Transcripts For CSPAN House Financial Services Hearing On Ho

At 10 00 a. M. Eastern on book tv, cspan2. House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters held a field hearing on combating homelessness in the Los Angeles Metro area and its impact on a massive a national level. Officialsrnment participated in the hearing to discuss Affordable Housing. The committee on Financial Services will come to order. The chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. Not on of the house were the Floor Committee are authorized to participate fully in the hearing and members of the local media may engage in audio and visual coverage of the proceedings. Any recording of todays proceedings are solely to educate, enlighten, and inform the consideration of legislative issues as well as developing an understanding and perspective of the house of representatives and its role in our government. Coverage may not be used for any partisan Political Campaign purpose or be made available for such purpose. Finally, i want to welcome hearing,udience to the which we will conduct under the rules of house of representatives. This is entitled examining the homelessness crisis in los angeles. I give myself five minutes to give an opening statement. Again, good morning to everyone. Welcome to the committee on Financial Services field hearing. Examining the homelessness crisis in los angeles. Our first field hearing of the 115th congress. I would like to thank the California Africanamerican Museum and the executive director you just met, george, for hosting todays hearing. As chairwoman of the house of Financial Services committee, i have made it a top priority to focus on homelessness. We are international homelessness crisis. This year, i convened the first ever full Committee Hearing on homelessness. Today, we will disc continue our discussion by examining the homelessness crisis in los angeles. Challenge this great that is in our city and that is facing our nation. According to the latest point in time count, the city and county of los angeles experienced 12 to 16 increase last year in the number of people that are homeless. Anyriencing homelessness on given night, we have nearly 60,000 people in the county well over 35,000 people experience homelessness right here in the city. I am describing some of our most vulnerable neighbors, including families with children, seniors, and unaccompanied youth. We cannot ignore that our homelessness crisis is directly linked to the Affordable Housing crisis. Too many people cannot afford to keep a roof over their head as wages have not kept pace with rising rent. Los angeles is one of the least Affordable Housing markets in the United States. In l. A. County, a renter earning minimum wage of 13. 25 an hour would need to work 79 hours a week in order to afford a two bedroom apartment. As a result, approximately 721,000 households in the county are severely rent burdened. Meaning they pay more than 50 of their income on rent. We need a bold and comprehensive response at the federal, state, to address the homelessness crisis. Ive introduced this bill, the ending homelessness act legislation that would provide over 13 billion in funding to ensure that every person experiencing homelessness in america as a place to call home. The committee passed this legislation early this year. Im committed to do everything i can to get this bill passed into law. City are working hard to combat the housing crisis. The city and county have robust new resources to fund initiatives that improve the lives of people experiencing homelessness. Hhh has helped fund thousands of permanent new housing units. Has helpedeasure h for condensed people find housing. Much more needs to be done. Including passing legislation. Testimony from representative in the county and mayor,y, including the who will testify on our third panel. On the ground every day Critical Services to people experiencing homelessness. Thank ourke to Committee Members in attendance today and i am very pleased to representative al green from texas, houston, texas. [applause] rep. Waters representative garcia is also hear from houston, texas. And i would like to thank the members of the delegation not on the committee here today, representative net net. Representative jamie gomez. Representative judy chu. And we are forward to be joined by a representative rad sherman. Give them a round of applause anyway. So i look forward to hearing the witnesses testimony. Panels. Have three i want to welcome the first panel for todays hearing. Of distinguished witnesses are christina miller, the deputy mayor for the city of los angeles Homeless Initiatives. That is the office of the mayor of the city of los angeles. , executive director, Los Angeles Homeless Services authority. , chief program officer, Housing Authority of the city of los angeles, monique , executivend director of the less agiles county develop an authority, kevin murray, former state senator and president and ceo of the weingart center. Nsell, director of the Los Angeles County homelessness Homeless Initiative. Each of you will have five minutes. I will give a signal by tapping the gavel lightly here i will ask you to wrap up your testimony so we can be respectful of the witnesses and Committee Members time. Before recognizing first ms. Miller, there are other elected have joined us here today and i would like all of the other officials in the audience to please stand. Ms. Miller, you are now recognized for five minutes to present your oral testimony. Thank you very much. Chairwoman waters and esteemed members of the committee, i serve as the deputy mayor of los angeles under the leadership of mayor eric garcetti. While the crisis is not as acute in most cities as it is here in los angeles, this is undoubtedly a pervasive issue nationally. Has left many families and individuals without the basic need of a safe place to live and thrive. That is unacceptable. The only way we find our way out of this crisis is together. With decades of disinvestment from the state and federal government amounting to nearly 500 million a year on average, we need your help to make lasting progress. In los angeles, we find ourselves in a paradox. We are seen with National Leaders with the best intervention to combat homelessness, yet our numbers increase last year a 12 countywide and the scale is daunting. Most average people in los angeles do not feel the progress being made. We cannot get to everyone on the street fast enough. How does the city and a county have oneany resources of the largest populations of any city in america . The answer is twofold. While we have made tremendous progress in a few short years to provide services and place almost neighbors and housing, this effort only began in a fewith youth short years ago and the homelessness crisis has been in been here for decades. Wrecking spite record housing numbers. The homelessness is a symptom of a larger macro issue in the region and across america. Our homelessness crisis is the Affordable Housing crisis. It has become the most extreme expression of poverty as the wealth divide grows deeper and more acute. Investing in this system alone will not solve the crisis. Currently, we must address and Affordable Housing options for people to exit two. Let me tell you about the citys response to homelessness. The city of los angeles homelessness budget amounts to hundred 62 million, 25 times the homelessness budget in 2015. Two thirds of spending going toward permanent housing, we housing bonds, 10,000 people over the course of 10 years. Active oriented the city focused on a response that can be broken down into three areas. Preventing homelessness, producing street homelessness, and preserving Affordable Housing. For the First Time Ever, the in skid row. Rategy he at of the crisis. I will touch on Homelessness Prevention first. It is a key part of our regional strategy. The citys largest and Poverty Program is where a of services are colocated at 16 centers citywide and the services from legal and financial counseling are delivered. We also have the rent stabilization ordinance, which requires the best way to prevent homelessness is to keep people in their current homes. So in addition, the city is scaling up a Defense Program rights, ands tenant legal representation if needed. I will touch on the street strategy and housing efforts. With three out of four People Living unsheltered in los angeles, our work to address health and safety issues in a cap meant have to be correlated with our field taste outrage outreach. Effortsinate these through unified homelessness response center. Wherea physical space they make realtime decisions of how to respond to the complex picture on the ground. While we work to mitigate issues of cleanliness, built them a goal is to get people off the streets for good. We leverage the army of outreach workers expanded to 800 countywide to get households into bridge and permanent housing. People live on the streets have enougho not indoor places for them to be. The city is standing up 26 new housing projects that will have over 2000 beds total. Here this is the biggest shelter Capital Program in the nation. To touch on our housing efforts, in order to meet the needs of our most honorable, the 1. 2 billion loan program has led to the city more than tripling its housing pipeline with 110 projects in over 174 units to People Living on the streets and other circumstances. Putting us on track to meet the goal to build 10,000 units of housing by 2026. We have created the citys first Inclusionary Zoning program which mandates inclusion of for paymentousing of a fee to capitalize our housing program. We have enhanced the land use incentives and measured jj jp or which will work in tandem with mixede resulting in more income development. We are strongly advocating for tenant rights in sacramento and supporting laws on the state level. It is an antirent gouging and rent cap law. We are firmly committed to innovation. City has a strategy for the First Time Ever in skin skid row. Mediumess the immediate term and longterm needs. That is just a snapshot of what we are doing to address homelessness. Rep. Waters thank you. , five minutes. Mr. Lynn i appreciate the opportunity to testify this morning. I would rather address you as madam chair than madam ranking member. Some of the trends that brought us here and some of the paths out of homelessness. You indicated last year there is a 12 increase in homelessness 59,000. County, nearly angelenos are homeless tonight. Reflecting the statewide crisis in homelessness of my colleagues in other continuums across the state, three cores of them showed an increase in homelessness this year and that increase was greater than the count we saw in los angeles largely due to the interventions you mentioned we put in service to house people out of homelessness in a way. It is a moment in time. In addition to the 59,000 people we counted, d5000 more people over the course of 2018 parent over the 127,000 experienced homelessness over the course of the year. Abouts into homelessness 150 people per day. We were able to house 133 people on a daily basis. That isd to driven by Housing Affordability. Los angeles is the most popular county america. Largest be the 10th state where we estate. We have the least Affordable Housing market in the United States by multiple measures. More than one third of l. A. Renters pay more than 50 of their income or rent. That is an extraordinary number of extremely low income people hanging on by their fingertips. They are one medical issue and one car repair away from homelessness on a daily basis. If we neglect to address the root crop because of Housing Affordability and we have a gap of thousand units affordability in the county of los angeles, we will not get ahead of this crisis the matter how effective our intervention i also want to indicate clearly we cannot address homelessness without simultaneously addressing structural and institutional racism in america. There is radical disproportionalitys in race and the just you should of people experiencing homelessness in los angeles and the United States. 39 of people who experienced homelessness here is are black against the county population of 8 africanamerican. The drivers for that are representing a multitude of things. I would like to call out in particular a history of racial segregation in federal policy that drove to keep housing segregation in this county through redlining and across the nation, federal policy instituted housing segregation and hud policy enforced it for the 20th century as american houses were Building Wealth through housing ownership. That was exclusively reserved for white households. African americans were blocked it left after american households with 1 10 of the wealth of white households in the country. It is a major driver for homelessness. There are no there is no fallback. In addition, our criminal incarceratedm over African Americans and African American communities. That Racial Disparity of conservation has led to severe overrepresentation in our criminal Justice System in the county of los angeles, it Percent People of color, it percent black people in the county of los angeles, 30 of the population are black. Those drivers need people with severe economic disparities and capacities within our Housing Market, job market, and every other aspect of our culture. Those have to be addressed if we will get to the root cause of addressing homelessness in the United States. Federal government has constrained over last three years, home funding being particularly notable as reductions of a significant reductions in the last three last few years. The fundamental formula in the core housing programs that address affordability, were not fair. Shortchanged. We in Los Angeles County have 11,000 units of Public Housing compared to new york city with 170,000 units. Not only is rent high and incomes low, we do not have the mechanisms that new york has. I want to thank you for the opportunity to address this panel. Rep. Waters thank you. Thank you. On the committee of Financial Services. The Housing Authority of the city of los angeles to provide a written testimony and speak today regarding this humanitarian crisis in los angeles. Hrnk you for introducing 1856 act of 2019. Special recognition to the congresswoman, Maxine Waters, for being a vocal champion for the community. Communities with the highest need, like los angeles. This is both the most effective eddie fisher use of federal funding. Assists as sugar given to clear it which local governments like like los angeles have adopted policies and ending at preventing homelessness. The community has taken steps to the plate. This commitment was further measure h in the county. While we believe local organizations play a part in the we need the federal government to be a partner in this effort. To pervert preserve Affordable Housing by using rental subsidies such as the section eight policy choice vouchers. Given priority to homeless veterans, homeless families, and permanent housing which has led to 19,500 subsidies being utilized to help formally homeless households. Of Homeless Individuals today would be greater. An additional 5000 projectbased vouchers for permanent support of housing. Within two years, half of them will be utilized in nearly 40 of resources to people experiencing homelessness. The 36,165 people experiencing homelessness in the city based on the 2019 count, there are 18,000 households on the voucher waitlist. Of 2017, 188,000 households registered for us for assistance. The number has been reduced to 20,000. Via lottery process per 51,000 foreholds on the weightless Public Housing. 250,000 households are looking for hope. Up with a demand without Additional Resources from the federal government. Thatneed more vouchers with appropriate funding levels in the los angeles area. To utilize 93 of the vouchers. Average rental payments have increased by 20 over the last four years. Continued increases in the rent market, the voucher holders have dropped or remains the same. The average annual income for is 15,000,icipants or 1412 per month. Published faird market rent for a onebedroom apartment in los angeles is 1384 per month. Costsality is the rental are high and income costs are low. Thus the 3 availability and rental units and findin