and donna lee thats close to my heart with Homeless Veterans. Something like 40,000 Homeless Veterans in America Today and arkansas, several hundred of those veterans. I think its an appalling failure of government and society that we have veterans willing to risk their lives for our country and currently live in worse conditions than they did in the deserts of iraq or the mountains of afghanistan. I just want to give the opportunity to lay a little bit about how you think about this problem and what we can do better to solve this very disturbing problem of homelessness among the veteran population. And thank you for your service in the military to our country. You know, back in world war ii, one of the things that helped us to get where we needed to get the Civil Rights Movement was the service of black americans in the military. And when people begin to see how they were willing to sacrifice everything but would come home to our own country and be ill treated, it sparks something in the american psyche. And i am hopeful that at this stage of the game, the fact that we have Homeless Veterans and veterans who are not receiving appropriate medical care will have the same effect. It seems almost immoral that we could have a group of people whove sacrificed so much and then basically just kick them in the pants. That certainly will not be the case with hud. Thank you very much and work with you on this question, so many members of the committee and the congress does and i know that youll be working closely with mr. Shulkin in the confirmation as secretary of the v. A. I just want to say thank you once again for your willingness to answer the call of service and i know sometimes leaving private life can be a challenge for individuals, but im very glad that the president elect has selected you to be our secretary of housing and urban development and i look towaforw to working with you and seeing you from time to time in front of committee. Thank you. Thank you, dr. Carson. Thank you, senator. One senator may show up for the first round of questions but at this point, no senators in the room who have not already had one round. I know theres some interested in a second round, so could i get just by show of hands, whos interested in a second round . So two or three. Do i get to vote . Actually, we should ask you if you need a break. But lets go ahead and start the the second round and i will at some point jump in with some questions. I noticed you werent drinking much water, so you have to. Im thinking about that. I know exactly. A little more specific on the issues that senator warren raised. Yesterday, the president elect announced his intention for investments and not put them into a blind trust and i appreciate senator testers admonition about that and creates particular problems for hud since hes invested, we dont know his tax returns so there may be others. We know hes invested in at least one subsidized housing project, sterrit city and i wonder if youre aware of that there. I have not discussed it with him but know about it. I dont know how hud can avoid the appearance of a conflict should any issue arise on about it. What i would hope would happen with this committee is that we could come up with a suggestion that might be acceptable to all sides. Let me start with one. Would you committee to record back to any on the committee on any issue that should arise on a property sterret or otherwise, we dont know if there are others, would you commit to report back on any issue that should arise on a property owned by mr. Trump or his family in any contact you or any subordinates receive from the Trump Organization or the white house or any other source other than normal back and forth between a project and its oversight officials, would you commit to reporting to this committee any time that arises . I would be more than delighted to discuss those will you then thank you. Will you set up a process to identify those conflicts . Ill work with you to set that up. Good, thank you for that commitment. One other question, then i wont take my whole five minutes, mr. Chairman, i appreciate your comments and your testimony about the interaction between housing and health care. When Matthew Desmond signed his book to me and i bought it, i want you to know that, i wrote on his book evicted home equals life. That in a nut shell says what you are saying between the connection between housing, health care and so much else. And as i think senator hall said if you dont have a home, so many other things go wrong, obviously. So even if youre widely successful in promoting healthier housing, will it be any more than a drop in the bucket compared to the loss of Health Insurance for as many as many as 30 million americans including nearly a million in my state. Governor kasich, a republican, admonished republicans here, dont repeal the Affordable Care act unless you replace it immediately because what do i do with 700,000 people that have medicaid now in ohio, his words. My question is, you responded to him that if youre going to that you are seem less than enthusiastic about the way medicare and medicaid operate, so you would you would be willing to eliminate them, but only if something replaced them immediately, so does that mean that you would oppose the elimination of the Affordable Care act without something replacing it immediately . Yeah, ive said that many times. I dont think it is reasonable to pull the rug out from anybody. We have to make sure were taking care of our citizens. So if regardless of our political persuasion. If you had been the senator from senator instead of senator rubio, the vote last night may have been different . Thank you, dr. Carson. Thank you. Although we had a senator one more point, i wanted to thank you im sorry, im sorry. I wanted to you remind me of coluombo. I heard that. I heard that before. I think i heard it from somebody in youngstown. Just one moinpoint, i wanted to thank you what you said about lead in Public Housing and the private vental market. That is so important, the discussion we had about the percentage of toxic lead in almost every single home built before about 19 78. Even the Housing Stock that is older, it is particularly bad, because the housing is decaying and in my city i live in, it is probably 85 to 90 of the homes. Thank you. I apologize, mr. Chairman. Okay. All right, we did have a senator on the republican side who wanted to get here. But is held up at the Armed Services Committee Hearing that is going on right now. And senator warren who was here has been called back to the Armed Services committee. She indicated if necessary she could submit her further questions for the record. And so at this point, we do not have any further questioning for you, dr. Carson, and we will wrap up the hearing. I will say that to all senators, and dr. Carson, we have a practice of submitting questions following the hearing for the record. She does did you have a question . Senator cortez matso, i didnt realize you wanted another round. I will be brief. I appreciate the comments and the holistic approach you have to helping individuals, dr. Carson. There is one thing of interest to me which you talked about which is Public Private partnerships and the financing when it comes to private public partnerships. I havent had a conversation with you and what your thoughts on how that would be adressed when it comes to housing and mortgages. When i talk about Public Private partnerships, im talking about having people in the private sector actually invest their own resources in either building or renovating or refurbishing housing that is then used by hud to house people. So they have to obviously be incentivized in order to do that. But to the big stumbling block is the initial capital to be able to get it done. And as long as they can realize a return on that capital investment, you know, this country was built on entrepreneurial risk taking. So thats always going to be a part of who we are. And thats what i want to capitalize upon. So, in other words, are you envisioning a role for private Equity Capital to invest in the future housing growth and mortgages and housing for individuals and Home Ownership . I will be engaging in a number of conversations with the fha administrator with this committee, and with finance experts at hud to figure out the best ways so that we can always have a winwin situation. So what youre saying does concern me because of the fact that nevada was a foreclosure crisis, ground zero for the foreclosure crisis. And a lot of that was money that we saw come in from wall street, Big Investments coming in for these mortgages, and individuals really at the end of the day lost their homes. But i think youre talking im just curious, thats why if you could elaborate your thoughts on that. I think youre talking about, you know, predatory people who came in and took advantage of people. A combination. The big banks were involved as well with some of their teaser rates, but there was wall street was involved. Thats and, you know, we can follow up on this individually, i just want to put that there is a concern of mine, something i will be looking at. I will look forward to working with you on that. Because i dont want those predators swooping in either. I appreciate that. Thank you, with that, the questioning has concluded and to all of the senators we ask that you get your questions for the record in by close of business on tuesday. Next tuesday. Close of business next tuesday. And dr. Carson, we ask you promptly respond to those so that we can move forward as promptly as we can. I will be happy to do that. I want to thank you, mr. Chairman, mr. Vice chairman, and all of the committee members, both present and absent, for what was actually kind of fun. Thank you. Always better to be at this end of this kind of hearing rather than the beginning when youre sitting in that chair. Dr. Carson, thank you, also, for coming here and being well prepared. This hearing is now adjourned
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.