foundation. this is a little more than an hour. mr. clinton: thank y'all for joining us for the second edition of building an inclusive recovery. i hope wherever you are tuning in from, you are staying healthy and safe. i would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to our sponsors for this session. i want to thank those who have made action. i hope all of you will think about specific ways you and your organizations can make a difference or partner with others to increase your impact. our topic today, the housing crisis, has plagued america long before covid-19. now, it is even more urgent. especially in dense urban areas. without enough affordable housing, they face new challenges from economic impacts of the pandemics. home ownership has long been recognized as one of the most effective and proven solutions to building wealth and financial stability in america. even before the pandemic, homeownership rates for black americans were at an all-time low. latino homeownership is the fastest growing of any group in the nation. but it still lags behind white ownership by more than 24%. many factors have led to these disparities, including a long history of structural racism in housing practices. if we have any hope of closing the racial wealth gap, even before covid had wide ended we will have to close the homeownership gap. the good news is that, whether through smart government policies, we know there proven ways to make the dream of homeownership a reality for more americans of all backgrounds. for example, when i was president, through a number of efforts including the reform of the community reinvestment act home purchase loans for black americans increased by 55%. for latinos by 125%. other federal policies and financial tools like tax credits and power meant zones. or recently opportunity zones. if they are used equitably and in coordination with city governments and communities could be effective in creating more affordable housing and helping provide the necessary resources to revitalize underserved communities. today, you will hear from policymakers, community leaders, and nonprofit leaders who have found effective ways to address the housing crisis. for and during the pandemic. these are proven, people centered approaches. i hope you will find ways to build on them. especially since we have an incoming administration much more committed to partnering and addressing the housing crisis. the time is now to build up the regional and national networks and help us make a big difference as quickly as possible. and to highlight the opportunities where federal support can best advance innovative city and community work. thank you all for being part of that conversation. for our first panel, i am pleased to introduce mayor keisha lance bottoms of atlanta and the ceo of caliber home loans. thank you very much. have mayor lucky to keisha lance bottoms from atlanta and the ceo of caliber home loans. to be with us to discuss where we are and where we should go. mayor. for pledging to invest more than $1 million in the public, private, and philanthropic sources to 20,000 and preserve affordable homes by 2026. first, what did covid do to your project. how are you doing on it? what is going to happen? mayor bottoms: it is an honor to join you. what we saw from covid is amplifying what we were already doing. affordable housing and workforce housing is a challenge. i was reading the biography of maynard jackson. he was the first african-american mayor in atlanta. in his biography he talks about the need for affordable housing in atlanta. it has been fascinating to me that this is still a challenge. we set a very ambitious goal. $500 million in personal investment. we have some very clear metrics and data points that we were trying to get to. we are already about 5000 units in. with covid, what we have seen is there is a need to provide additional assistance. we were able to put in some rental assistance programs. we called for the halting of evictions for our public housing partners. it helped, but our communities were in need before the pandemic. what we have found is these discussions that happen inside of city hall and inside these boardrooms really need to be amplified in our communities. to let people know that there are resources available that can help get them through the pandemic. i have been very pleased that so many people have attempted to assess those resources -- access those resources. atlanta is just one city and a larger metropolitan region. unless all of our partners are operating on the same page, it is going to continue to be a challenge for our state. that is why we need national leadership and guidance. clearly, the need exceeds the city limits. mr. clinton: what is your take on this? you have operations in all of the states. where are we now with the housing challenges as it relates to cities and different racial and ethnic groups? how is what we are doing today you going to affect the economy -- what the post-covid economy looks like. >> thank you for the honor to speak with you. you're one of the largest lenders. the fourth largest non-bank tuition in the country. the most important things, and i have learned this from my experience running the operation of a large bank when the financial crisis happened, this is a ground-level issue. nice to be dealt with at the ground level. we have to thousand people who work in the field at the ground level. when a situation like this happens, with covid, with people . happens, with covid, with people losing jobs, they could eventually lose their home. that is a pattern then needs to be broken. it was broken into thousand eight when we watched forbearance programs across the country. it is almost the opposite of going to a doctor. people actually do not call us when they are in financial distress. it is really important to work with the communities to make sure people know what programs are available. we have a ton of programs across the country. we just don't ask them because folks are unaware of the opportunities available to the. we have spent a lot of time in the last six months educating people about what opportunities are available to them. to help them stay in their homes. our responsibility as lenders is not just helping people buy a home. it is helping them stay in it. right now we are facing a bit of a crisis on the second issue. in terms of helping people keep their homes. on the issue of including african-americans, latinos, and other minorities with more homeownership, our people are actively engaged in employing programs that offer this assistance. the interesting thing in all of this is there have been millions of americans refinancing their mortgages. it is equally interesting to see how many have not been able to take advantage of that. we have been really trying to help people. there are a lot of programs available. the mayor has some great programs in the city of atlanta. we are trying to make sure that we engage people in these assistance programs. we find that there is a vast preponderance of minority groups they have been very successful. i am very encouraged by that. i hope to talk more about it. how we can get more involvement and engagement from the larger lenders in the country. mr. clinton: let's talk about this a little more. it is obvious that in normal times, if people cannot pay their mortgage, some of them have to be foreclosed on. sometimes people make mistakes. sometimes they will not tell you the truth about whether circumstance is. but i cannot be good for you or anyone else have massive foreclosures. then the whole system have been put at risk. i know, mayor, you had a big anti-displacement initiative. tell us a little bit about how atlanta has handled this. mayor bottoms: this was something that began when i was a member of the city council. we were seeing redevelopment and gentrification, many of our residents were being pushed out for not being able to pay the property taxes on their home. along with the complexities of not having proper estate planning in place. no one is caring for these places. we see this as very common in the african-american communities. this was in partnership with many of our nonprofit and corporate partners. in the shadows of the mercedes-benz stadium, in traditionally african-american communities, we put in place a funding mechanism so homeowners could tap into this ending to help pay their rising property taxes. early in my tenure as mayor, we engaged in a development deal to develop a property called the gulch. this was the largest commercial redevelopment in the southeast over the last 30 years. starting to think about, what could we deliver for our communities as an economic benefit. we created an affordable housing trust fund in addition to developing that economic development deal. knowing that there would be challenges on the west side of atlanta with affordable housing. as the city began to grow in different corners, the entire city is impacted. we want some flexibility within and -- antidisplacement zone. we created affordable housing trust fund. it will be about $5 million that goes into that. to allow us to create fees displacement free zones throughout the city. just a drop in the bucket. $5 million sound like a lot, but it is not. it can go very quickly. the challenge we have that we have to do a better job on is the estate planning. i see it with my grandparents home. nobody bothered to establish a will. the kids are responsible for taking care of the home. that is a big challenge because we often have predatory folk coming in to take advantage of people who may have a family home that is paid for. it has been paid for for many years. they offer them $75,000. it sounds like a lot of money but the homemade work -- may be worth $750,000. we need to have the funding in place and educate people on the values of these operative. mr. clinton: thank you. what are you seeing around the country in terms of any new challenges in keeping people in their homes because of covid? are you dealing with it? haditha challenges vary from place to place? >> the single biggest issue right now is we are all kind of waiting for a stimulus bill. it did have a the ignition and impact in the first few months. to give people the confidence to stay in their homes and meet their financial needs. that is something we are feeling on the ground level. i am concerned that while forbearance rates were relatively low during the crisis, delinquency rates are starting to rise. i am particularly concerned about those. they are starting to get into double digits. being with the objective of this forum, i really think there is a call to action to all of us get on this very quickly. my job as a lender is to continue to make sure we are helping every customer stay in their home. we have changed our metric. i urge all bankers and lenders to do the same. not counting how many loans we have saved that how many homes we have saved. we measured how many homes we saved. foreclosure is not good for anyone. the consumer, the bank, and it is terrible for communities. i visited communities in florida and i saw a series of homes being foreclosed. communities and schools were coming apart. it was heart-wrenching. we decided we would educate people on the loan modification program. we are doing the same thing today, educating people. if someone does not contact us, we reach out to them and tell them, did you realize you have this opportunity available to? to help modify their loans. we push payments out to the tail end of their mortgage. whatever it takes, we should keep people in their homes. mr. clinton: you both agree that there should be a second round of stimulus from the federal government to help people get through this? mayor bottoms: i completely agree. this is one of the challenges we are having in atlanta. we were embarking upon a $200 affordable housing bond in the city. we had to foot the brakes on it when covid hit. we still don't know what the impact will be to our city as a whole. it is concerning because the need for housing is not going away. the need for workforce housing is not going away. even these avenues that we were on the verge of making sure we were still pushing forward, we had to stop not necessarily based on where we are now but where we will be in the future. hartsfield jackson airport got $331 million in stimulus money directly to the airport. the city of atlanta is the only city -- state that cap that much funding. we only got $88 million. airport funds are enterprise pond -- funds. we cannot touch that fund. it is paid off. to maintain our city operations. there certainly is a need for the private sector to receive this funding. states and cities across this country are hurting. we do not know what to anticipate because our revenues are continuing to drop. if you are a city under 500,000 residents you did not get the funding directly to your county or the state. >> i totally agree. mr. clinton: what was your reaction to what the mayor said about the lack of knowledge of how the system works, estate planning, home management all of that leads into this affordability challenge? i know you spent a lot of time trying to educate the people who did business with you. you made a commitment here is part of this process to try to do more financial and economic education. talk about that a little bit. how much of a problem will that be? how can we use this coming out of covid, it is not too sick to -- shouldn't you talk about that. we know we have a couple of vaccines that will work even though they can be widely distributed until next year ar.a how important is it to make sure we have people who are empowered by economic literacy to make good decisions in the recovery process? >> i completely agree with what mayor bottoms just said about the generational planning. when we were doing work with the african-american community, it is one thing to educate people on literacy and financial literacy. it is another thing to actually show people if they do not really understand, and they do not pass on that soft skill to the next generation, it becomes a generational issue. these are things, whether we like it or not, we learn from our previous generation. this is not a lesson that will be passed on to the next generation. as one of good homeownership unless there is a very strong culture of repair and resurrection. i feel very strongly not just about financial literacy but helping people stay here homes to realize the value of responsibility. the value of saving. how do you show people that you can actually start with something small? start to save? create a culture of saving and repaying? before you get into more credit? i feel it is pretty highly -- particularly important for minority communities to understand that. and for us as lenders to teach it. i can blame it all on the government. but i do think individual lenders own it. i feel very strongly about one other issue. financial inclusion. housing inclusion is very strongly linked to employment. it is not only our responsibility as lenders, but it is also important for us as employers to bring people back into the work orders. that is something for us to next -- in the coming 12-24 months. we all own this responsibility. mr. clinton: i want to give both of you a chance to say anything you would like before we wrap up. let's look at where we are the black community in terms of homeownership has not recovered fully from the 2008 crisis. if you look at the long pattern, homeownership among black americans is almost 20% lower than it was the day i left office 20 years ago. we had really dramatically expanded it when i was there. it is higher among latinos now, largely because many of them are first-time homeowners. and don't have the legacy issues that mayor bottoms is talking about in her own and other families. but we really need to -- if we are going to grow together, and everyone is willing to work hard and has access to capital, we are going to have to examine the problems we are bringing to the dance here, and try to have adequate structural responses. so, i would like to give you a chance to answer that. the other thing i want you to talk about briefly is an issue that is being debated in new york a lot, which is should we just accept the fact that for young single people, there is so much more mobility, even young families, that we should be make provisions for -- you may do more homebuilding, but more long-term renters? is that a good or a bad thing? we did a lot of section eight housing vouchers when i was president. and at least in the short term, it had a very positive impact by allowing economic integration so poor people could live in middle-class neighborhoods and their kids could go to school together. there were a lot of studies at the time that it increased economic mobility for the low-income people, including black and other racial minority kids. all of this needs to be thought about as we go forward. i will give you a chance to say whatever you want to say about that. should we think more about how to provide for rental properties in mixed-income neighborhoods? should we have a different approach to people, as mayor bottoms said, who are stuck with legacy issues and those who are afraid to make a fresh start? -- who are at least free to make a fresh start? what kind of government policies do you want to come out of this? the other thing i would like to give you a chance to comment on is do you believe the repeal of state and local tax to the actions, even though it has an exemption for lower-income people, has hurt them because it is undermining the resources that cities have to integrate them and states have to integrate them into the larger economy? those are my questions. you can close with whatever you would like to say. mayor? mayor bottoms: as you both know, this is a very complex issue. to give an example, my grandparents were grandchildren of people who were once enslaved. even the notion of homeownership was fairly new to our family. we are not that far removed in many of our families, despite the fact that i am sitting here as mayor of atlanta. there is that education component. i agree, it is incumbent upon all of us to make sure people have programs and access to resources, because it really builds on top of each other. we recently had a homeownership repair program. well, if you did not have clear title to the home, you could not access these free resources to repair the home that is in disrepair that then makes you likely to get someone is offering you a few thousand dollars for your house, but you don't take the money because you don't have the money to repair it. it is this kind of chicken-and-egg situation we are dealing with in our city. on top of that, the education piece is a huge component. even in these areas where we have affordable housing and workforce housing, it is still a challenge because our schools are lagging behind. my neighborhood is a great example. my husband is a corporate executive. i am the mayor. i live in a neighborhood that has not recovered from the 2008 crisis. i still owe more on my home than its value. schools in my neighborhood rank pretty much at the bottom of our public schools. that is a challenge. we have to address it. we cannot address one or the other. we have to address it comprehensively. just in terms of how we have approached it in atlanta, over the past few months, one of the silver linings of covid, i have had an opportunity to move faster and be creative with things coming out of my administration, because people know we have to deliver quickly to our community. it is not getting bogged down in the debates we see where we are trying to push to things through legislatively. we are looking at our zoning code. in an effort with new york with younger people moving closer to home, moving back home, we are relaxing some of our zoning code. if i have a single-family home, you can now build another structure in the backyard. e something for your kids who have now moved back home. we try to be very thoughtful and creative. legislative pieces that go along with that, etc., they have got to try to support what we are doing in our studies. we know our communities and needs better than anyone. mr. clinton: thank you. that was fascinating. >> mr. president, i would say the workforce is changing. it is becoming more mobile. we are relying a lot on the new digital age. the construct of homeownership is changing a little bit. i realize that if we define homeownership more broadly as shelter, we think about it differently. we think about renting and homeownership in the context of providing shelter. i feel that there is a bridge between the two in terms of rent-to-own. some of those programs are quite successful in different parts of the world. the private sector is trying it in the u.s. i think that the ability to have mobility and yet create stability, which is what people tend to want to buy a home so they can create stable homes and stable communities, there is something appealing about it. that is a very important thing for us. i will go back to my fundamental premise. i am really fascinated by this urge to action. this call to action on ownership. i really think there are three things that come in the way of affordability. i think it is people not understanding the number of down-payment programs available to them, not thinking about credit availability, and affordability is becoming an issue because of the lack of supply. i come back to the fundamental concept of saying, let's keep teaching people how to own homes and become financially literate. mr. clinton: thank you. thank you, mayor. this was a great session. i am looking forward to what happens the rest of the day. but i wish you well and i thank you for what you are trying to do, both of you. sanjiv: thank you, mr. president. ? mr. clinton: thank you, and i want to thank julian castro and maurice jones for joining us today to talk about the housing crisis, where we are, where we are going. castro, all, secretary before the covid crisis happened, we had various and persistent inequalities in housing that were made worse by the 2008 crash from which we had not fully recor recovered, at least in terms of economic inclusion. what is your brief take on what the state of affordable housing in america is today? mr. castro: mr. president, thank you so much for having me today and the work of the clinton foundation. it is great to be with marie's. -- maurice. you are doing fantastic work. it, had to d describe we have an affordable housing crisis out there in many communities. that preceded covid-19. coming into 2020, what we had was a homeownership rate that was still lower than it had been for most of the last 20 years. it never fully recovered from the great recession, particularly in communities of color. black homeownership rates had been decimated after the great recession. it was just beginning to climb back up. rents spiking in communities big and small throughout the united states. every few years, hud does a worst-case housing needs assessment to determine the number of households across the united states -- these are folks who are renters who are making less than 50% of the median income and are paying more than 50% of their income on rent every month or live in severely inadequate housing, or both of those things. in 2017, there were 7.7 million households that fit that description. mind you, this was a few hundred thousand better than the 2015 assessment. muchtill overall, it was worse than we had seen pre-great recession. on top of that, even though we saw during the obama administration a temper sent or overall0% or 11% decrease in homelessness, we started to see homelessness take up.ick back we have seen a challenge in our country with supply that is affordable to lower-income and middle-class families, and the ability of families to access decent housing throughout our country. mr. clinton: so, maurice, what has been done during covid to minimize the problem, at least keep it from getting worse? maurice: i echo the secretary's thanks, mr. president, for having us. we have been providing direct cash assistance to community-based organizations who are in turn providing that cash assistance to individuals. using thoseare funds to pay rent, pay utilities, to buy food, etc. simply,piece of this is we need more cash assistance going directly to individuals. use trusted community groups in order to do that. secondly, what we have been trying to do is continue to invest in housing initiatives we have going on around the country. and continuing to aggregate capital to do it. for example, we launched over a fund in the san francisco bay area, which has some of the least affordable housing in the country. when we started, had a gap in affordable housing somewhere to , intune of 500,000 units terms of what the demand was and what the actual supply was. well, we partnered with the san francisco foundation, ford foundation, j.p. morgan chase, facebook. we launched a $500 million fund for housing in that region, housing that would range from being affordable for folks who are on the verge of homelessness, earning about 30% of the median income, all the way to the missing middle. we made sure we were able to raise capital for this fund. and that we continued to invest in nonprofit partners and developers who were preserving and producing new supply here. we have done that in san francisco, detroit, charlotte. we are trying to, apropos to the secretary's piece we have an incredibly undersupplied -- let me put it another way, we have an oversupply of luxury family housing in the country. no problem with that. we have an undersupply of affordable housing for our workers and others. we have tried to continue to invest in efforts locally around the country that are trying to get at that problem. it is one of america's biggest challenges come in our eyes. clinton: secretary castro, i know you agree with what he said. but what should our policy be? back in the dark ages when i was in office, trying to end disparities in homeownership and use hud policy to promote economic mobility -- for example, one of the most successful things we did, beginning on th under your predecessor as mayor of san antonio and continuing under andrew cuomo, governor of new york, section eight housing vouchers. we were able to move people around in response to the evidence that if low-income families also had secure housing in and around middle-income people, their kids would do better in school and they were more likely to generate more income and more mobility. but where are we now with all of that? i know -- if we could start with homelessness come if you want. i know in atlanta the black family foundation did some things to try to reduce homelessness. i know there is an effort in pittsburgh. i know several other efforts, and you mentioned san francisco. i know the problems in los angeles. what should we do about it? mr. castro: i think we have a lot in the toolbox. some of those are tried and true, some of them are newer but show a lot of promise. when it comes to homelessness, for instance, one of the most effective policy approaches over the last years has been a housing-first approached him instead of making sure people jump through a hoop. you actually put them in there and give them that opportunity. that helps stabilize a person and a family and helps them address other issues and challenges they might have. as you know, president-elect --en has a 600 $40 billion $640 billion plan on housing. one of the things that is included is universalizing voucher program. your administration, the obama administration made tremendous efforts when it came to advocating for an trying to expand housing choice vouchers in our country. for good reason, because thousands of people are on waiting lists across the country. president-elect biden has said, why don't we universalize this so that if you meet a certain threshold in terms of your income, you can actually get the housing choice voucher? that would make housing a lot were affordable for a lot of families. suggestedas you gives aarch has shown, benefit to giving people more ability to live in higher-opportunity neighborhoods, if that is their choice. people should have the option to live where they want to live. there are proposals which are innovative for a refundable tax credit that could be used towards homeownership as down towardsassistance or renting. this would be the first time in a meaningful way we invest in renters through our tax code. we have the mortgage interest deduction. over the years people have made different suggestions on how we could modify that and invest more of that in renters. this would do both of those things and give the american family the option. if you want to become a homeowner, it makes that easier. ranch combat to makes it more affordable as well. i think this is a good approach. mr. clinton: do you agree? maurice: i do. i do think that is a great approach. additionally, the federal government has a huge opportunity to be a stronger, more robust partner. with a lot of great initiatives that are already going on on the wasnd, as secretary castro saying, and the federal government is mia to some extent right now. you know, i'm looking at -- for example, i mentioned the bay area. california and other places are using cares act dollars and other dollars now to attempt to reposition hotels that are vacant or going out of business for housing units for folks who that are homeless. we've got the ability to reposition real estate all servehe country to better homeless folks, to better serve people who are at 60% of their area median income. if the federal government works more closely with state and local government and nonprofit developer infrastructure out there doing this work. one big opportunity is to really , really have the federal government leveraging the various players that really need to come to work on this issue if we are going to do it at scale. i think it is a huge opportunity. i am optimistic that we are at a -- probably naively optimistic, that we are at a juncture to choose again to have that kind of teamwork and work at the scale we will have to do. otherwise, we will not have the supply necessary to really, reducein a long-term way and/or eliminate this all over -- our homelessness population over the country. mr. clinton: thank you. just building on that, i think for most of my life, anyway, most people saw homeownership as a critical step in building any kind of wealth and embedded savings. the loss of homeownership has led to an increase in the wealth .ap since the collapse in 2008 as julian said, we have tried to rebuild it. i personally believe the obama administration did a good job. with the tools they had and what congress would give them in overcoming that. looking ahead to the post-covid economy, you seem to agree that there should be flexibility in government support for homeownership and renting. because especially for younger people, they don't know how many times they're going to have to move. they don't know if they will have enough jobs, let's say in new york. i have a nephew working in new there, i know all about it. i would like you to talk a little bit about that, whether in the post-covid era we are in a position to know if we will be shooting for 75% or more of homeownership, or if we may have an economy that is so ordered at the roots that we have to have more renting, at least in the midterm. you want me to start? oh, sorry about that. i still believe homeownership is a worthy, laudable goal. when i got to hud as secretary, i got there during this period when we were just climbing out of the great recession. things had stabilized to a large extent. there was this reflexive hesitancy to embrace homeownership because of the housing crisis in this narrative in the mind of policymakers and people across the country that the entire housing crisis was caused by people taking out loans that were too much for them to pay back. that was a narrative that was furthered by republicans that wanted to pin all of the blame on individuals and hard-working theicans instead of some of banks and institutions that i think deserve more of the blame. i said very early on that we had to end the stigma of promoting homeownership. we had to get back to this value balance of understanding the value of homeownership. i do believe there is a significant value there. at the same time, this generation is different. they are waiting longer to get married, buy a home. covid has introduced a new level of uncertainty that none of us in our lifetime have grappled with. i do think you need to provide policy so people can be opportunistic when it comes to owning or renting a property. this approach i mentioned that president-elect biden has embraced of a refundable tax credit that will let you do either one, that is a smart move right now. we continue to see homeownership as valuable and i believe promoted, but at the same time, people have an option who are living in a different world that even 10 years ago, 20 years ago. give them what they need as well. look, i i think i am -- think if we are going to have materially attack the racial, health, wealth, and opportunity gap in america, homeownership has to be one of the centerpiece strategies. no ifs, ands, or buts about it. we have to do better. the homeownership rate of african-americans is around 40% or so. i think the homeownership rate of whites in the country is close to 30% greater. maybe a little over 30%. i think the gap is about the same with respect to latinos and whites. towe are looking at trying to promote and advance intergenerational wealth, you can't do it in a scalable fashion without homeownership one of your primary strategies. i think we have to get much more ambitious as a country, private sector and public sector, with down payment assistance, forgivable loans, with ongoing housing counseling and financial repairy counseling, with , financial and policy tools, with things like trying to make the cost of construction of a house much less than it is now. manufactured housing is a strategy that needs to be used. i think this is one of the commitments i would love to see the country make. public sector and private sector . if we are going to get at the wealth challenges, homeownership is still one of the most powerful tools. let's put an ambitious spot on the wall to close the gap in the next 10 years. and let's go for it. i know we can do it. moon,e put people on the we've got spacex going to the space station. let's have the same ambitious agenda regarding homeownership. that is what i would like to see us commit to. mr. clinton: you know, when i was working as a private citizen in the aftermath of katrina in new orleans, one of the most rewarding things we did was support a group who were rebuilding in the lower ninth ,ard, very poor area environmentally responsible homes, with materials that were more resilient and affordable. with a real commitment to reducing the carbon footprint. know, more than momcade ago we had a single from the neighborhood who had gotten a home that had two stories. three little bedrooms. she had two kids. they just got their electric bill for july. which was the hottest july on record that point. it was $27. $27 because of the environmental savings built into it. one of the things i think can be done to increase employment and make this whole thing a real winner for poor families and people with lower to middle income says to incorporate an aggressive energy efficiency and smart materials at the whole works into whatever is done. we have only scratched the surface of what we can do. this would be virtually self funding if we did it with the maximum technological -- scientific commitment to what we know of the technologies that work. i am glad to see that neither one of you is for easing up on homeownership. i think if the people decide to walk away from it because the in new york working or san antonio or you name it it or you know, require don't make it attractive anymore, that is one thing. but right now we still do not have under the current economic system any other way to help working folks amass wealth. at least i do not think there is a valuable, comparable alternative. i think we have to keep it out there. again i want to say a special , word of thanks. you have been at this for more than 40 years now. it is astonishing what you do. i was amazed when this whole crisis came up. i did not think of you through housing as much as i did getting money to people who needed to stay alive. that is the rest of our job. thank you very much. i guess the last thing i would want to say, what would you say to people watching this conversation? what can -- if some businessperson watched this conversation, some ordinary citizen watches this conversation, what should we all be doing to help further the mission to which you've given your lives? >> mr. secretary, i'll defer to you. >> yeah, well, there's so much. obviously there are a lot of businesses and private individuals that contribute a lot to organizations habitat for , humanity, or any other organizations doing phenomenal work to provide more housing opportunities. but if it came down to a simple level -- as you know, mr. president, one of the big challenges with housing is it's not the most glamorous issue. people don't put it right up there in terms of the issues that they say they care about the most or that need to be addressed urgently. at the same time, and you actually have conversations with families out there, the housing is one of the biggest issues that a lot of families face, everywhere almost. and so if i have one request for folks it would be use your voice and your platform to make this an issue that your policymakers not only pay attention to and care about, but do something about. and that's especially true for the business community, making that link to creating greater housing opportunities because that is good for business, as well, in so many different ways. it's a simple request, but i think one that is frustratingly elusive because every time that we know there's a big challenge here on housing, but it never gets the attention or the investment that it deserves. and only through more voices, using their influence to bear on policymakers, will that ever change. because unfortunately, people who need this housing opportunity don't have lobbyists in washington. they are not the loudest voices out there but the need still exists. >> i think i would take, mr. president and secretary, we're in a moment right now in the country, a moment where i think the country is better recognizing, or i should say is more woke to the fact that one of the greatest threats to our democracy is the racial wealth health and opportunity gap. , you can do something about it. i'm going to give you an unabashed ad here. we are launching a project we call project 10x. it is an effort to raise $1 billion, about $100 million in grants, $900 million in low to no cost loans. we're going to do four things with that money. situational to get wealth, health, and opportunity gap. we're going to invest in homeownership and small business ownership. that's one thing. secondly, we're going to invest in helping people, people of color, bipoc individuals, helping with savings, credit, and access to banks, with a particular focus on actually investing in black-led banks and credit unions and bipoc led banks and credit unions. thirdly, we're going to use that capital to leverage good jobs, make loans in exchange for the businesses hiring latinx folks and black folks and playing them good wages and benefits. and fourthly, wealth creation. education, arts, broadband, safety and justice, and health. we can give the businesses and the individuals a vehicle right now to do something about this, and my hope is that people recognize the fierce urgency of now, at this moment, when we've got a health pandemic, a recession, and a racial reckoning, and decide to be bold and ambitious. and join our effort or join other efforts. it doesn't matter. but now is the time to actually invest in trying to close these gaps because i think it's the greatest challenge to the american democratic project that is still underway. my hope is that people will join. i will say i've been really encouraged by what i've seen, particularly in the private sector, since march. however, this is not a summer of 2020 endeavor. this has to be -- we are calling this 10x because we need you for the next 10 years at least. mr. clinton: i completely agree. i think that you cannot either overestimate or underestimate the significance of the political climate. but what people are really saying is they -- if we're going to go forward together, we're going to have not just political inclusion, but economic inclusion and social inclusion. and it can't just be a slogan for a day or a week or an election. it's got to be a way of doing business. with your neighbors and with the community and the country at large. so, thank you. i think you both so much. and let's keep at it. >> thank you. thank you both. appreciate it. stay well. ♪ >> today is q with author into on his bookpolzer "the president versus the press." going back to george washington. watch q&a today at 70 5 p.m. eastern here on c-span. with joe biden as president-elect, stay with c-span of live coverage of the election assess and transition of our. c-span. your unfiltered view of politics. ♪ tonight remarks from president clinton on affordable housing in the racial wealth gap. he spoke at an event hosted by the clinton foundation. it airs tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. right after that, interviews with current members of congress on race and gender equity issues. that event was held virtually by the hill and started 9:10 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> the u.s. supreme court hears oral arguments in trump v new york on monday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. the court will hear of president trump has the authority to exclude undocumented individuals living in the u.s. from the census apportionment. listen to the oral argument live at 10:00 a.m. eastern monday on c-span, on demand at c-span.org, or on the c-span radio app. tuesday, treasury secretary steven mnuchin and jerome powell testified before the senate banking committee to provide an update on emergency measures to provide relief from the economic downturn triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. watch live coverage tuesday on c-span3, on demand at c-span.org , or listen live on the c-span radio app. next, washington post columnist george will talks about the trump presidency and the future of the republican party. mr. will is a former republican who changed his voter registration to unaffiliated in the first year of the trump administration. this is an hour. an hour. >> we are thrilled tonight to welcome back the distinguished george will, who will be in conversation with -- i am sorry, i am sure you have won many awards, i cannot be sure which ones. i welcome you on behalf of our leadership, caroline kelly, david layer, the leadership team of jews united for democracy of justice, and democracy advocates inc., the creators of this series. thank you to our many wonderful sponsors. temple isaiah, stephen weiss temple, israelh hollyw

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