<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:23852.wais]
THE NEW YORK CITY EXPERIENCE: HOW HAS THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK
GRANT PROGRAM SHAPED THE BIG APPLE?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERALISM
AND THE CENSUS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 25, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-77
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
JON C. PORTER, Nevada BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia Columbia
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ------
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina (Independent)
------ ------
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Federalism and the Census
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio, Chairman
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
------ ------
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
John Cuaderes, Staff Director
Shannon Weinberg, Counsel
Jon Heroux, Counsel
Juliana French, Clerk
Adam Bordes, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 25, 2005.................................... 1
Statement of:
Bloomberg, Michael R., mayor, city of New York............... 9
Butts, Rev. Dr. Calvin, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist
Church; Chris Kui, executive director of Asian Americans
for Equality; and Dr. Ingrid Gould Ellen, associate
professor of public policy and urban planning at the New
York University Furman Center for Real Estate.............. 65
Butts, Rev. Dr. Calvin................................... 65
Ellen, Dr. Ingrid Gould.................................. 89
Kui, Chris............................................... 80
Towery, F. Carlisle, president of the Greater Jamaica
Development Corp.; Ronay Menschel, chairman of the Board of
the Phipps Houses; Mark Willis, executive vice president of
community development programs at JPMorgan Chase; and
Andrew Reicher, executive director of the Urban
Homesteading Assistance Board.............................. 30
Menschel, Ronay.......................................... 37
Reicher, Andrew.......................................... 49
Towery, F. Carlisle...................................... 30
Willis, Mark............................................. 42
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Bloomberg, Michael R., mayor, city of New York, prepared
statement of............................................... 12
Butts, Rev. Dr. Calvin, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist
Church, prepared statement of.............................. 71
Ellen, Dr. Ingrid Gould, associate professor of public policy
and urban planning at the New York University Furman Center
for Real Estate, prepared statement of..................... 91
Kui, Chris, executive director of Asian Americans for
Equality, prepared statement of............................ 83
Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York, prepared statement of............... 98
Menschel, Ronay, chairman of the Board of the Phipps Houses,
prepared statement of...................................... 39
Reicher, Andrew, executive director of the Urban Homesteading
Assistance Board, prepared statement of.................... 52
Towery, F. Carlisle, president of the Greater Jamaica
Development Corp., prepared statement of................... 33
Turner, Hon. Michael R., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Ohio, prepared statement of................... 5
Willis, Mark, executive vice president of community
development programs at JPMorgan Chase, prepared statement
of......................................................... 44
THE NEW YORK CITY EXPERIENCE: HOW HAS THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK
GRANT PROGRAM SHAPED THE BIG APPLE?
----------
MONDAY, JULY 25, 2005
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Federalism and the Census,
Committee on Government Reform,
New York, NY.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
the Sixth Floor Gymnasium of the Thurgood Marshall Academy,
200-214 West 135th Street, New York, NY, Hon. Michael R. Turner
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Maloney, Rangel, and Turner.
Staff present: John Cuaderes, staff director: Juliana
French, clerk; and Adam Bordes, minority professional staff
member.
Mr. Turner. Good morning. I want to welcome you to the
Subcommittee on Federalism and the Census and our hearing today
on, ``The New York City Experience: How has the Community
Development Block Grant Program Shaped the Big Apple?'' A
quorum being present of the subcommittee, this subcommittee
will come to order.
Before I go into my written remarks, I want to thank the
mayor and his staff for an excellent tour today that we had of
Harlem and the wonderful community development activities that
are going on here. Although this hearing is about CDBG and the
funding that the Federal Government provides, we know that this
story is really the fabric of communities and the discussion of
community development.
Community development is about changing the places that we
live and changing the lives of the people that live there. We
have seen those examples today of people taking leadership in
their communities and with Federal assistance being able to
garner resources and to change their communities.
I want to thank Congressman Rangel for having us here in
his district today. We know you must be very proud of the
things that the community here has accomplished I am certain
with the aid of your leadership and we are very excited to see
those examples today.
I also want to thank Congresswoman Maloney for suggesting
this hearing. She suggested this hearing not only because of
her commitment to the CDBG Program but because of her intimate
knowledge of the excellent accomplishments here and the fact
that if we look at this Federal program and we look for
accomplishments that we knew we could find them here in New
York City. I appreciate her leadership and having us here.
I would like to welcome you all to the Subcommittee on
Federalism and the Census Field Hearing entitled, ``The New
York City Experience: How has the Community Development Block
Grant Program shaped the Big Apple?'' This is a followup to
three hearings the subcommittee has held in Washington, DC, and
the second field hearing held on the topic of CDBG.
As a former mayor I understand that in order to comprehend
the benefits and shortcomings of national programs, one should
go to where the real action takes place. Field hearings allow
us to do just that, to reach out to you and hear your views,
your concerns, and your suggestions.
As most of you here today are aware, CDBG is one of the
largest Federal direct block grant programs currently in
existence for use by local governments. State and local
governments use CDBG moneys to fund various housing, community
development, neighborhood revitalization, economic development,
and public service provision projects.
For over 30 years the CDBG Program has been a critical tool
in the arsenal of cities to help create livable communities for
individuals and families. Without question the program provides
vital funds for addressing poverty and other community
development needs. That is why I have worked hard this year
along with my colleagues in Congress to ensure that the CDBG
Program continues to receive a funding level similar to
previous fiscal years.
Nevertheless, in recent months the effectiveness of the
program has been called into question. Much of this scrutiny
has been related to the mechanisms used for delivering CDBG
funds to grantees and whether those grantees have ultimately
spent those funds in the most effective way.
For this reason this subcommittee has come here to hear how
you here in Harlem and elected officials and community leaders
at the local level have used these funds and how your citizens
have benefited from the CDBG Program. We are interested in
learning from you what works in the program but also what does
not.
I am very pleased with the response to this hearing,
especially the number and quality of witnesses seeking to
testify today. It is this kind of response that makes it great
to be back in New York City, especially in Harlem. On two
occasions last year I had the opportunity to visit this great
community. The first was with Congressman Chris Shays as part
of a community development tour organized by living cities to
see the successes of their programs.
On my second visit to Harlem I had the opportunity to honor
a number of Youth Action/YouthBuild students from my district,
a program sponsored by the original Youth Action Program and
Homes Program founded and located here in Harlem. It is because
of this past experience and the presence of our distinguished
panelists today that I am excited about this hearing. I know
that it will be a tremendous success because of the experiences
and successes that each of the members can bring to this panel.
With that said, I would like to express my appreciation to
the city of New York and to Mayor Bloomberg and to the Thurgood
Marshall Academy for hosting us today. I would also like to
thank my friend and colleague Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and
the Honorable Charles Rangel.
I understand we also need to thank Dr. Calvin Butts who
assisted us in arranging for this location today and, of
course, the principal of Thurgood Marshall, Dr. Sandy Johnson.
Our first panel consists of the distinguished mayor of this
great city, Michael Bloomberg. I want to thank him again for
his leadership and his efforts. I know, mayor, you must be very
proud of your city and the things that you are accomplishing in
the area of community development. Certainly your community is
responding and your leadership is appreciated as we look to the
great things that are happening in your communities and
neighborhoods.
Our second panel of witnesses consist of four
representatives from the city of New York Development
Community. They are F. Carlisle Towery, president of the
Greater Jamaica Development Corp.; Ms. Ronay Menschel, chairman
of the Board of the Phipps Houses; Mark Willis, executive vice
president of Community Development Programs at JPMorgan Chase;
and Andrew Reicher, executive director of the Urban
Homesteading Assistance Board.
Finally, our last panel we have three distinguished
witnesses and they are Dr. Calvin Butts, Pastor, who we
recognized earlier; Mr. Chris Kui, executive director of Asian
Americans for Equality; and Dr. Ingrid Gould Ellen, associate
professor of public policy and urban planning at the New York
University Furman Center for Real Estate. I look forward to
their expert testimony today.
I now yield to the distinguished gentleman and long-time
Member of Congress from the 15th District of New York, the
Honorable Charles Rangel for any opening remarks that he wishes
to make.
Mr. Rangel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are fortunate to
have a former mayor at such an important subcommittee and my
community thanks you for coming here. I want to thank Carolyn
Maloney. Without her strong suggestion as to having our great
community selected we probably would have been lost in the
South Bronx some place.
I think we really want you to take back to Washington, Mr.
Chairman, the exciting enthusiasm of a community that has such
a rich intellectual and cultural history that actually got
bombed out in terms of homelessness, abandoned buildings, empty
lots. Yet, we continue to persevere with people like Calvin
Butts and Percy Sutton and entrepreneurs who came together with
List and Enterprise and being able to have the empowerment
zones and the restoration of the Apollo brought back a
community that once again all of us can feel so proud of.
Kids can go to school and know that they are coming home to
decent surroundings, a place for people to live and go to work
and to be able to bring people back home. It is a thriving,
exciting community and the Federal Government must step up to
the plate to make certain that this rich community remains
affordable to all of our citizens so that they will be able to
enjoy living where they have seen this rebirth of an exciting
community.
I want to thank the mayor and, more specifically, the
chairman of the Housing and Preservation Department. There are
so many ribbon cuttings that we are having in our community
with Calvin Butts, with List, with Mark Willis, with the Addict
Rehabilitation Center, people who have such exciting ideas as
to how they wanted to see a community, and with local, State,
and especially the Federal Government's help was able to
fulfill those dreams.
I hope we can take back to Washington the concept that we
have heard, ``If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' This is a
community that has come back and we want to continue to make
certain that our kids and generations to follow would be able
to enjoy all that they are able to enjoy today.
Thank you, and thank you, Carolyn, for your constant
support, not only for this program but fighting for the city of
New York. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Turner. I now turn to my friend and colleague, the
Honorable Carolyn Maloney, who sits on this subcommittee and
who, as we acknowledged, first proposed the subcommittee come
to New York City. Mrs. Maloney, I yield to you for your opening
comments.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you so much. It is so wonderful to be
home here in Harlem and to see the wonderful work of HPD and of
the community to rehabilitate it. Ten years ago I was on the
city council and spent a lot of time in Harlem. We just came
from a tour. Mr. Mayor, it was unbelievable. Broadhurst used to
be a drug infested crime area.
New housing for families, TIL buildings turned into co-
operatives, the great Apollo helped by CDBG, St. Morris Park
historic district, the parks. The city really is a symbol of
how CDBG can work. Charlie, you must be so proud. What a
wonderful legacy that under your leadership working with others
all this affordable and available housing has come to our
neighborhood.
I tell you, we could not have a better friend than my
colleague Michael Turner who was a mayor for 8 years in Dayton,
OH, so he knows the challenges that mayors face. He knows the
need for a flexible program that confront the needs as they
come forward whether it is combating arson or urban blight or
whatever. He was very instrumental in beating back the attempt
to totally dismantle the CDBG Program and move it to commerce.
Give him a standing ovation because that is important to
our city. I mean it. They tried to cut it and move it and they
tried to cut out the housing component which is the most
important part of the program and this guy helped us put it
back in.
More importantly, he is going to help us save it because
those people who tried to cut it out are going to be coming
back after it. I am very pleased to welcome my constituent and
friend Mayor Bloomberg as one of our witnesses, along with many
colleagues with whom I used to work many years ago. I see you
haven't gone too far in your life. You are still here battling
for affordable, available, quality housing and it is wonderful
to see all of you.
Mr. Mayor, I appreciate very much the attention that your
staff has focused on housing. It is critically important. As
you know, even though we put 60 percent of city money in,
without that 40 percent of Federal support it is very hard to
do the many wonderful renovations and rebuildings and
improvements that literally help people.
I just want to state very seriously that one of the
justifications the administration advanced for eliminating CDBG
as we know it, and as the mayor knows, both mayors know, this
is one of the few block grant programs that are flexible for
communities so that you can use that money in a creative way to
confront whatever the problem is. New York City, I am very
proud of this city, historically has been a leader in coming up
with answers on whatever the problem is.
Regrettably CDBG did not score well on the OMB assessment
rating test. While we supported it and we got it back, we need
to come up with a way to measure the results of CDBG that
demonstrates the benefit it has provided and I hope that we can
work together with the witnesses today to find a scientifically
solid measurement to put up against the administration's test.
Also, because the program remains under-funded while more
and more communities become eligible and apply to it, we face
an ever shrinking pie and that situation will intensify with
the questions of fair share. As representatives of this
community, we each need to make the case for New York City. No
one that has spent any time reviewing the numbers can contest
that New York has significant needs and that the city has
directed a CDBG funding to those who need it most but we need
to make that case as strong as possible.
I wanted to really note the very professional nature of
your staff in Washington, Mr. Mayor. They are able. They are
competent. They get back with research quickly. They are
warriors for New York and we need them. A lot of formula
changes look like they are not going to have a lot of impact
but they mean a great deal of money, sometimes millions, to New
York City and they do an excellent job.
I appreciate your being here very much and the support of
your staff. Charlie, you are the best always. Thank you, Mr.
Turner. We are going to work together to make sure we preserve
it in the next budget, too. Thank you so much.
Mr. Turner. We will now start with the witnesses. Each
witness has kindly prepared written testimony which will be
included in the record of this hearing. Each witness has also
prepared an oral statement summarizing their written testimony.
Witnesses will notice that there is a timer light on the
witness table. The green light indicates that you should begin
your remarks and the red light indicates the time has expired.
In order to be sensitive to everyone's time schedule, we do
ask that witnesses cooperate in limiting their remarks. After
the oral presentations of each panel, the subcommittee will
followup with a question and answer period. It is the policy of
this committee that all witnesses be sworn in before they
testify.
Mr. Mayor, I understand that you have Rob Walsh and Shaun
Donovan with you who will also be answering questions so if the
three of you would please rise for the administration of the
oath.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Michael R. Turner follows:]
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[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Turner. Please let the record reflect that the
witnesses have responded in the affirmative. At this time then
it is my honor again to recognize the mayor of New York City,
Michael Bloomberg. We appreciate your time that you have spent
in preparing for this hearing and also your attendance here
today.
It is important for us to get information from you. We have
had the opportunity to see some of the great successes from
your leadership and we want to hear obviously the ways in which
CDBG and the Federal assistance has contributed to that.
Mayor Bloomberg.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, MAYOR, CITY OF NEW YORK
Mr. Bloomberg. Chairman Turner, thank you. I join
Congresswoman Maloney and Congressman Rangel in welcoming you
and the members of the subcommittee to New York City, and
especially to Harlem. I think when you go out on the streets
you see what can happen when the public and private sectors
work together and whether it is Sheena Wright and Calvin Butts
of Abyssinian Development Corp. or similar groups throughout
the city, you see that when people of good intentions roll up
their sleeves and say, ``Let us not complain.''
Let us not look back but let us go forward, you really can
make a difference. Harlem also offers just excellent proof of
what Federal community development block grants funding can
achieve and continue to accomplish in our city.
Mr. Chairman, as a former mayor yourself, you undoubtedly
appreciate the importance of Federal support for our cities
that permits a high degree of flexibility in discretion at the
local level while also requiring local accountability. That is
federalism at its best. I think it also perfectly describes the
operation of the CDBG Program in New York City. It is why the
program has produced outstanding results in housing and
community development in our city.
This morning here in Harlem you have seen exactly what I am
talking about. Twenty years ago this proud neighborhood was
plagued by the widespread abandonment of housing. My
predecessors at city hall, Mayors Koch, Dinkins, and Guiliani,
used CDBG funds to reverse that trend here and elsewhere in our
city.
The result is that today Harlem, like other New York
neighborhoods that were once on the decline, are now
experiencing a heartening revival. You only have to look at
what has gone on on this street right by Thurgood Marshall
Academy. Just take a look down 125th Street where two new
hotels are being built.
That means that we now have a new challenge, preventing the
displacement of long-term community residents and ensuring that
Harlem and other neighborhoods in our city remain places that
people of all income levels can call home. The adaptability and
local autonomy built into the CDBG Program means that we can
use CDBG funds to do exactly that.
With me today is the commissioner of the city's Department
of Housing, Preservation, and Development, Shaun Donovan. New
York City annually spends about $260 million in CDBG funds and
HPD administers the larger share, roughly 60 percent, of that
sum.
Here in Harlem in Bushwick, in the South Bronx, and
elsewhere in our city, HPD uses community development block
grant funds to help tenants in what were once abandoned city
owned apartment buildings to establish low-income co-ops and,
in this fashion, take part in the great American dream of home
ownership.
We draw on CDBG funds to plan the reuse of former
industrial brownfields in our city for affordable housing
development. A key part of our administration's ambitious plan
to develop and preserve affordable housing for more than
200,000 New Yorkers.
Shaun's team also uses a substantial percentage of CDBG
funds for what they rather prosaically describe as code
enforcement. Let me tell you what code enforcement means in New
York City. When landlords in Harlem or in other communities are
unable to unwilling to make basic emergency repairs in low-
income housing, tenants call our 311 citizen service number for
help.
We then use CDBG funds to ensure that people who have
nowhere else to turn get heat, hot water, and can live in homes
that are safe. We also use CDBG funds for comprehensive
improvement programs for substandard privately owned
residential buildings. Safe, affordable housing is crucial to
the revival of communities like Harlem but so are many other
factors. The genius of the CDBG Program is that it encourages
such robust neighborhood development.
Also with me today is Rob Walsh, the Commissioner of the
New York City Department of Small Business Services. A major
mission of Rob's agency is creating healthy environments for
the businesses that sustain neighborhood life in our
revitalized communities.
As detailed in our written testimony, SBS's neighborhood
Small Business Solution Centers, its storefront renovation
programs, and other initiatives, all of which benefit from CDBG
funding, are helping us realize that goal in Flatbush in
Brooklyn, Hunts Point in the Bronx, and in other communities.
CDBG funds also support daycare centers that help New
Yorkers with children move off the welfare rolls and onto the
job payrolls. They fund the renovations of senior centers
throughout the city. CDBG funds also underwrite the city's
outreach to homeless mentally ill men and women in and around
the Staten Island Ferry terminals.
The CDBG Program is, in short, critical to the people of
New York. When the proposed Federal budget threatened it with
extinction earlier this year, I wrote to congressional leaders
expressing my strong support for preserving this program. I
applaud the action taken by the Senate and the House to
maintain the CDBG Program. I urge you all to increase funding
to at least last year's levels.
Mr. Chairman, like you and other members of this committee,
our administration also believes strongly that CDBG funds must
be spent where they are needed most and that local governments
must be held to stringent standards in their expenditure. We
have promised the people of New York just such efficient,
transparent, and accountable city government and we have
delivered in the administration of these funds as in other
areas.
Let me stress unequivocally that our administration has
zero tolerance for waste, fraud, or other misuse of any public
dollars. What is more, CDBG funding has been highly targeted
and has produced results. As you know, Federal law requires
that a minimum of 70 percent of CDBG funds benefit low-income
people.
In New York City I am happy to say we far exceed that
target. In fact, 93 percent of our CDBG funds benefit low-
income people. Independent research findings and other
testimony that will be presented to you later today will also
describe the economic ripple effect that CDBG funds have in
encouraging nonprofit and private lenders to invest their own
funds in housing and community development.
By supporting our initiatives in affordable housing, small
business development and other areas, CDBG funds have played a
vital role in the revival of our neighborhoods. Because New
York is the Nation's largest city, the one most frequently
visited by tourist from overseas, and a symbol to the world of
how our Nation has bounced back since September 11th, every
American has a stake in helping us continue to write such
success stories.
We look forward to working with this committee to insure
that happens. Now we will be glad to take your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bloomberg follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Mayor, there are two basic criticisms that were
levied against CDBG in the process this year when the proposal
occurred to zero out the budget. One was that the program
lacked specifics in its goals and objectives. The goal and
objective that was cited was that of community development. The
term community development was one that lacked clear definition
and, therefore, it was very difficult to provide any
measurement as to whether or not community development has
occurred.
The second was that the belief that CDBG was a duplication
of other programs, that there were other sources readily
available to cities to seek funding to apply to some of the
programs, projects, some of which you have just described.
Would you talk for a moment about the issue of community
development?
I think someone such as yourself who have worked in the
areas of turning neighborhoods around can certainly speak to
the issue of how can we look at knowing when community
development is occurring that it is something that CDBG can
cause to happen and the act that what other sources you might
look to as a mayor to replace CDBG funds if they weren't
available.
Mr. Bloomberg. Well, it would be very difficult to replace
the funds obviously. The city is always strained by lots of
different objectives and needs. Let me say that I think we are
not an expert on how other cities use CDBG funds so we can
really only talk about ourselves but I think there are ways to
measure the effectiveness of this program. You go out in the
streets and you look for vacant lots, deserted buildings.
If those aren't there, that says people are going and
renovating and moving in, not leaving. They are doing it
because the community is better. You look at the crime
statistics. Communities that are growing have lower crime
because people want to make sure that they have safe
neighborhoods and they understand they are part of police work,
working with the police and having zero tolerance for neighbors
who try to take away their freedoms to go about their business.
Looking at the schools and seeing whether the schools are
getting better, that is another way all of this comes together.
If people have hope and pride in their neighborhoods, if they
think that things are getting better and it is not hopeless, if
they come to the realization that they don't have to settle for
the problems of the past. In fact, in this country they can
make things better. I think you go back and you say that is the
result of a lot of things but CDBG money is clearly a big part
of it.
You want to add something, Shaun? Mark Page is my
commissioner for all the moneys that get distributed, Office of
Management and Budget. Mark.
Mr. Page. I think New York City's budget obviously in the
short-term, I mean, sometimes a little bit more money and
sometimes there is less but overall it is under extreme stress
all of the time in finding resources. The existence of this
program over now decades means that there is an ongoing program
and an ongoing research that can be focused on the community
development and low-cost housing purposes that it served so
well without having to start by competing with every other city
service for the money.
It is actually a continuous source and it can focus on how
best to spend this sum with some confidence that it will go on
which is perhaps why it is so important that Federal funding
continue in this program, that it not become the same kind of
annual competitive process that city services otherwise face.
Mr. Donovan. I think also, just to take a specific example,
when you ask about replacing that funding, if you think about
the In-Rem housing stock that we saw this morning on the tour,
nobody would have predicted when CDBG was begun exactly what
the funding would have been used for.
We were able to respond to that crisis by managing those
properties, the day-to-day how are you going to pay the bills,
who is going to be in those buildings making sure the tenants
are safe. Nobody at that point would have predicted that 10
years later we would have had such success in turning those
buildings around that we would have been able to shift that
money to a new use which was actually beginning to rehabilitate
them and beginning to focus on the privately owned stock.
None of the other Federal housing programs have that
flexibility that allows us to shift those to those needs
whether it is Section 8 vouchers, tax credits, home funding,
all of those we use to build projects. CDBG is really the only
funding stream that we have that we can use flexibly to be able
to shift with the changing needs that we have in our community
and that is what is so critical about the flexibility.
Mr. Turner. Flexibility is an important point because just
as your needs shift, the needs of every community throughout
the country shift and differ so allowing a program where the
Federal Government doesn't dictate how they are to be used
really does allow the local community to determine what needs
they are responding to or have as a priority.
That leads me to my next question. You were talking about
the things that you accomplished and the shifting needs and
flexibility. I am very impressed with the leveraging aspects of
CDBG. When those funds are used by a community as seed moneys
how they attract other capital. Mayor, perhaps you could talk
about the issue of how those funds have been able to attract
other investments as you have identified areas through
development.
Mr. Bloomberg. Mr. Chairman, I don't think any government
even combining Federal, State, and city tax revenue sources
would have enough money to make the big dent that this country
needs in improving its housing stock and solving lots of other
problems. You have to have the private sector come in.
The private sector is driven by capitalism. You have to
make it attractive for them. They have to think that they can
earn a good return and they will look to the trends, how safe
their investment is going to be, and whether it is likely to
get other investment whether they are going to be the only
investor, which they don't want to be, or whether they will
join a whole group of people.
I have always thought that Congress should hold cities
accountable for how they spend the money. But when a city does
it intelligently and shows results, don't penalize that city by
taking money away from it. Quite the contrary. You are really
getting something for your money and you should give them even
a greater share.
You have to have an incentive for cities to use money
intelligently or they will waste it. New York City has not
wasted Federal moneys. I think you can demonstrate with clear
hard numbers that this city whether it is in job creation or
making a better quality of life for people or finding housing,
those people who were here during the tough times and now are
getting squeezed out by a rising real estate market, you can
show that New York City has done with the Federal Government
what Congress intended those moneys to accomplish.
Rob, you want to talk about job creation just as a good
example.
Mr. Walsh. Well, job creation is one example. Our agency
uses a very small portion of the money but it goes a long way.
Over the last 3 years we funded over 150 different groups who
are out there working to improve store fronts along commercial
districts, some of the things you saw today whether it was on
125th Street, 116th Street.
I quickly think of an example on Myrtle Avenue and Brooklyn
where we worked with the local development corporation
grassroots effort. Over the last 2 years over 40 small
businesses moved into the area opening up coffee shops that
didn't exist and restaurants and bookstores and other
businesses that happened.
When you start thinking about leverage, you look at some of
the other development, the private sector development that is
taking place. In the case of Myrtle Avenue a local university
also moved onto a block which they would have never thought
about before. We could not have done that without the money
because where else would the grassroots organization get the
money.
They could go to the banks. They could go to a number of
other groups but it is limited funds. New York City has the
most comprehensive local development corporation system in the
city. Many of these groups are one, two, three, four blocks of
merchants associations that have come together.
What the mayor has done in the last 2 years, as I mentioned
to you on the bus, he has taken the Workforce Investment Act
money to the Department of Employment and he has linked it with
small business services. We are now making links between
economic development as you would see in the local stores.
We have set up small business centers throughout the five
boroughs. We went by one today on 125th Street. We go after the
merchants and we ask about jobs. ``What jobs do you have and
what jobs are available?'' We are now linking that money. We
are leveraging other Federal money, other State money, other
local money to get people jobs in their communities.
Mr. Donovan. I would add on the housing side that you will
hear from two folks today in testimony, Mark Willis from
JPMorgan Chase who will talk very directly to this issue of
leveraging. Every single project that we do we link up with the
private sector with a very sophisticated network of banks like
JPMorgan Chase and others that bring funding to these projects
to leverage the Federal funds.
At the same time you will also hear from Professor Ellen
from NYU who will talk about the leveraging effect that these
funds, particularly CDBG funds, have had on neighboring
property owners.
Very sophisticated statistical analysis that shows that
where these investments are made people surrounding those
investments improve their properties more than in other areas
and the values of those properties rise more than other areas.
That shows very directly that there is private investment
leveraged by these investments if they are done right as they
are done in New York City.
Mr. Turner. I now recognize Mr. Rangel for his questions.
Mr. Rangel. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, would you share with the
chairman in addition to improving the quality of education and
creating jobs how important it is that low and middle-income
people be able to gain access to the apartments that are being
built in the community?
Mr. Bloomberg. The Congressman is part of an effort. He was
really the instigator in getting our administration to form a
commission of government leaders, of union leaders, of
developers, of financiers to try to make sure that one of the
biggest growing industries in this city, construction, is open
to everybody who lives in this city. We want to make sure that
all of our industries and all parts of city government roughly
reflect the population of this city. In the past there are
reasons to believe that was not the case.
It turns out that by working with the unions and with the
developers you are starting to see more and more agreements on
big projects that the developers agree to make sure that
minority and women-owned businesses, for example, get an
opportunity to bid on contract, they have knowledge of them,
they know how to bid, and they get the opportunity to partner
with bigger companies.
You are starting to see the unions open up and understand
that it is in their interest if they want to have the best work
force and grow with the city, that they make their programs
available to everybody. It is also incumbent on the city to
make sure that our education system going forward produces
children or young adults that have the skills necessary to
compete in the modern world.
Today you go into the construction industry and you have to
have a level of academic skills that would have been unheard of
just 10 or 20 years ago. Today construction is a job that
requires the ability to work together and to use complex
technology to build the great buildings. The Congressman has
kept our feet to the fire and we have a long ways to go but I
am committed to making sure that everybody in this city who
wants a good job has the opportunity. All they have to do is to
work hard.
This is a city where we don't ask where you come from. We
only ask what you can do. While that is probably not true 100
percent it is getting more and more every day. We have an
educational system that for a big city is actually pretty good
but for a system that produces children with the skill sets
required for tomorrow's jobs we have failed too many of our
children and we are committed to not doing that anymore.
One of the things I am most proud of is that we started to
close the gaps between different ethnic groups, for example, in
this city, or different economic groups in terms of the
children's ability to read and write at grade level. We still
have a long ways to go but the latest results were very
encouraging. I want to make sure that whether you want a job
with city government or you want a job in the private sector,
if you work hard, that opportunity is available to you.
Mr. Rangel. Well, the major thrust of my question is how we
formulate the rent structure in these buildings so that there
will always be set aside a sufficient number of apartments for
low and moderate-income people because whenever a community is
being improved as fast as we are, it is always the fear that
the people who struggle to make it this way will not be able to
afford to stay here.
Mr. Donovan. What we have done in the properties that we
have renovated here in Harlem and the new construction that you
see going on all over Harlem under this mayor's administration,
we have focused first of all on making sure that existing
residents can stay in place and we do that in a couple of
different ways.
One is we use a combination of CDBG funds and other Federal
funding with Section 8 vouchers which are another incredibly
important resource to make sure that rents get set at 30
percent of that individual or family's income and make sure
that they are able to stay.
Even more importantly we have an expansive effort. We have
now helped close to 20,000 households become homeowners in
those city-owned buildings. Not only are they able to stay
affordable but they can actually participate in the
revitalization of the community through building equity in home
ownership.
We actually visited a couple of those, they are called TIL
buildings, this morning on our tour of Harlem and they are a
very, very important part of our overall strategy to help
people stay in the community. In fact, the training that we do
in other parts of that TIL Program are funded directly by CDBG
so it is a very, very important piece of our overall strategy
in terms of helping folks stay in the community and keep that
housing affordable.
Mr. Rangel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Turner. Congresswoman Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you for your testimony. You outlined
all the wonderful things the city is doing with these grants
and we saw it today. One of the justifications the
administration uses for eliminating CDBG as we know it was that
the program did not score well on the OMB assessment rating
test.
Maybe from your perspective you could help the Federal
Government define what progress is. How can the Federal
Government define what progress is? Do you have a rating system
within HPD or within the administrative Executive Office that
rates these programs and defines whether or not they are
successful?
In other words, the Federal Government wants more
accountability and they want a definition of what is success
that they can rate. Second, should a city lose grant dollars if
they cannot meet the Federal benchmark for success? More
importantly, what should be that banner for success that they
can objectively look at it so we can answer their concerns?
Mr. Bloomberg. Shaun can give you some specifics but I
would argue that, in fact, the Federal Government should insist
on deliverables, should insist that their money is used
intelligently, should measure whether or not there is progress,
and penalize those who don't make progress and reward those
that do. Otherwise, it is just verbiage.
If you want some macro numbers as to whether or not Federal
programs--it is always difficult to single out the affect of
any one of them but I will give you some numbers that say that,
in fact, New York City is using Federal moneys intelligently.
Our population is at an all-time high. Life expectancy in this
city is greater than it is in the country as a whole.
Our bond rating has been raised to the highest it has ever
been in history. Our crime rate has declined to where it was
back at the beginning of the 1960's. Deaths by fire, deaths by
traffic, all of those kinds of public health things the numbers
are down to low numbers that nobody ever would have expected.
You can go right down whether it is improving schools or
improving quality of life, whether it is measured by people
that vote with their feet or measured by independent agencies.
You can make the case that we are doing it intelligently--
whether it is Federal moneys, State moneys, or city moneys.
Shaun, you want to add specifics?
Mr. Donovan. Yes. First, I would just say I think no
administration in any city around the country is more focused
than the mayor is around this issue of accountability. From
what we have done in putting things up on our Web sites to
measuring the performance of every single agency throughout the
city it has been enormous focus. We would love to be helpful on
this issue as you go forward with the specifics of it.
Mrs. Maloney. Commissioner, have you developed any type of
evaluation mechanism specifically for the CDBG grants that show
they have been successful that we might be able to use on the
Federal level that shows that maybe it is generated more people
living in an area, more tax revenue, more community activity?
Mr. Donovan. I would say a couple things. First of all, we
do have testimony from Professor Ellen that will speak directly
to that issue. Very clearly the research that we have done
around the city's housing investments has demonstrated
substantial increases in neighboring property values,
improvements in many, many neighborhood indicators such as
crime and others and has actually showed a dramatic return to
the city itself in terms of increased tax revenues. On all of
those we have very good evidence that shows that these results
have been achieved.
What I would also say, however, is that we have to
recognize that this program by its very nature and flexibility
is a difficult one to measure. We have to retain some
flexibility in the measurement systems themselves because of
the flexibility of the program. We think that the joint
consensus document that has been developed in Washington among
a number of groups is a good start in terms of doing that.
Develop some broad categories for performance and rate them
within those broad categories. I think beyond that trying to
get to a single or a very limited set of indicators on these
programs because of its very nature is going to be difficult
and really would be a mistake we believe.
Mr. Page. I think this question of an objective rating
scale, we think that we spend the money very effectively for
community development but what does that mean? I think it might
be helpful to just briefly go down the list. We obviously spend
a lot of attention on housing but we spend CDBG money on home
repair services for elderly homeowners to prevent abandonment
of buildings.
There is a certain amount of money for information provided
to the elderly and senior citizen centers on housing. There is
daycare in some communities, assistance to crime vehicle
victims, improvement of schools, graffiti, vacant lot cleanup
and greening of vacant lots. There is a whole broad list of
very specific purposes where this money is spent which we think
the purposes are successful and effective in building
communities and making the city a good place to live.
But a quality rating you need to look at the very specific
uses and see how that is working in that community. It is hard
to figure how you bridge from this very concrete detail to some
sort of cosmic level that is going to be meaningful to Federal
OMB. It is going to be a lot of work to do that.
Mrs. Maloney. OMB also proposed to move CDBG out of HUD to
really terminate its housing function and to move it to the
Department of Commerce for mainly economic development. From my
years on the city council CDBG was housing. It was used to
leverage TIL, to leverage investment, to leverage the
preservation of historic buildings.
We saw all of that today. I would like the mayor to
elaborate and give us some more examples of how CDBG has been
used to leverage the money for housing, the newest initiative,
the new market place plan, how will CDBG support that, and how
has it worked. Another very important part of it is the
flexibility which you pointed out in your testimony.
I think that is a very important part of CDBG that it is
flexible and that your creative team can work on coming up with
new ideas of how to use that and giving concrete examples of
how it has been used creatively will help us save the program.
There is also a movement in Congress to move it away from a
block grant that gives the discretion to a city to more of a
formula-driven program and your feelings on whether or not it
should remain a block grant flexible program and why.
Mr. Bloomberg. Well, for a start, Congresswoman, I think
each city has its own unique problems but even more importantly
what is a city where the boundaries create the city and create
the suburbs vary so dramatically that if the Federal Government
has one size fits all kinds of requirements, you will wind up
really doing nothing for anybody.
In terms of the economic development, in the end I have
always been a believer that companies go where their labor
force and their customers want to live. The best thing that you
can do to create economic activity is to make a place where
everybody says, ``That is where I want to raise my family, send
my kids to school, have the entertainment of family things
together, quality time.''
That has been our strategy in this city, reduce crime, make
the schools better, improve the parks, keep the street clean,
make sure there are cultural institutions. When you do that,
companies say, ``I don't have any choice. That is where I want
to be because that is where the work force I need and my
customers are going to be.'' Those quality of life decisions
are the first decisions generally that people make. Then they
go looking for a job.
Mr. Walsh. You will hear later today from Carlisle Towery
and I think that is one of the great examples of what Carlisle
has done over the decades in Greater Jamaica Development Corp.
Obviously there is a lot more work to be done. Rebuilding the
retail corridor, improving the transportation, working with the
local university, creating jobs.
You will hear about the industrial initiatives going on,
saving the manufacturing jobs. The manufacturing and industrial
jobs pay more so we should be spending a good amount of money
to ensure that there are skilled workers. Congressman Rangel,
this is something that you have talked about on the new
commission on jobs of training people in those areas. Not only
construction but other skilled areas in addition to retail
where there is a greater possibility for promotion and
opportunity. That is exactly what you are going to be hearing
from Carlisle later on.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg. I appreciate both
your hospitality today and then the tour, your comments here
today, and the preparation that you have had for this hearing.
Also, it has been great to look at your leadership in community
and neighborhood development.
The second and third panel that we are going to have are
some of the partners that you have used in formulating some of
this redevelopment from the private sector, the nonprofit
sector, and also your faith-based partnerships. We are going to
be very excited to hear from them.
Before we end this panel, I wanted to give you an
opportunity, or any of your staff opportunities, to add to the
record anything that we have not asked today that you did want
to speak on or anything that you have heard in questions that
you would like to embellish before we end panel one.
Mr. Bloomberg. I would just like to urge you to listen to
Congresswoman Maloney and Congressman Rangel when they argue
for more funds for this program and particularly where those
funds should be spent. I think they are both highly
intelligent, have the interest of the country at heart. You
couldn't do better than follow both of them. Incidentally,
while you are here, we would love to have you spend more time
and spend more money. We need the sales tax revenues.
Mr. Turner. Thank you. Then we have just some closing
remarks from Mr. Rangel.
Mr. Rangel. I can hardly resist the opportunity to have a
candidate running for reelection under oath but I will pass.
Thank you for coming, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank the chairman
for honoring our community and the work that we have done, and
certainly our friend Carolyn Maloney for pointing it out. We
are so proud of what we have done and we know we have a lot
more to do.
We couldn't have done it without the people in the
audience, Mark Willis and certainly Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts. The
Harlem community of churches have done such a fantastic job.
Before this hearing I made an appointment to visit some people
at the Calvary Hospital. As you know, it is a hospital for the
terminally ill.
I won't be able to hear the rest of the testimony but in
addition to the rebuilding of Harlem, I cannot be more proud of
the people that are in this audience that have taken time out
to show our appreciation for the Federal Government, local and
State officials, for making our community. My mom was born
here. I was born here. It is a great deal of pride to be able
to see this happen before I leave. Thank you so much.
Mr. Turner. With that we will take a 2-minute recess as we
turn to panel two. The witnesses consist of Carlisle Towery,
president of the Greater Jamaica Development Corp.; Ms.
Menschel, chairman of the Board of the Phipps Houses; Mark
Willis, executive vice president of Community Development
Programs at JPMorgan Chase; and Andrew Reicher, executive
director of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Turner. If everyone can take their seats, we are going
to start with the second panel.
Our second panel of witnesses consist of four
representatives from the New York City Development Community.
They are F. Carlisle Towery, president of the Greater Jamaica
Development Corp.; Ms. Ronay Menschel, chairman of the Board of
the Phipps Houses; Mark Willis, executive vice president of
community development programs at JPMorgan Chase; and Andrew
Reicher, executive director of the Urban Homesteading
Assistance Board.
I know that you are all aware that on the table there are
lights that will tell you when the 5-minute period has
concluded. You also get a yellow warning before it actually
concludes. At that point if you could summarize and conclude
your comments. If I have mispronounced any of your names,
please reintroduce yourselves. Thank you for being here, both
for preparing your written testimony and the time that you are
taking in sharing your stories with us today.
We will begin with Mr. Towery.
STATEMENTS OF F. CARLISLE TOWERY, PRESIDENT OF THE GREATER
JAMAICA DEVELOPMENT CORP.; RONAY MENSCHEL, CHAIRMAN OF THE
BOARD OF THE PHIPPS HOUSES; MARK WILLIS, EXECUTIVE VICE
PRESIDENT OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS AT JPMORGAN CHASE;
AND ANDREW REICHER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE URBAN
HOMESTEADING ASSISTANCE BOARD
STATEMENT OF F. CARLISLE TOWERY
Mr. Towery. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members
of Congress. We very much appreciate your leadership on this
issue and the attention you are giving to New York City.
I am Carlisle Towery from Greater Jamaica Development Corp.
This is a wonderful opportunity for us to point out the
productive partnership with the city and my organization
through CDBG funded contracts with the Department of Small
Business Services and the Economic Development Corp.
The staffs we work with in these two dedicated agencies are
especially able, innovative and effective. We have had no
experience over my 34 years there of any waste, and I mean
that, or any misuse but just talent and dedication and results.
The flexibility of the CD funds have been essential in the
undertakings we have had with them, an older downtown in the
center of Queens County serving some 600,000 people. A large
minority of lower and middle-income populations have been the
beneficiary.
In a 10-year period early in our efforts, Jamaica took some
huge hits. Economic distress, disinvestment, loss of public
confidence all characterized Jamaica between 1975 and 1985.
These were the effects from outlying regional malls beginning
in the 1960's. By 1972 four large malls encircled downtown
Jamaica.
Jamaica has come back since 1985 due largely to a
thoughtful, ambitious overall plan backed by consensus and
executed with actions and projects enabled by CD funds,
leveraged several times over in particular projects providing
us with a base of operating support.
Another Federal program, the Community Reinvestment Act
[CRA], I want to emphasize, has played with CDBG a fundamental
role in Jamaica's recovery and growth. Region-serving public
investments were made in Jamaica pursuant to its plan and major
private investments have followed.
Our mission is jobs really, economic development, enabling
job growth, assisting in retaining and attracting and creating
a setting hospitable to jobs and private investment. We
undertake a range of activities. I have appended our corporate
resume, as we call it, which elaborates and indicates the level
of CDBG support for our involvement in each effort.
Note that CD funds have been used in various ways by us and
by the city to accomplish a range of projects leveraging
substantial public and private dollars. And CD funds for our
operations have built our capacity to attract private
participation in our work and to generate earned income. Our
base operating budget in 1980 was $1.7 million of which 20
percent came from CDBG funds. This past year CD's share of the
$8.7 million we spent was 4 percent.
I will reference a few of the 37 projects in that resume in
which we were instrumental and which CDBG funds assisted, 34 of
the 37 key projects through Small Business Services and EDC and
the city of New York. One of the Mid-Block Project with capital
costs of $64 million over a 20-year period. It is hard for us
to calculate precise CD participation, which we can do, but
assuming that 10 percent of our funds were spent over that
time, CD participation was $500,000 roughly.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administrationsited an $85 million
regional headquarters and lab in Jamaica. The project cost us
over the years $800,000 in predevelopment work and $125,000 of
that came from CD.
Intermodal Infrastructure Improvements with Congressman
Meeks who is another very able Congressman in community
development, and Senator Schumer using U.S. DOT CMAC funds. We
did vision, planning, and implementation project in which we
have raised $21 million from State and Federal funds toward a
$50 million project.
We had an interesting Clearance and Improvement plan, a
city urban renewal plan. We did some high visibility
improvements for flat parking and a farmer's market. We spent
$200,000 of CD funds. We ended up acquiring from the city their
municipal parking facilities and just recently built a garage
$11 million of which the architectural design fee for that
garage, $220,000, came from CD funds. They also underwrote
demand and feasibility analyses of $75,000.
CD funds capitalized $375,000 to startup in 1980 a small
business revolving loan fund, U.S. EDA funds and private funds.
We have loaned $5.6 million in small deals leveraging $24.4
million from private sources creating 540 jobs and retaining
780. I am happy to report scarce business for our fund in
recent years which I attribute to the exceptionally good work
of several commercial banks cooperating with, and often
exceeding, Community Reinvestment Act objectives.
We created four Special Assessment Districts that cost
about $250,000 over several years to launch, create, and hand
off four business improvement districts. The annual budgets of
those four are now about $1.2 million. I hope that indicates
some of the leverage factors that we have in specific projects.
CD funds have been an essential element that allowed us to
work with government for Jamaica's economic recovery. I want to
highlight, please, the remarkable multiplier effects of CD
funds skillfully administered by this city for local and
economic development. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Towery follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Ms. Menschel.
STATEMENT OF RONAY MENSCHEL
Ms. Menschel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
Congresswoman Maloney and Congressman Rangel for having this
hearing. It is very important to New York City.
I want to focus my remarks on two communities that we are
deeply involved with in the South Bronx because I think it best
illustrates the impact of the CDBG funding in New York City.
The first is one in Morrisania where Phipps Houses, which I
might add is not-for-profit, 100 years old. We own 4,100 units
of housing. We have been involved in community development for
100 years. The properties that we rehabilitated through the
city's vacant cluster program were the vacant In-Rem properties
that sort of symbolized the decay of the South Bronx in the
1970's.
The city at that point in the late 1980's provided funding
so that these buildings could be rehabilitated. Subsequently
we, through another city program that has been assisted by
CDBG, and that is the Neighborhood Redevelopment Program, has
taken over partially occupied buildings. Most important we were
able to integrate the tenants of these buildings into the
programs that we had established, the human services,
educational, social services programs that were established in
the community through both our vacant cluster program and the
community redevelopment.
A second community where we have invested for approximately
30 years we run a Beacon School and that, too, is a program
that has been assisted by CDBG. The importance of this Beacon
School investment is that it has encouraged us to leverage from
the base of the Beacon School further investment in the
community. We raised through charitable support money for
educational programs, Head Start, After School, a whole host of
programs to help our residents move forward on the base of
sound housing which we provide in the community.
CDBG has helped and assisted the Bronx River Alliance. It
has provided assistance to a local community arts group. It has
provided assistance through Green Thumb. As you see in my
written statement, a lot has been done with the community in
building up the fabric of the community through a whole host of
programs. I think that really points to the importance of CDBG
and that is the flexibility of funding a variety of programs,
the sum of which is much greater than just adding up each
individual part.
The administration asked Mayor Bloomberg about the
effectiveness, I think, of the administration's management of
the programs. They have been very effective. The mayor has put
communities and affordable housing four square in his agenda. I
have remarked to myself right now whenever we have rezoning,
and that is a major portion of his agenda, it is no longer a
question of whether there is to be affordable housing. The
argument is over what the percentage of affordable housing
there is to be.
The mayor is looking for affordable housing in all of these
communities. This, of course, is the result of providing funds
directly but also providing incentives for private development
for that affordable housing.
Let me go back to West Farms, the question of where the
money is going and the needs of the communities to which it is
going. West Farms, that is our South Bronx community where we
have this Beacon School, is one of the poorest communities in
the area.
We lost something like half of the housing in the 1970's
through abandonment and through drug problems. The community
now is home to immigrants. Sixty-three percent of our families
speak a language other than English and 20 percent are
linguistically isolated households.
These communities are homes to immigrants and my pitch to
you is that the needs of these families are a national concern
and, thus, justify Federal resources being devoted to community
building in communities of immigrants as well as communities of
families who need further assistance to advance economically
and socially in this country. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Menschel follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Mark Willis.
STATEMENT OF MARK WILLIS
Mr. Willis. Thank you. Members of the committee, good
morning. Thank your for the opportunity to speak to you today.
My name is Mark Willis and I head the Community Development
Group at JPMorgan Chase. The Community Development Block Grant
Program has played a critical part in allowing us to provide
over $3 billion in financing for affordable housing and
community economic development in New York City over the last
10 years.
In addition to our community development loans and
investments, JPMorgan Chase has also provided over $5 billion
in home mortgages and small business loans in New York City's
low and moderate income neighborhoods in just the last 5 years.
Without the city's commitment to rebuilding these communities
and without the flexible dollars that come from the Community
Development Block Grant Program we would not have been able to
infuse these types of dollars in these communities.
I want to just take a second. You were nice enough before,
Mr. Chairman, to mention the previous tour by Living Cities. I
do wear a couple of the hats here, one of which is co-chair of
Living Cities which is a consortium of national foundations,
financial institutions, and Federal Government agencies working
together to increase the vitality of America's cities and
quality of life in urban neighborhoods.
Over 15 years it has invested more than $370 million in
cities across the country helping to leverage over $11 billion.
All of that, again, would not have been possible without the
kinds of support that come to cities through the Community
Development Block Grant Program. Wherever I look and talk about
what is important in communities, you see the incredible
importance that Community Development Block Grant money makes.
I also serve as co-chair of Housing First! coalition in New
York city of over 300 nonprofit and for-profit developers,
community-based organizations, religious institutions, civic
groups, businesses, banks and labor unions that support a 10-
year, $10 billion housing plan. You can see what tremendous
gains and support we have gotten from the mayor here.
Again, when you look at what the sources of money are and
the ability of the Federal Government to help in the city's
housing program you see the importance of the Community
Development Block Grant Program.
From a bank's point of view, and I guess I am the one that
is going to speak from the perspective of the financial
services industry, it is important where we invest to have
communities that are stable and where people, projects,
businesses can afford to borrow money and be able to pay that
money back.
The role of Community Development Block Grant Programs
here, you have heard many other examples in stabilizing
communities here. It has been incredibly important for us to be
able to invest, to lend that $3 billion that I mentioned
before, to invest over a quarter of a billion dollars in the
New York Equity fund which works under the Low-Income Housing
Tax Credit Program to create affordable housing in all five
boroughs.
If you want to make a difference in communities, you want
to be able to attract large amounts of private capital. The
building blocks of that start with programs like the Community
Development Block Grant Program.
I am very fortunate at JPMorgan Chase to head a unit that
specializes in working in low and moderate-income communities
that brings a very specialized and knowledgeable set of experts
to be able to be, what I sometimes call using the shorthand,
investment bankers to low and moderate-income communities.
There is no way we could do that in isolation, again, without
the kind of investment that this city has made and so much of
that goes back to what is available as a result of the
Community Development Block Grant Program.
There are lots of examples you are hearing from other
people about the way these flexible dollars have been able to
help to stabilize communities, help them then rebuild
themselves and grow and prosper. I think the message that I
would like to leave here is obviously healthy neighborhoods
benefit all of us and government plays a key role in turning
around our intercity neighborhoods.
This flexible program that you have, the Community
Development Block Grant Program, has been key to this work.
Without these types of investments by the public sector, the
private sector institutions like JPMorgan Chase would not be
able to do what they do best, invest in the future of our
communities, the people, the housing, and the businesses. Thank
you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Willis follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Mr. Reicher.
STATEMENT OF ANDREW REICHER
Mr. Reicher. Good morning. Thank you for your interest and
concern for the Community Development Block Grant Program and I
am pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you this
morning. I want to talk a little about UHAB and I want to talk
about CDBG-funded program, the TIL Program which you have heard
some about already.
This program has been central to my work and my
organization for the past 27 years. I am Andrew Reicher and I
serve as executive director of UHAB, the Urban Homesteading
Assistance Board. UHAB was founded in 1973 in response to New
York City's housing abandonment crisis.
Sponsored by the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine,
UHAB was founded on the simple notion that these abandoned
buildings were opportunities and not problems and that given
the right resources and technical assistance, neighborhood
residents could help meet their own housing needs through the
rehabilitation and ownership of these buildings.
UHAB's early work was Urban Homesteading providing
technical assistance and training to groups of low-income
residents, homesteaders, undertaking the self-help rehab of
vacant city-owned buildings and purchasing them as limited
equity co-operatives with their own sweat equity.
As you no doubt heard this morning, in the early 1970's
disinvestment and non-payment of taxes and landlord abandonment
continued to grow throughout the 1970's affecting up to 20
percent of the city's housing stock and over 40 percent of the
housing in some low-income neighborhoods.
In 1977 Local Law No. 45 was enacted. This allowed the city
to begin foreclosure after just 1 year of non-payment of taxes
instead of 3. This new In-Rem law intended to stop landlord
abandonment resulted in the city taking ownership of buildings
before they were vacant and abandoned.
Between 1978 and 1979 the city vested title to 14,000
buildings with nearly 40 percent still occupied. What had been
a crisis of vacant, abandoned and often burned and devastated
property was now a management and fiscal burden. The newly
created Department of Housing Preservation and Development
accepted a proposed solution from the Task Force on City Owned
Property, a coalition of elected officials and housing
advocates and city-owned building residents, to create a series
of alternative management programs that became the Division of
Alternative Management Programs [DAMP].
These programs were designed to repair and dispose of the
properties often as tenant-owned co-operatives. Chief among
these programs is the Tenant Interim Lease Program. The TIL
Program was designed to give tenants an opportunity to learn
how to own and operate their own building during an interim
period lasting 3 to 5 years. The buildings remained in city
ownership and were leased and managed by the Tenant
Association.
TIL is a people program, not bricks and mortar. The
Community Development Block Grant money is invested in staff,
both city and UHAB, to help build strong co-op organizations.
The HDFCs you saw this morning are a good example. UHAB under a
Community Development Block-funded project provided training,
series of manuals and class materials, and technical
assistance.
Tenant Associations opened a bank account and began
collecting rents, paying bills, making needed repairs,
employing staff, and undertaking all the functions of the day-
to-day management of a New York City apartment building.
HPD monitors progress and oversees buildings; receives
monthly financial and management reports. Rehab plans are
developed by HPD. Then the residents are temporarily relocated
while the building undergoes extensive rehabilitation utilizing
city Capital and HOME Funds. Once rehab is completed UHAB
converts the building to co-operative ownership selling the
apartments for $250 per apartment.
The sale and co-op conversation trigger a new set of
issues, skills and knowledge for the tenants and leaders. The
co-op corporation takes on all the responsibilities of home
ownership, management and co-perative governance.
Through our CDBG-funded contracts UHAB provides an array of
training courses, seminars focused on these co-ops that build
on the TIL experience. Follow-on technical assistance remains
available as help the Tenant Associations to make the
transition to co-operative and to help with whatever issues
they may face in the future.
Community Development Block Grant-funded training,
technical assistance, and ongoing support both from UHAB and
HPD staff has been essential for the success of the TIL Program
for nearly 27 years. The manuals, training materials, and
technical assistance methods developed for the TIL Program have
been used by organizations undertaking similar development in
cities throughout the country from Alaska to Texas, Vermont to
California including Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, Washington,
DC, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis. Groups in Russia and South
Africa have built upon the method, materials and capacity that
this CDBG-funded program has developed.
As for the success of this Community Development Block
Grant Program, research has shown that over 1,000 co-ops
resulting from TIL and other alternative management programs
are the best managed and best maintained when compared to
similar housing. The co-operatives over time are more
affordable and have lower levels of drug and crime activity
than buildings in their neighborhoods.
Given a choice residents prefer the TIL Program than other
programs that lead to co-operative home ownership over rental
development and disposition programs. Residents involved with
the TIL Program are reported to learn skills and confidence
that results in improved employment, increased education
attainment, higher levels of civic participation, and a high
likelihood of voting.
The TIL Program and the resulting co-ops have been
effective tools overcoming the impact on neighborhoods of
abandonment, disinvestment, and preventing displacement of low-
income residents in hard economic times and will in the future
prevent displacement due to gentrification in the current
housing market. CDBG and the TIL Program provide much more.
The knowledge, experience, materials and processes
developed through this effort serve as the basis for local
residents, community organizations, banks, housing developers
and others to undertake co-operative home ownership as part of
new housing programs like the Third-Party Transfer Program to
meet the city's current housing situation.
Co-op home ownership based on the success of the TIL
Program has become an important tool in the efforts to preserve
nearly 200,000 units of existing affordable housing that is at
risk today in New York City.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Reicher follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Well, I want to thank each of the members of
our second panel again. You are practitioners, if you will, in
the area of community development. You bring to the table a
great amount of expertise and knowledge of community
development. But I want to commend you also because we know
that because of your hard work you are making a difference in
communities and in people's lives. You are changing the
opportunities for communities and, therefore, the people that
live there by the partnerships and the efforts that you put
together.
We have heard some great stories from you today in your
testimony on partnerships on capacity building, on leveraging,
on the need for flexibility. I am going to talk for a minute
about the criticisms that we have heard of the CDBG Program,
areas where it has had vulnerabilities and attempts to try to
close the program. And a little bit about some of the issues
where HUD could improve its administration that might help us
in advocating the program.
One of the criticisms against the CDBG Program was that it
was ineffective. In the argument of its ineffectiveness the
Office of Management and Budget looked to how success is
measured. HUD's response is that every community is required to
do a comprehensive plan. In the comprehensive plan they must
detail eligible uses for the funds. If the community spends
those funds consistent with the consolidated plan, then it is
deemed effective.
OMB sought a little bit greater analysis of even if you
spend it consistent with how you say you are going to spend it,
what are you achieving? How is the community changing? What can
we see that has occurred in the community that would not have
occurred without these funds?
My question to you is going to go to the consolidated plan
process because HUD's initial response was in the community the
practitioners, if you will, and the community leadership have
an opportunity to participate in the consolidated plan and
thereby formulated an impact of the description of what the
uses are for.
Many people consider that to be insufficient, that we need
a greater justification, greater measurement to be able to show
all of your results. I wonder if you might speak for a moment
if any of you in your organizations have participated in New
York City's process of formulating its consolidated plan or, as
HUD has said, in looking at whether or not the funds in the
local community are being spent consistent with the
consolidated plan.
Mr. Towery. Mr. Chairman, I have been there quite a while
in this business of practitioner of economic development. I
can't remember the number of times I have participated with the
city in planning and discussing numerous times. I do not recall
a precise focus on the consolidated plan but we are planners in
Jamaica and we participate all the time with the planners from
the city on both the economic side and the city planning side.
We are not short on planning and we are not short on result
measurement. We are held accountable by DSBS in our reports for
what we have done with their funds on an annual basis. I think
it would be quite easy for me just with my little turf to
report on the effectiveness of the funds. There is no question
in my mind that there are many, many things that otherwise
would not have happened or would have taken much longer. I
would love to have a crack at justifying all of our projects
that we have worked on.
Ms. Menschel. My experience has been really HPD has had
ongoing consultation with our organization and other
organizations on what is happening, what the needs are in our
communities. Furthermore, we have headed up local planning
initiatives working with the residents of our communities to
determine what is needed and that, too, is fed through the
network of community boards that the city has and the reports
of those community boards I know is very important in
developing the CDBG plan.
If I may just make one additional comment, I think that
sort of the proof is in the pudding. Prior investments by the
Federal Government and housing restoration and just building up
housing does not prove nearly as successful as what you have
seen in the last 25, 30 years. For me it marks back to the Koch
housing plan in 1986 in which Mayor Koch launched a 10-year
investment by the city. Those were city dollars but what CDBG
did was to provide resources that complimented that capital
investment.
Furthermore enabled the city to maintain and gradually
graduate into the NRP programs and other programs, all this
housing stock the city had taken ownership in. Then from our
point of view having invested significantly both our private
equity and our city capital dollars, the inspections and the
maintenance of properties has been terribly important.
Finally, the compliment of social services has been
important in maintaining those neighborhoods so the fact of the
matter is that you see neighborhoods that investments have been
made over the last 25 years and you don't see them going into a
period of deterioration. The fact is they are getting better
and better. You saw it out here today. That in a sense is the
most telling indicator, if you will, of success.
One other indicator. When welfare reform was approved, our
communities were supportive of people who needed to get off of
welfare and find employment. Even as the time periods expired,
even as the economy became more difficult, people did not go
back onto welfare. Our welfare rolls, I think, are probably the
lowest they have been in years. There, too, is another success
of the construct that is providing flexible multi-program
support for our communities.
Mr. Willis. I would like to make a couple comments here
thinking about the program and evaluating it, one of which is
here, as Ronay and others have said, Mayor Koch started this
plan in 1986. We are here almost 20 years later. It is a great
time to be talking about all of the successes that we can see
really in almost every, if not in every, neighborhood across
the city.
The point of that is this is longer term. It isn't like you
can come up with something that is going to change in 6 months.
I was at one point Deputy Commissioner for Development and we
went through the first year and a half of the Koch plan and
nothing happened that people could see at all. Yet, a whole
infrastructure was being put in place. A pipeline was being
developed. The conversations and consulting with the community
was going on.
One of the things that I would caution here in coming up
with a criteria that you don't want just what are the inputs. I
understand that. If you are looking for long-term change you
can't ask for short-term results and make the dollars depend on
that. I am sure I don't need to mention to the chairman here.
He has seen many other cities as I have including his own where
he was previously the mayor.
They may not be having all the prosperity that New York
City is and may not be seeing what we are seeing in the
turnaround in almost all, if not all, of our neighborhoods. I
think this is very, very hard to be able to come up with
criteria. We keep talking about the flexibility and the
flexibility across cities and across this 20 years as to what
the money has been used for and to measure the progress.
One thing that I would mention, I know in New York City it
did leverage the 10-year Koch plan. $5.1 billion here in
Community Development Block Grant Program and the activities.
As talked about before, we would not have been able to have the
impact we have today.
Mr. Reicher. I would echo it. I mean, in terms of
participating in the city planning, I mean, our contracts that
we had for 27 years now we report meticulously to the city. In
that reporting we also find a lot of things that we learn so
that over time we changed our approach. We have adjusted this
and changed that. We measure both the success and things that
didn't work so well are able to change.
The city for its part is receiving incredible amounts of
information each month and each year from us that goes into
their specific planning as well as sort of comprehensive looks
that we take periodically of all the buildings that we have
worked with to see where they are going, trying to understand
what are the indicators of success and so forth.
One of the great things about Community Development Block
Grants is that while there are lots of sort of bricks and
mortars, you know, financial kinds of numbers that you can look
at, the other things that are much harder to quantify are the
successes over time of building the people who live in these
buildings, the skills that they learn and the tasks that they
undertake and the accomplishments that they make.
The success of the TIL buildings to become co-ops has
little to do because in the early years very little rehab was
done. It has to do with the efforts and the desire of residents
to sort of remain in their buildings and then the skills that
the Block Grant-funded contracts and literally the city Block
Grant-supported staff are able to support them and provide so
that they can do this work. It is not something that we do. It
is not something really that the city does. It is a way of
facilitating others.
That is going to be very hard to measure, I believe. It is
something that while being accountable measuring, doing all
those kinds of things are going to be important, the program
and its flexibility and the success, at least, from what we
have done could easily be lost if we had to be accountable for
a dollar in and a dollar out kind of thing because there is a
lot of unmeasurables that we need to, I guess, either learn how
to measure or articulate in other ways.
Mrs. Maloney. I want to thank all of you for your life-long
dedication to affordable housing. I had the honor of working
with all of you when I was on the city council and it is truly
great to see you again.
Andy, one of my personal favorites was the Homesteading
Program and we worked very hard in East Harlem with you and
others in HPD to save housing. I know you said it is very hard
to get an accurate measurement tool but we have to do it
because if we don't do it and help come back with a measurement
tool, they are going to keep coming at us.
I just would join the chairman in really asking the same
question that later in writing if you could come back with a
perspective of how to pursue an accurate measurement tool.
Obviously in the TIL Program it could be the number going into
ownership. Just living in the apartment is saving the building.
It is very, very important.
Mark, you raised the point, which I thought was a very good
one, that you have to look at it long-range. Housing is not
something that you do, and you know more than any of us on the
whole panel, over night. It takes long-term planning and
thinking to get the financing together. I believe deeply and
strongly in CDBG. What we saw today shows it works. It has
literally revitalized entire neighborhoods not only with
commerce but housing. It is incredibly important. We have to
come up with it.
Ronay, congratulations on your 100th anniversary of Phipps
Houses which happens to be located in the district that I
represent and we have been honored to represent you. And, of
course, Mr. Towery, you probably hit every single program out
there that you got involved.
One of the things, and my question is to ask you to think
about how we document and work with HPD so that we can come
back with a document before they cut us again next year so that
we can come in and ask for more money and not just try to
maintain our position.
I love cities. I think cities are so important for ideas,
for the strength of the country. Yet, I see many of our funding
formulas hurting cities. I think a major question of the 21st
century is going to be who pays for the cities of the aging
infrastructure, the many, many challenges that are unique to
cities. Yet, the support federally has been dwindling for
cities.
Instead of sitting there and waiting for what happens,
which is another cut back in CDBG or cut back in Section 8 or
in public housing support, what ideas are created anew that you
think we should take back and try to implement and come forward
with aggressive new ideas as opposed to just sitting there and
trying to defend the housing programs that have been in place
that are now literally being chipped away every single year.
How can we confront who pays for the cities? What are the
great ideas to save our cities? You can get back to us in
writing or anyway that you think we could respond. You are
wonderful examples. You have all done incredible work and we'll
take that back to Congress with our report.
Mr. Willis. I'll just do something that the mayor if he
were here would probably say. One thing is it would be nice if
we weren't sending so much more to Washington than comes back
here. It is not just ignoring but really I think that there is
a great deal of economic engine here that needs to be allowed
to do its own work without having a net drain.
Mrs. Maloney. Any other ideas? Are you having any problems
with interacting with HUD or regulations that you feel need to
be modernized?
Ms. Menschel. Maybe I will just say that I think HUD, some
of its regulations and dealing with community groups could be
streamlined. I think that is one of the virtues of CDBG is that
there is this block grant and there is the flexibility of local
decisionmaking and there is a lot of value to that as opposed
to a bureaucracy often driven from Washington that is making
things very complicated and it is taking a lot of time and that
cost money.
Mrs. Maloney. Well, we will take that back.
Mr. Willis. I would just say from, again, the financial
services sector in order to be able to put the investments we
have in the community, we need a reliable partner and I think a
lot of this discussion about this program and many others are
making it more questionable about whether that public/private
partnership can actually work so that we can bring the kinds of
dollars that we have into the neighborhoods that you have seen
today.
Mrs. Maloney. Are you accessing the Treasury Department's
financial services programs that they have for communities? Are
you working with them, too?
Mr. Willis. We would like to think we have one of the best
CDFI programs in the country for everybody, Community
Development Financial Institutions. We just got a low-income
housing tax credit allocation so we would be working with that
program as well. And BEA, another acronym for people, Bank
Enterprise Act, is also something else we have been able to
take advantage of. There are many problems.
I guess the most important one really in Treasury is the
Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program which we are one of the
largest investors in the country in that program. Not just here
in New York City but obviously a lot of other places as well so
those are programs. The nice thing about low-income housing tax
credit, ``Here are the rules and you follow those and here is
what you get.'' I think there are other programs that because
they are subject to annual appropriation and the kind of debate
we are having here make it hard for us to do long-term--get
involved in long-term projects that require public/private
leverage.
Mrs. Maloney. I must say that after HPD cut the Section 8
program I literally had one community group that was afraid
they cut their 202 even though they had it and did not want to
go forward with it. What you are saying is that the disruption
and reliability of the program is causing huge problems in the
partnership. I think that is an extremely valid point you made.
Mr. Reicher. One of the things that I would mention is that
I see a striking parallel in sort of the early days when the
city was facing sort of abandonment In-Rem housing crisis and
sort of recently identified crisis that we are facing in HUD
funding projects which are the buildings that are failing out
of their inspections, the distressed HUD subsidized buildings.
We have identified 70 to 90 buildings with 17,000 units in
New York City alone and this is a nationwide phenomenon of
buildings that are severely distressed under HUD financing.
There are a lot of lessons to be learned of the TIL Program and
the other CDBG-funded programs that the city used to redevelop
these programs. We have actually been able to turn nine of
these buildings over to residents and to local community
groups, Abyssinian being one of them, and some of them right in
this neighborhood.
But there is another 70, 80, 90 buildings in the city alone
and HUD's response and the ability for them to move properties
in the proper direction and provide the support and so forth
has a lot to learn from what we learned over these last almost
three decades with the In-Rem properties in New York City. I
think it is a place where we are going to preserve housing.
This is some of the kind of housing we already know how
preserve. We just need a willing partner in Washington.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you. My time is up. I congratulate all
of you for your extraordinary achievements in affordable
housing.
Mr. Turner. I want to thank you also. Your stories are
inspiring and your critical expertise is obviously necessary
for the success that is here and other communities certainly
can benefit from what you are accomplishing and using the best
practices and the models that you have here and the efforts
they are taking in their communities.
Before we go to our next panel, I just want to give you one
opportunity if you have any closing comments on anything that
we have not asked you that you did want to say to give you an
opportunity to put that on the record now.
Mr. Towery. Mr. Chairman, I realize that I didn't mention
that I am not sure that anything we are doing or have done is
replicable. They are sort of unique. There is no handbook for
how you do it in a place like this except that my experience
was when I went there, this place had deteriorated or was in a
level of problem where it was too bad for the private sector to
invest and stay and stick with it and not quite bad enough
compared to other parts of New York City for government to
really have programs. It was never a model city under Lyndon
Johnson. It wasn't bad enough to be a model city.
There is something to be said about nonprofit brokers and
advocates who work with both sectors and speak out of both
sides of their mouths and say to government, ``Look how bad it
is,'' and to Mark Willis, ``Look how good it is,'' so that you
can put together the public and private sectors around specific
objectives.
I don't know if that is replicable or not but when you are
devoted to a particular place and you have a plan and you have
consensus behind it, you really do need the flexibility of
either sector agent or broker who can put it all together and
stick with it and persist and glue it together.
I think that is a lesson that--I don't know how you would
do it otherwise without CDBG funds. We probably wouldn't be
here if when we got our first CD money our board had left
essentially from the private sector, was disinvesting and
moving out to the suburbs.
We probably could not have managed to operate and continue
that role without the CDBG contract. It matched what we already
had and challenged us to raise more. As I told you, now it is a
very small portion of our income that we do raise. This is
tooting my own horn but in a generic way, please. Thank you.
Ms. Menschel. Maybe just further on your question about
looking at the cities in the future. I think that what we have
seen in recent years is far more integration, as we have all
started to say, of both private investment and public
investment. Shaping programs that are going to encourage
private investment and facilitate it as opposed to undermining
it is important. A lot of that is timeliness and predictability
of the government side of things.
The second is the role of not-for-profit in communities.
Not-for-profits often are the organizations that are there for
the long haul. That is very important for community stability
and protection of the investments that are made.
Mr. Turner. Any closing comments?
Mr. Willis. I am fine. Thank you.
Mr. Reicher. I know that one of the areas that is also at
issue is the funding of city staff. I should say that our
ability to accomplish what we have accomplished in our program
comes in a partnership with HPD. Our ability as a nonprofit and
our relationship with residents in buildings and the co-ops is
of one nature and HPD staff has their role to play.
Without both of them it is a much more difficult one. I
think that the overall impact of the program needs to be looked
at. I know this comes up, and came up, and will continue to
come up. I think that it would diminish the success of the
program to sort of say absolutely you can't have it one way.
Mr. Turner. Thank you. Well, we thank you very much and we
will take a short recess as we seat the third panel.
[Recess.]
Mr. Turner. Thank you. We will reconvene to hear our third
panel. We have Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts, pastor of the Abyssinian
Baptist Church; Mr. Chris Kui, executive director of Asian
Americans for Equality; and Dr. Ingrid Gould Ellen, associate
professor of public policy and urban planning at the New York
University Furman Center for Real Estate.
Dr. Butts, we will start with you.
STATEMENTS OF REV. DR. CALVIN BUTTS, PASTOR OF THE ABYSSINIAN
BAPTIST CHURCH; CHRIS KUI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF ASIAN
AMERICANS FOR EQUALITY; AND DR. INGRID GOULD ELLEN, ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AND URBAN PLANNING AT THE NEW YORK
UNIVERSITY FURMAN CENTER FOR REAL ESTATE
STATEMENT OF REV. DR. CALVIN BUTTS
Dr. Butts. Good morning. Thank you. I want to commend the
House Government Reform Subcommittee on Federalism and the
Census on conducting this hearing. I want to again greet and
welcome to Harlem and Thurgood Marshall Academy the Honorable
Michael Turner from the Third District of Ohio, the great city
of Dayton. Thank you very much for being here.
And, of course, to say hello to our dear friend
Representative Carolyn Maloney. We also appreciated the
appearance of Congressman Rangel, our Congressman. And I am
pleased to have an opportunity to testify on such an important
matter.
The successful and sustainable revitalization of our urban
centers has been and is a driving principle of my personal
efforts for well over 30 years. In addition, I now lead a
nearly 200-year-old institution, the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
By the way, Mr. Chairman, I want to say that the chairman of
our deacon board and many of our members who reside in this
community and elsewhere have been a part of this hearing
throughout its entirety. I want to thank them for being here
because they know the importance of this very important
hearing.
The Abyssinian Baptist Church has been at the forefront of
social justice issues since its inception. Abyssinian has also
been a leader in the development of Harlem from its birth as
the African American business, social, and cultural capital of
the world over 80 years ago through its development and
revitalization today.
You have and will hear a lot of statistics about the
importance of the Community Development Block Grant Program. My
task today is to breathe life into these numbers and to give
you a sense of the flesh and blood impact the Community
Development Block Grant Program has had on the heart and soul
of one of the most important communities in the United States
of America, the community of Harlem.
I believe Harlem is a fitting community to examine and
evaluate the past success and the future of such an important
national program. The story of Harlem's decline and its
revitalization of a community world renown for its rich
cultural legacy has been constantly elevated as the story that
most exemplifies the story of our Nation's urban centers for
its triumphs and its tragedies. Federal policy has always
played a critical role in the development as well as the
destruction of our communities.
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., one of the great leaders of the
Abyssinian Baptist Church, one of the great leaders of the
Harlem community, and one of the great leaders of our nation,
understood the impact of Federal legislation on our communities
and, as such, sponsored and co-sponsored more than 50 measures
of responsible Federal legislation. We here in Harlem have also
felt the impact of Federal policy designed sometimes
intentionally and sometimes not to dismantle, disempower, and
destroy our communities.
We well remember the Housing Act of 1934 which established
the Federal Housing Authority with the intention to improve
housing conditions and standards which in actually promoted
segregation and through the Federal Homeowners Loan Corp.
defined black integrated and racially changing neighborhoods as
not credit worthy. Actually drew maps coloring these
neighborhoods red. Federal policy red-lined our communities
early on and choked out economic development and home ownership
and other wealth-building opportunities for its inhabitants.
Another appalling example is the Housing Act of 1949 which
was founded on slum clearance. And the Interstate Act of 1956
which allowed local municipalities to use imminent domain to
pay through communities of color. I mention these Federal
policies today to underscore the critical importance of your
deliberation about the future of the Community Development
Block Grant Program.
Much of Adam Clayton Powell's sponsored legislation was
directed to correct those destructive policies of this
investment. Those policies led directly to the blight and decay
in Harlem that was present when I came to Harlem in 1972.
After nearly five decades from 1910 to 1950 of immigration
and an extraordinary growth of the African American population,
central Harlem's population peaked at 226,000 persons in 1950.
Beginning in 1960 to 1990 the trend of the previous five
decades was reversed to population decline and central Harlem
lost 54 percent of its population during this same period. With
the abandonment of residential and commercial properties and
red-lining by financial institutions between 1970 and 1980
central Harlem had its largest single population loss of 34
percent within one decade.
By 1990 the area's population had declined to its lowest
count of 98,747. The first increase in population since 1950
did not occur again until the recent census of 2000 reporting a
population of 107,178, a modest gain of 8,431 residents over
the previous 1990 census count.
Mr. Chairman, I want to continue with this because those
who have gathered, and I know you already have the testimony,
this is so important when considering this Federal program that
is in jeopardy. When I came to Harlem in 1972, 2 years before
the Community Development Block Grant Program was initiated, it
became apparent that the Federal Government had to step in and
try to deter the widespread abandonment.
It is difficult to describe the socioeconomic climate of
Harlem at the inception of the Community Development Block
Grant in 1974. Plainly, a Federal aid package with its housing
initiatives and commitment to creating viable communities could
not have come at a better time.
Harlem was badly damaged during the civil unrest of the
1960's, a situation that was exacerbated by the city's
financial crisis in the 1970's. There was blight and
devastation perpetuated by decades of disinvestments marked by
an exodus of residents suffering from unbearable economic and
societal factors, a pandemic of poverty which included soaring
crime and increased substance abuse.
Not only were the residents who remained in despair
isolated and discouraged but a neighborhood that was once
renowned for its residential housing was ravaged by decades of
arson and abandonment thereby creating a housing stock that was
deplorable and without dignity and a homeless population that
was escalating daily.
Over 60 percent of the housing stock in Central Harlem was
owned by the city of New York. Owners of buildings simply
walked away and did not pay property taxes, water and sewer
taxes, no maintenance, utilities, electricity in common areas,
no heat and hot water, living conditions that were dangerous to
life, health, and safety. Community residents were suffering.
The city of New York was able to use Community Development
Block Grant funds to maintain these buildings. Although no
municipality ever has the intention of becoming a principal
landlord because of the loss of income through tax roles, the
city could have condemned the buildings, displaced hundreds of
thousands of people.
Yet, the city of New York to its credit took a bold move
and decided not to displace people. With Community Development
Block Grant funding the city of New York maintained these
buildings and the character and fabric of this community which
directly impacted future successful sustainable development and
laid the foundation for the comprehensive community development
initiatives that are implemented today.
Preserving housing is a beachhead against neighborhood
decline. When you are fighting a war, which is what we are in,
against neighborhood decline, you need beachheads, a position
or foothold on an enemy shoreline captured by troops in advance
to further an invading force and comprehensive community
development was that invading force and without Community
Development Block Grant Funding to preserve those buildings for
future development, Harlem would be a footnote in history
books.
In fact, a symbol of Harlem's rebirth, one that could not
have been possible without the preface of Community Development
Block Grant funding is the construction of the building in
which we sit right now, the Thurgood Marshall Academy for
Learning and Social Change. This very building, 90,000 square
feet, state-of-the-art facility is the first new high school to
be built in Harlem in more than a half century.
In addition, Abyssinian Development Corp. built over 1,000
units of affordable housing for low and moderate-income
families and some were completely vacant buildings that the
city was able to maintain, architectural jewels of the pre-war
housing stock. Some were occupied by families that held on as
the beachhead was becoming secure. Every one of these buildings
was preserved and maintained using Community Development Block
Grant funds.
ADC pushed forward and began to reach out to more residents
in need of supportive housing, educational opportunities, small
business development, large commercial enterprises, job
development, social services, home ownership opportunities, and
the building of community capacity through civic engagement.
We could not have created successful sustainable community
development without addressing community decline and poverty
through a holistic approach matching every aspect of societal
ills with appropriate solutions all of which need an inputting
of resources. Community Development Block Grant funding is
integral in this process as it is flexible enough to allow
local communities to decide what their needs are and how they
should be met.
The primary objective of the program was to establish a
broad network for urban revitalization efforts while providing
maximum flexibility on a local level, essentially the original
framework for the successes we can account for today.
Since so much has been accomplished, why do we need
Community Development Block Grant and Community Services Block
Grant Programs today? Quite simply for the same reason we
needed community development block grants in 1974. The broad
objectives of the Community Development Block Grant Program to
establish and maintain viable urban communities with decent
housing and suitable living environment and economic
opportunities for persons of low and moderate income are still
critical today.
Harlem is at a pivotal crossroads today. Much attention has
been given to the incredible increase in housing production,
housing prices, and commercial development. Rent increased by
46 percent from 1990 to 2000 compared to 11 percent in New York
City overall and 21 percent in Manhattan over the same period
and property values have tripled in Harlem.
A common price for a brownstone is well over a million
dollars. Commercial rents along 125th Street, the main
commercial corridor, is approximately $125 per square foot. In
Harlem the dismal ownership rate is 9 percent as compared to
New York City where about one in three households own their own
homes.
The vacancy rate is 3 percent and apartments with an asking
rent of less than $500 have a vacancy rate of just 1\1/2\. The
median household income in Central Harlem is only $19,920,
approximately 52 percent of the citywide median income and only
42 percent of the median income of Manhattan taking into
account that there are households with incomes of less than
$15,000 computed in that average.
The poverty rate is 36.4 percent and 24 percent of the
population pays more than 50 percent of their income toward
rent putting shelter in competition with food and other
necessities. The rate of unemployment in Central Harlem is
extremely high at 12.4 percent while the New York City overall
rate is 6\1/2\ and the community services side, as studies
suggest, that over 50 percent of African-American males are not
in the labor force.
Why not just let the market work? That is what some argue.
It is the very nature of economic market forces to push out low
and moderate income families unless systems are in place to
prevent misplacement. Harlem residents that persevere through
the unbearable conditions to fight for their children, their
community, and respectable living conditions will be pushed out
just as the market bulldozed them in 1974 when the Community
Development Block Grant funds were first used to maintain and
build that beachhead.
The market forces at work are encouraging landlords to deny
residents decent places to live hoping that they will become
frustrated and they will move out so that when they do,
property owners can cash in by leasing at market or above-
market rates for units that were originally allocated for low
and moderate-income families.
Much of the Community Development Block Grant funding today
is used for inspectors to make sure that buildings are
operating at code and for litigators to hold landlords
accountable. An epic example of how property owners are being
driven by market forces is demonstrated in the Ennis Francis
houses, a 231-unit complex that due to extreme neglect by the
landlord was in serious disrepair and needed both immediate and
long-term work.
Among the 250 housing code violations cited investigated
with Community Development Block Grant funding were lack of
heating, leaking ceilings, dangerous peeling lead paint. The
Tenant Association which formed in 2003 after a week without
hot water and the collapse of an underground sewage pipe
leaving a 20-foot by 8-foot festering pit of human waste in the
community room. On November 1st ADC was assigned as the legal
administrator for Ennis Francis Houses and managed the building
and ensured that basic services were restored.
ADC was able to purchase the Ennis Francis Houses and now
provides a full array of comprehensive programs for the tenants
who no longer have to live in fear that their homes will be
sold to the highest bidder. Ennis Francis Houses is one example
of far too many landlords that are trying to encourage their
low to moderate-income residents to live elsewhere as
affordable rental restrictions are expiring including expiring
Section 8 contracts, low-income housing tax credit
restrictions, and municipal restrictions on affordability.
Community Development Block Grant funds are as important as
they were in 1974 in preserving and protecting communities.
This deliberation is critically important. Thousands of
individuals will be impacted and this committee has the ability
to alter the characteristics of entire communities across the
country.
Community Development Block Grant funding will be integral
in ensuring that the most vulnerable are not displaced. That
those who remain in Harlem and communities like it can continue
to afford living here in decent and dignified living standards.
Thus, Mr. Chairman, I implore you to think carefully and
seriously about the impact that your decisions will have not
only on the Harlem community but communities like Harlem across
the country. The loss of Community Development Block Grant
funding will have detrimental affects on entire neighborhoods
and will destabilize the progress that we have managed to
achieve since 1974.
No one is as happy as I am, Mr. Chairman, to see you here
today. You can't imagine how important it is to have you from
the great State of Ohio that has produced tremendous leaders
for our Nation to come and hear from us about how important
this is. I know you will be successful because God is on your
side. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Butts follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Thank you very much for that very impassioned
presentation.
Mr. Kui.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER KUI
Mr. Kui. Good afternoon, Chairman Turner, Congresswoman
Maloney, and guests. Thank you for traveling to New York to
hear our testimonies and see our communities firsthand.
My name is Christopher Kui and I am the executive director
of Asian Americans for equality [AAFE]. When AAFE opened its
door in 1974 Chinatown was an insular ethnic enclave. Founded
more than 100 years before by immigrants from China, it became
the hub of social, cultural, and economic life in New York's
Asian community.
Most of the immigrants did not speak English. They had to
adjust to an entirely different culture than that which they
had left behind. Naturally, they lived in Chinatown where they
felt more at ease. At first the community consisted of working
men employed in restaurants and service industries. The
liberalization of immigration laws in the 1960's caused
immigration to swell which resulted in enormous social
pressures for the community such as lack of housing and decent
employment.
Increasingly, more and more people came to AAFE for help
with affordable housing and adequate living conditions which
had reached a crisis point. Many local residents lived in
rundown tenement buildings dating from the 19th century. Others
were crowded into non-residential spaces that were illegally
subdivided into tiny rooms.
The high demand for living space caused many landlords to
ignore housing codes and occupancy standards, and to demand
illegal key money from renters. As downtown neighborhoods
became fashionable, unscrupulous landlords tried to evict their
low-income tenants, sometimes resorting to extreme tactics like
harassment and intimidation.
In partnership with HPD our eviction prevention programs
have helped our clients in very immediate ways. We have
actually many clients from Chinatown in the back that traveled
all the way from Chinatown to Harlem today to really show their
support for the CDBG Program. I would like to point them out in
the back.
In December 2004, a few days before the Christmas holidays,
an anxious Chinatown resident whose building had no heat or hot
water for more than 2 months came to AAFE for help. The tenant,
a senior citizen who spoke practically no English, complained
that he and his neighbors live in misery because temperatures
dropped below freezing. The tenants were afraid to notify
housing authorities for fear of retaliation.
AAFE was able to step in immediately advising the tenants
of possible action and provide legal assistance. Meanwhile, our
staff convened a meeting with HPD and other State agencies, the
tenants, local elected officials, and the building owner
onsite. We arrived at an agreement and the tenants had heat and
hot water in time for the holidays.
To increase housing opportunities AAFE has developed more
than 500 units of affordable and senior housing. Working with
the Enterprise Foundation and HPD AAFE first began developing
housing in 1986 with the construction of New York City's first
Federal low-income housing tax credit project called Equality
House.
All of us at AAFE felt particular pride and strong
emotional attachment to this historic project. Equality House
enabled the Lee family among many such families to provide
their three children with the stability and opportunity that
they needed to make a better life. Fifteen years later today
one son is a police officer, the other son is a nurse, and the
daughter is an urban fellow pursuing her masters degree at the
local college.
Our most recent project, Norfolk Apartment II, was the
first low-income housing project to be developed after
September 11th in lower Manhattan in partnership with the city
and State of New York. Norfolk Apartment II has a total of 52
units. When the project was announced in 2003 more than 10,000
families around the city submitted applications.
CDBG funding has also enabled AAFE to provide core
immigrant services that continue to include the capacity of the
Asian-American community to address its own needs. AAFE helps
new immigrants overcome language and cultural barriers and
participate more fully in American society.
Our affiliate, AAFE Community Development Fund, has
counseled more than 5,000 perspective homeowners and have
helped secure over $155 million in mortgage financing from
private banks for 1,200 families to purchase their first home.
Thousands of other residents come to AAFE every year for
English-as-a-second-language instruction, naturalization
information, and citizenship education.
The flexibility of CDBG funds has allowed AAFE to respond
to emergencies as well. Immediately after September 11th AAFE
was able to address the request for assistance to help guide
affected clients to government agencies such as FEMA. More than
500 clients were assisted with Medicaid applications and 300
emergency applications were filed for assistance and temporary
housing in the first month alone after September 11th.
Meanwhile, as partners in the Lower Manhattan Development
Corp.'s $300 million Residential Grant Program, our staff
helped over 20,000 residents receive housing assistance all
across Lower Manhattan neighborhoods. Having latitude in the
type of projects and activities in which we can engage has
allowed AAFE to serve the role of ``social firehouse,''
responding to a crisis quickly and effectively in our
community.
In conclusion, a very large part of AAFE's work has been
possible thanks to funding from the CDBG program. CDBG funds
have allowed us to respond creatively and with flexibility to
meet the changing needs of our immigrant community. We have
been able to provide affordable housing and prevent blight,
generate new economic investment and create a more significant
role for our community in the city's decisionmaking process.
With more than 30 years of experience, AAFE has redoubled
its commitment to help new immigrants achieve the American
Dream. Not only has CDBG allowed us to preserve and rebuild the
physical environment, it has furnished the tools to educate and
inform our community.
Chairman Turner, Congresswoman Maloney, help Chinatown,
help Harlem, and thousands of other communities across the
United States to maintain and expand the CDBG programs so we
can preserve our neighborhoods and serve our constituents.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kui follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Dr. Ellen.
STATEMENT OF DR. INGRID GOULD ELLEN
Dr. Ellen. Chairman Turner and Congresswoman Maloney, thank
you for the invitation to speak to you today about the
community benefits of New York City's housing and community
development efforts. During the 1970's as a result of large
population loses, rising landlord cost, and stagnant tenant
incomes, entire neighborhoods in New York City were devastated
by arson and abandonment.
By 1979 the city had taken ownership through tax
foreclosure of over 60,000 housing units and vacant buildings
and another 40,000 units in occupied buildings. Over the past
two decades or so, through the course of the city's housing
efforts, virtually all of these properties have been
stabilized, rehabilitated, and turned over to responsible
private owners.
Together with colleagues at New York University, I have
written a number of research papers that document these
efforts, and more importantly, they examine the extent to which
these investments generated spill-over benefits and contributed
to neighborhood revitalization.
We have consistently found significant neighborhood
benefits. Actually identifying the neighborhood benefits
generated by housing investment is quite difficult. One
challenge is what metric to use to capture these neighborhood
impacts. In the series of papers we have written so far, we
have relied on changes in property values as a summary measure
of neighborhood improvements. Simply if a neighborhood becomes
a better place to live, people will be willing to pay more to
live there.
Another fundamental challenge is that we can never know for
sure what would have happened to property values in the absence
of the housing investment and different statistical models make
different assumptions about this counter-factual situation.
Intuitively what our basic approach has been is to assume that
housing prices would have grown at the same rate of prices of
comparable properties that are in the very same neighborhood
but just a little bit further away from the housing investment.
I would like to highlight two of our results briefly today.
The first focuses on the neighborhood effects of abandoned
buildings. We find that the vacant abandoned properties that
the city had taken over for tax foreclosures significantly
depressed the value of surrounding properties.
Specifically, we find that prior to rehabilitation
properties located right next to these abandoned vacant
properties sold for significantly less, on the order of about
28 percent, than comparable properties that were located
further away but still in the very same neighborhood.
Property abandonment, in other words, can seriously hamper
neighborhood development and may be costly for local
governments which may lose tax revenues as a result.
The second result I would like to highlight, and maybe a
somewhat more important result, is that New York City's
investment in these abandoned, tax-foreclosed properties
appears to have yielded significant, positive benefits. We find
that the gap between prices of properties near to assisted
housing sites and those in the surrounding neighborhoods
narrows dramatically after the housing investment is completed.
Moreover, we find that these impacts grow over time perhaps as
families move in and the population grows.
As for the magnitude of these neighborhood benefits, we
find they are substantial. Indeed, a simple analysis of
approximate cost and benefits suggest that New York City's
housing investments delivered a tax benefit to New York City
that exceeded the cost of the city's subsidies provided and
amounted to some 75 percent of the total public investment
which includes both State and Federal dollars. This, of course,
does not include the benefits enjoyed by the individual
households who actually get to live in the housing. What was
captured here is simply the community spill-over benefits.
In summary, I think our results offer strong evidence that
the investments that New York City has made over the past 20
years or so to stabilize vacant and abandoned properties and to
rebuild them as affordable housing for members of the community
have generated significant improvements in the surrounding
neighborhoods.
More generally, I think our results suggest that publicly
funded housing investments targeted strategically at distressed
urban properties cannot only create new affordable housing
units for qualified recipients but also help to revitalize
urban neighborhoods. Thanks.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Ellen follows:]
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Mrs. Maloney. I want to thank the audience. I mean, you are
really cheering for the right thing, more affordable available
housing. You have been the best audience I have ever had the
opportunity to be before.
Rev. Calvin Butts, your emotional and intelligent history
and focus and passion. Your remarks were right there and
pointed out really the importance that your church has really
played in the revitalization of Harlem.
Chris Kui, of course, and your organization, we worked so
closely after September 11th and you are doing so many other
things. I would like to put all of your testimony into the
Congressional Record. Next time CDBG is attacked, I want all of
you up there in Congress talking to our colleagues, setting the
record straight. You have the stories and the histories.
Dr. Ingrid Gould Ellen, you have really started to document
how this investment pays off in improving the quality of life,
people's lives, and really the livelihood of a community. I
certainly would like the HPD and really our staffs in
Washington to work with you if we could come up with an
alternative way to counter OMB's measurement because obviously
the program is working incredibly well.
I can't thank you enough. The chairman tells me we have to
get back to Washington. If we miss our planes, we will miss our
votes tonight. I can't tell you how much it was a great honor
to be home. The worse part about my job is that I have to be in
Washington all the time and it is greater to be here to see the
people's faces and what the programs mean to them. It has been
a great honor for me to be here. Congratulations on this new
school and everything you are doing to work together. Thank you
so much, Chairman Turner.
Mr. Turner. Before we close, I want to thank Congresswoman
Maloney for her leadership and her interest in holding this
hearing and inviting me to come to the community and giving
everyone the opportunity to see firsthand what has been
accomplished here, but also to get into the Congressional
Record the important experiences that you all have that are
direct ties to what the CDBG Program is important. I would like
to thank Carolyn Maloney one more time for her efforts in
bringing us here today.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Mr. Turner. I want to thank all the members of this panel.
Rev. Butts, thank you for your leadership in your community.
Clearly your efforts go well beyond just bricks and mortar as
you look to lead the community. I appreciate the faith-based
aspect of your participation. We know that is both important
for the fabric of the community and for the success of many of
the social services that you are providing. We certainly see a
tremendous impact that you are having.
Mr. Kui, I thank you for your participation and your
efforts. You can hear in your testimony and in your voice that
this is not just about a community but it is also about people.
When you talk about the experiences of the people that you have
been able to intervene on behalf of, you can tell that this is
obviously a labor of love and not just an issue of a
neighborhood's boundaries but the people who reside in the
homes and the lives that you are impacting. I thank you for
your dedication to that.
Dr. Ellen, I really appreciate your bringing an academic
and scientific view to what we all see as community
development. It was so funny in reading Office of Management
and Budget's criticisms and critique of CDBG, the first thing
that they said was, ``Community development is an undefined
term.''
Well, community development is something we feel in
addition to something that we have to measure. Your efforts to
measure it I do know is difficult. You and I were talking just
briefly about housing development that we had undertaken in the
city of Dayton when I served as mayor. I hope to get you out to
the city of Dayton to see those programs.
There in trying to justify housing redevelopment
investment, we even had to argue against individuals that
looked at measurement of housing property values where they
averaged the property values sales where a property that was
sold in its unrehabilitated condition was averaged against its
final sale price as the incremental impact whether than just
looking at the overall net impact of the end results.
I appreciate your looking at this in a manner where other
people can review the work and who don't necessarily see the
feeling of community development but can see its numbers.
I want to thank obviously the audience for participating.
You have been incredible for giving your time for this. And for
all of the panel members including the mayor who have shown
tremendous effort and commitment to this. You are changing your
community and you are being leaders for people throughout the
country who look to your city and your neighborhoods for
examples. Thank you.
[Whereupon, 1:32 p.m. the subcommittee adjourned.]
[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney and
additional information submitted for the hearing record
follow:]
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