Washington, D.C. -- Congressman Neil Abercrombie today led a successful charge to defeat an attempt by some conservative House members who want to halt funding to a program that’s been helping Native Hawaiians on Hawaiian Homelands across the state to finance and to build homes, with many of them using low-interest loans available through the program.

Abercrombie rallied support from Democrats and more than 70 Republicans on the House floor today to soundly defeat the Westmoreland Amendment which sought to delete funding to the Native Hawaiian Housing Block Grant Program contained in an important money bill for the Department of Transportation and Department of Housing and Urban Development which was debated on the House floor today.

"This amendment is another attack against a Native people," Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) told fellow lawmakers. “The Native Hawaiian Housing Block Grant Program provides funds for infrastructure development and helps Native Hawaiians obtain mortgages on land set aside for them by Congress."

The House went on to defeat the amendment by recorded vote and the efforts of a GOP faction of conservatives led by congressmen Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga) and Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas). (The unofficial vote count to defeat the amendment was 307 to 116.)

Since the establishment of the Hawaiian Housing Block Grant Program five years ago, the program has been able to complete infrastructure construction for at least 565 units or lots across the state, provide technical assistance to Native Hawaiians involved in building self-help housing and in need of down payment assistance, provided low-interest loans for low-income families, and finished engineering and design for 380 units.

"From Papakolea and Kapolei on Oahu to Waiakea and South Kohala on Hawaii Island, many working families—Native Hawaiian families—across the state and on virtually every island have benefited from this housing program," said Abercrombie. "We should not target Native Hawaiians or their families. We must support their efforts to become self-sufficient on the very lands Congress set aside for them in 1921."

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