Housing for the 21st Century Act
Floor Speech
Mr. Cleaver, along with Mr. Flood, worked hard to reauthorize and reform HOME, which is in this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6644, the Housing for the 21st Century Act.
I certainly applaud Ranking Member Waters and Chairman Flood for working together and for the inclusiveness of this package. I am proud to have five affordable housing bills included in this overwhelmingly bipartisan package.
One of my bills makes key provisions to the HOME program at HUD to ease compliance for small properties and to recognize community land trusts as eligible HOME fund recipients.
The package also expands foreclosure mitigation counseling to delinquent borrowers and raises the public welfare investment, or PWI, cap to 20 percent to free up capital for historic investments in affordable housing and community development.
Among other community bank reforms, H.R. 6644 includes my bill to modernize the treatment of reciprocal deposits to help small- and mid- size banks, like Fifth Third Bank, Huntington Bank, KeyBank, improve liquidity and better compete for large accounts.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, it includes a measure that I have long championed in Congress, a bill to codify the financial agent mentor- protege program at the Treasury to help small banks and minority deposit institutions, or MDIs, survive. We also have one AdelFi bank in my district, and I thank them for all the work that they have done with that. It will also help them survive and thrive.
Lastly, again, I thank Ranking Member Waters and Chairman Hill for their leadership on this package, and I urge my colleagues to support the package.
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Mrs. BEATTY.
H.R. 6644 represents an important first step, a strong bipartisan one, in our fight to ensure affordable, decent housing for everyone in America. It provides a critical foundation for us to end the affordable housing and homelessness crisis.
This bill would update and improve existing Federal housing programs by expanding local development opportunities and modernizing existing housing programs in communities across the country. It will also support community financial institutions to meet the housing needs in their communities.
I am pleased to advance this legislation to the floor with Ranking Member Waters, Chairman Hill, Mr. Flood, and Mr. Cleaver, and I am proud that it includes 20 housing provisions and five banking provisions championed by committee Democrats. This bill is a true testament, Mr. Speaker, to bipartisanship.
I, again, urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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