Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the introduction of Senate legislation to help us deal with the affordable housing crisis in the United States of America.

Many of my colleagues know how pervasive this problem is. Not only is affordable housing a crisis, but the homeless population that results from not having enough housing stock in the United States of America is also a crisis and ends up costing us more money to deal with the same population.

This is not a new issue. It is not a new problem. We have been trying to fight to address this issue in the U.S. Senate and to deal with the affordable housing crisis for years, but the magnitude of the problem is getting worse. We need to respond by helping to increase supply. That is because we have so many demographic trends which we see in report after report citing and documenting what is happening in the United States of America.

We have an ever-increasing senior population that is living longer and baby boomers reaching retirement, many of whom need more affordable housing than there is in the marketplace.

We have returning veterans from our overseas missions who are coming home and who also need affordable housing.

We need workforce housing. Many parts of the United States of America have had great economic success but have not kept pace with the amount of housing stock, and, thus, the supply and pricing has resulted in astronomical challenges to provide affordable housing within a region that doesn't leave people driving hours a day just to commute to their jobs.

We have the remnants of our economic crisis during the great recession that left so many people without affordable housing and the fact that we did not keep pace with supply.

Over the last 2 years, I have worked with many organizations at the national level and participated in the announcement of many reports done by practically every institution of any significance in the United States. They all came to the same conclusion: We need to increase supply.

That is why I am introducing the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Improvement Act of 2019, along with my colleagues Senator Young of Indiana, Senator Isakson of Georgia, and Senator Wyden of Oregon, to strengthen and improve the affordable tax credit that we already have in place. My colleagues in the House--Representatives DelBene, Marchant, Beyer, and Walorski--are also introducing companion legislation today.

We did make progress in the last Congress in increasing the affordable tax credit. This tax credit helps provide resources for 90 percent of the federally-funded affordable housing that is built in the United States of America. That is because it takes the tax credit to incent people to build at this more affordable rate.

I have always said to my colleagues that I am willing to consider any other ideas that we have to increase affordable housing and will work with anybody to increase supply in the United States, and I am open to any ideas. But until we have ideas that are more successful than this, I am going to continue to push the affordable housing tax credit and push to increase the supply of the tax credit so that we can increase the supply of affordable housing.

We have a housing crisis in the State of Washington. It doesn't matter whether you are in Spokane or Walla Walla or Yakima or Vancouver. Our urban areas feel it the most and are most pinched. It causes problems for our law enforcement. It causes problems for our healthcare delivery system. It causes problems for our transportation system. The way out of this problem is to build more affordable housing.

Increasing the amount of tax credit by 50 percent over the next 10 years will give our States, our cities, and our counties more resources to build affordable housing. It will also provide stability in the value of affordable housing tax credits used in the bond finance markets and place a 4-percent floor under the credit. This gives more certainty to those who are building housing and producing it and rehabilitating that in the market.

It also maximizes the availability of the private activity bonds by recycling any multifamily bonds that are used along with housing credits to build affordable housing. Together, these steps would help us build hundreds of thousands of new units of affordable housing over the next 10 years.

In my State and other States, it would mean that we would see a 50- percent increase in the amount of credit available over the next 10 years. That is so important because each housing project that is built takes more people out of the dire situations they are in, takes the vulnerable population and gives them the opportunity to move forward.

It also saves us dollars. The Senate Finance Committee has heard time and again from those testifying--whether it is the homebuilders or the health insurance industry--that it is more costly to deal with this population while they are homeless. That is to say, you can't deliver job training to a tent. And somebody who doesn't have proper home and a stable place to live is more likely to show up in our healthcare delivery system, costing us more money.

This legislation will also make it easier for formerly homeless students to also get help from the affordable housing tax credit under current HUD rules of the program.

It also helps those who are protected under the Violence Against Women Act can also qualify for affordable housing as they have in the past.

We know that the challenge of moving forward on affordable housing is something that is a bipartisan issue. The tax credit has had bipartisan support for many, many years in the U.S. Congress. We just need to put the pedal to the metal and provide more of the tax credit so that we can get more affordable housing built in the United States of America.

I hope my colleagues will help by signing on to this legislation, and as we discuss various proposals in the Finance Committee regarding tax policy, I hope my colleagues will help us push to our States and communities more solutions that will deal with this crisis.

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