Response to the Gulf Coast Hurricanes
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
In the aftermath of the Gulf Coast Hurricanes, the Democratic Members of the Financial Services
Committee have been active in providing both short-term and
long-term solutions to housing and flood insurance for hurricane
survivors.
However, Democrats have been critical at the federal
government's response to these natural disasters. Since
the hurricanes struck and sent millions of people looking for
temporary housing, the federal government's housing response has
been haphazard at best. Instead of following the Clinton
Administration's lead on disaster related housing after the 1994
Northridge Earthquake, the Bush Administration produced a
multi-layered, overly bureaucratic response that has FEMA taking
on more than it can handle and HUD proving to be missing in
action. In fact, a bipartisan consensus seems to have emerged
that steps FEMA and HUD have taken to date are not working.
In the 109th Congress, Committee Democrats worked
with Republican Committee Members to pass a number of bills in
the House to aid the victims of the hurricanes:
Click here for archived
information on Democratic efforts to aid the victims of the
hurricanes in the 109th Congress.
The new Democratic Leadership of the 110th
Congress has made response to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma
a top priority. The first Committee hearing of the new Congress
was on Federal Housing Response to Hurricane Katrina. This
hearing was followed by two days of field hearings in New
Orleans, LA and Gulfport, MS on the affordable housing crisis in
the Gulf region post Katrina and then a hearing on insurance
claims payment processes in the Gulf Coast following the 2005
Hurricanes.
In March, Chairman Barney Frank and Housing and
Community Opportunity Chair Maxine Waters introduced H.R. 1227,
"The Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007," to
provide comprehensive housing relief for the hurricane impacted
areas of the Gulf Coast. The measure will provide increased flexibility for already
allocated funds, provides new oversight of existing programs,
preserves public housing and assists evacuees with rental
housing, and provides support for landlords and local
communities who assisted evacuees with housing. The House
Financial Services Committee passed this bill on a bipartisan
vote of 50-16 on March 7, 2007. The House of Representatives
passed this bill on March 21, 2007 by a vote of 302-125.
Click here
to see how Members of the House voted on this bill.
Specifically, H.R. 1227 will provide the following:
-
Flexibility: The bill provides much needed
flexibility for use of previously appropriated federal funds to
speed up recovery efforts. It frees up $1.2 billion in funds for
Louisiana’s Road Home Program, for which FEMA is currently
withholding use - by transferring the funds to the CDBG account.
It eliminates an unnecessary restriction imposed by the prior
Congress against CDBG funds being used to meet matching
requirements under other federal programs.
-
Oversight: The bill requires that the Louisiana
Recovery Authority, the entity that administers the Road Home
program, report on their progress every thirty days.
-
Preservation of Federal Housing Assistance: The
bill includes a number of provisions to rebuild the stock of
affordable housing and to ensure that the Administration will
not shrink the level of housing assistance that supports that
housing stock. Specifically, it requires HUD to provide a
replacement voucher for every public or assisted housing unit
destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. It requires HUD to approve
proposals to reestablish or re-site damaged affordable federally
assisted housing units owned by private landlords. It requires
that replacement affordable housing units be provided for every
public housing unit in New Orleans that HUD wants to demolish.
It requires HUD to report on the number of public housing units
which are being planned to be sold off in areas impacted by
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And, it authorizes housing voucher
assistance for evacuees living in other parts of the country who
might otherwise lose their assistance in September. This bill
requires that HUD open 3,000 public housing units in New
Orleans.
-
Assistance for Communities and landlords that
assisted evacuees: The bill provides assistance for generous
communities and landlords that offered rental housing assistance
nationwide for evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The
bill authorizes reimbursements for communities that used their
own CDBG funds to provide rental assistance to evacuees after
the storms hit. And it reimburses landlords who assisted
evacuees for financial damages caused by FEMA abrogating
commitments made right after the storm under the FEMA Section
403 City Lease program.
In addition, the bill was amended in
Committee to include the following:
-
An amendment to authorize funding for 4,500 new
project based vouchers for supportive housing for seniors,
disabled, and the homeless. [Rep. Al Green (D-TX)]
-
An amendment to protect the inventory of
affordable housing units in the gulf – by preventing sell off of
public housing units unless affordability maintained for the
longest feasible period, by requiring replacement of demolished
public housing units, and by protecting residents by providing
relocation assistance for displaced residents. [Rep. Emmanuel
Cleaver (D-MO)]
-
To provide protections for housing agencies
adversely impacted by Hurricane Wilma, by clarifying that HUD
shall make adjustments in the voucher allocation formula for
agencies whose voucher utilization rates fell as a result of
Wilma. [Rep. Frank – Manager’s Amendment]
Click here for a
section by section analysis of H.R. 1227, "The Gulf Coast
Hurricane Housing Recovery Act."
Click here for
bill text of H.R. 1227, "The Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing
Recovery Act."
Click here for
the March 7, 2007 press release "House Financial Services
Committee Passes Comprehensive Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing
Bill."
Click here for
documents related to the March 6-7, 2007 Committee markup of
H.R. 1227, "The Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act."
Click here for
documents related to the February 28, 2007 Oversight and
Investigations Subcommittee hearing "Insurance Claims Payment
Processes in the Gulf Coast after the 2005 Hurricanes."
Click here for
documents related to the February 22-23, 2007 Housing and
Community Opportunity Subcommittee field hearings "Solving the
Affordable Housing Crisis in the Gulf Region Post Katrina: Why
no progress and what are the obstacles to success?"
Click here for
documents related to the February 6, 2007 full Committee hearing
"Federal Housing Response to Hurricane Katrina."
Click here for
the January 17, 2007 Statements of Chairman Barney Frank and
Congressman Mel Watt on the Recent United States District Court
Decision on Insurance Claims by Katrina Victims.
Click here for archived
information on Democratic efforts to aid the victims of the
hurricanes in the 109th Congress.