problem. how do you respond to that sentence? i'll start with mr. horowitz. >> i can only speak from experience and what i've heard from other igs, which is we have faced road blocks in several of our reviews, untimely access. where we have gotten it, it has taken a fair amount of time. i think the other igs have had their experiences. i know from conversations with fellow igs, while they haven't had lawyers come forward and say we can't legally give it to you, they've had issues with getting materials in a timely manner. that is a very significant issue for us. >> so when it says, almost uniformly successful, how would you characterize what you're able to access and get right now, particularly from the fbi? >> it has been an extraordinarily difficult issue for us for now several years to get prompt, timely access to materials. >> mr. elkins? >> i think there's a disconnect. and i think that statement that you just read capsulizes the disconnect. on the one hand, i think what we have seen here is that we hear from time to time that, well, you know, there is substantial cooperation with the oig. i mean, 80%, 90% of the time, you know, there's no problems. you get what you ask for. but that assumes that the other 10% to 20% of the time that we're not getting what we ask for is okay. and that suggests that it's a moving target. and that's a very slippery slope. and that is exactly i think why we're here today in talking about these issues, because there is this assumption that most of the time we cooperate, and that's where the focus is at. but the real issue here is, what about that 10% of the time that there is no cooperation? and that seems to just keep jumping around and jumping around. that's the problem. and i think that message says that it's a broad problem with omb and a lot of agencies. >> thank you, mr. elkins. ms. buller? >> i agree with my esteemed colleague. from our perspective, we've had an agency issue opinions -- or issue policies and procedures specifically stating that we can't have access to something. so it's very difficult for me to understand how it's not a problem. and i think the fact that 47 other igs have at one time or another, maybe not all the time, but one time or another had problems, should be an indicator that there is a problem. >> well, thank you. again, i appreciate the great work that you do and look forward to hearing from you further. i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. i recognize the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. cartwright. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for the inspects general appearing here today. as this committee has previously highlighted, the offices of inspectors general are essential to the efficiency of our federal government. they help hold agencies accountable, identifying misconduct in programs and by personnel. they can highlight the holy trinity of waste, fraud and abuse, guaranteeing that the american taxpayers get the most bang for their buck. the position of ig is a difficult position to hold. igs are tasked with investigating alleged abuses, among those with whom they work. of course, however, a balance has to be struck between confidentiality and privacy rights of victims, as well as whistle-blowe whistle-blowers, and the needs of the inspectors general. ms. buller, i listened to your testimony closely, and also your questioning by representative connelly. as you noted in your written testimony, the oig recently reached this memorandum of understanding with the peace corps on how best to comply with the peace corps volunteer protection act. obviously many victims of sexual abuse and assault choose to report that conduct anonymously out of fear of retribution and for their safety in general, and there's an irony, isn't there, in that the act was intended to provide tighter oversight to make sure complainants' anonymity is protected. in fact, puzi was murdered by her attacker when the peace corps mishandled her complaint and her identity got out. and i think mr. connolly has made that point. but there's this irony that the kay puzi act was intended to tighten oversight of the confidentiality and now we hear that the peace corps is saying that because of the need for confidentiality they don't want to cooperate as much with the oig, and i see that, and i think probably a good thing to do this morning, miss buller, would be for you to elaborate. you touched on it briefly in your testimony about how professionally your staff is, and how careful you are with anonymity. will you elaborate further and tell us more about systems and procedures in place to protect anonymity. >> sure. all of my staff is required as is the peace corps staff to comply with all of the laws that protect personal identifying information, such as the privacy act, hipaa, things of that nature. we are all required by law to comply with those, the same way the peace corps staff is. furthermore, my investigators are trained investigators. we must comply with all of the guidelines from the attorney general. we have full law enforcement authority. we participate like any other law enforcement organization. my evaluators, when they go out to a post, they go to the volunteer sites and sit and interview individual volunteers and they tell them that they will not use their name. because they're trying to find out how well peace corps is actually supporting those volunteers. so they do not use their names. they aggregate information and bring it back so we can issue a report to the agency to tell them that you have these problems in this area, that volunteers don't feel supported in another area, things of that nature. we are a very professional staff, and we do comply with all of the federally mandated laws. >> i thank you for that. and you did say in your testimony there's never been an instance of the office of attorney general being implicated in an improper disclosure of an identity, is that correct? >> yes. >> and there never will be, will there? >> no, there will not. >> well, i thank you for testifying here today. and we take your testimony seriously. >> thank you. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. and before i recognize myself for five minutes of questioning, i would ask that additional document that follows up the preceding documents, a letter addressed to the director of office management and budget on these issues and signed by our chairman and ranking member as well as corresponding chairman and ranking member of the senate, be introduced into the record. without objection, it will be introduced. i thank the witnesses for being here as well and carrying on with this continued investigation to make sure that your work is accomplished. mr. horowitz, i still remember our first meeting in my office when you came in after your appointment and how direct you were about saying my job is to be the job that oig is supposed to do and to get to the bottom of the issue regardless of where we find ourselves, and i appreciate that. but let me ask you a question relative to a fairly high-profile investigation that we've been involved with, as well as you. were there restrictions or limitations on your ability to access documents in your investigation into the operation fast and furious? >> that's one of them, the investigations where the issue was first raised back in 2011 to our access. >> did you have to make document requests in writing? >> we did. and we -- the issues came up both in the context of our request for grand jury information, which as you know given the case was a criminal case, were many. as well as wiretap information, as you know from our report, there were many. >> how long did it take for you to get access to those documents? >> it took many months for this issue to be resolved. and it was resolved through an order being issued by the leadership, not through our independent access pursuant to the ig act. >> elaborate on that last statement a little bit. >> yes. in our view, we have a right as congress has laid out in the ig act in section 6-a to get the materials we ask for. when we ask for materials, we ask for relevant information, responsive information, and in our view we're entitled to that by law. congress has been clear. the fbi, other components in the department, have taken the view that the ig act perhaps doesn't mean that. indeed, we've been told that that was the office of legal counsel's preliminary view, that the ig act didn't mean what it said. as a result, it required an order of the attorney general, deputy of the attorney general, to the component that said, i find these reviews to me as the leadership of the department, and therefore, you can give the ig those materials. >> how has the requirement that the oig obtain written permission to access documents related to the fast and furious operation affected your off's ability to conduct a complete investigation into the matter? >> it frequently has the impact of delaying our reviews. not only because we have to go through that process to the leadership of the department, but also because, frankly, it encourages other objections by other components of other issues. for example, personally identifiable information that ig buller has talked about. that issue was thrown up in front of one of our reviews on sexual misconduct by both the fbi and dea. that's a frivolous objection. and after many months of back-and-forth was withdrawn by the agencies and we finally got the material. >> how does all this affect your pinned pen dense? >> it compromises it, in my view, entirely. i should not have to go to the people i oversee for approval to get records. congress i don't think intended that. that would undercut in every way our independence. >> we certainly didn't. i appreciate that. let me ask questions of each of the panelists. other than the reason described in the letter from 47 igs, what tactics do agencies use to deny oigs access to agency records and documents? ms. buller, i'll start with you. >> in my case, we've had instances where our situation in the issue on the kay puzi act has bled into other areas. for example, they redid the case, or crime reporting management system for standard reports. and when they did that, we were denied access to that for no reason because they were not restricted report. so we had to go back to the general counsel and i actually had to go to the director of the agency and make a personal plea to get the information that we had been getting all along reinstated to us. it just -- once you start down the road where they're preventing you from getting information, it pops up in different places, in unexpected places. >> mr. elkins? >> in my case, what i see is stonewalling, to a large extent parsing out information. you know, you ask for, you know, ten pieces of information, and you get two or three pieces of information. and then there wants to be a discussion on the other seven pieces of information. and then there's continually fighting and going back in meetings, and at the end of the day, a year later, you still don't have the information. and in the back of my mind, what i hear is cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. that's the taxpayers' dollars going out and being used, on the agency side and my shop side, to be able to solve an issue that the ig access, when we ask for information, we're supposed to get it immediately and properly. and if we had received it at that time, the cash register wouldn't continually be ringing. that's what i see. >> mr. horowitz? >> as a result of the position that the ig act may not mean what it says, the fbi has put in place in our instance their general counsel reviewing all of the materials and all of our requests for materials before they come to us. that requires reviews by lawyers at the fbi. it delays us getting access. and the concrete example of what that means, in a review we are doing, we asked one of the subcomponents within the fbi for an organizational chart. they told us they couldn't give it directly to us because of the standing requirement within the fbi that the materials have to go through the office of general counsel first. so the we were delayed for weeks in even getting an organizational chart so we could figure out who to talk to in the course of a review. that should not be happening. that is a waste of money, as ig elkins just said. we have entitlement to the access to the records. i'm not sure what use there is of the resources of the fbi to go page by page through records before giving it to us. >> thank you. my time has expired. now i recognize the gentlelady from illinois, miss duckworth. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the inspector general plays a key role in making the government more honest and effective. i have seen firsthand their work. and obstruction of their work is simply not acceptable. so i take the concerns being aired here today very seriously. and hopefully the message my colleagues and i are sending on this point today is heard loud and clear. i'd like to discuss the concerns i have with epa's office of homeland security in particular. and mr. elkins, on may 7th of this year, the assistant inspector general for investigations in the epa testified before the committee and raised a number of access concerns. specifically, mr. sullivan expressed frustrations that the epa's office of homeland security ohs was denying access to important classified threat material that was impeding your ability to investigate threats against epa facilities and its employees. he also testified that ohs refused to share misconduct cases with his office because ohs believed it was a, quote, de facto law enforcement organization in itself. and finally, mr. sullivan raised concerns that ohs did not recognize the ig's statutory authority into the computer networks, denying access to classified information related to possible cyber intrusions. is that a fair summary of your concerns also with the ohs office under epa? >> yes, ma'am, that is a fair characterization. >> thank you. so i understand from your testimony today that you continue to have problems with access to information from ohs, is that correct? >> yes, ma'am, that's correct. >> in june, june 19th of this year, epa administrator mccarthy sent you a memo entitled working effectively and cooperatively, is that correct? >> i don't recall that exact memo. june 19th you say? >> it's called working effectively and cooperatively? >> eo yes, i do recall that, yes. >> it attempts to construct a framework for better cooperation between ohs and your office. and section 5 of the memo lays out a dispute resolution process. has that process been used by your office since receiving the memo? >> well, i can speak for my own personal opinion. no. we still have the same issue that is we had at the date of that letter. so if there was a dispute process that was used, it hasn't worked, and i haven't been a part of it. >> okay. do you think it could or should be further enhanced, the dispute resolution process, or do you think that's something that's just hindering your work in general? >> personally, i think the ig act says all, means all. to have access to documents and individuals, that's what it means. entering into a dispute resolution process sends the message there's some wiggle room, that it can be negotiated and i'm totally against that process. >> the committee staff attempted to assist you in resolving this impasse you're having withe pa's office of homeland security. my understanding from your testimony and what you just said, we're still hitting road blocks, is that correct? >> absolutely. >> what steps do you think would be helpful to resolve some of the dispute that is you're having and how can this committee be helpful to you in that process? >> well, i think ultimately the administrator needs to send a clear message that the ig act requires absolute cooperation with the ig. if that message is sent, i think everything would change, and until we get some clear message from the administrator to that effect, i think the status quo will continue. >> do you think the inspector is supporting ohs' position that they are a de facto law enforcement agency within the epa? >> i'm sorry. can you repeat the question, please? >> do you think that administrator mccarthy's position or from what he has said with this -- by supporting this memo working effectively and cooperatively and not sending out the statement that you should have full access, do you think that he supports what ohs believes, that they are a de facto law enforcement organization within the epa? >> well, you know, i don't want to put words in the administrator's mouth, but the end result is that, you know, the status quo continues, so i can only infer that the administrator agrees with that. >> thank you. thank you so much, mr. chairman, for having this hearing. to the extent that that committee and its staff can be of assistance to help address this impasse, we certainly should be willing to help. mr. elkins thank you for the work you do for us and for the american taxpayer. >> thank you, ma'am. >> i yield back. >> thank the gentlelady. the recognize the gentleman from oklahoma, mr. lankford. >> thank you for being here. we appreciate what the office of inspector general does and every one of these agencies is extremely important. congress and the american people established all these agencies. these agencies just didn't appear out of dust and one day have responsibility. congress created these agencies. and then congress had the oversight responsibilities for these, what the office of inspector general does is bring transparency to the american taxpayer. what you're doing is vital. so with that, mr. horowitz, if i asked to see all of the papers on your desk, would you assume that's only three pages or would you assume that's all? >> i would assume it's everything. >> if i asked for all the pages on your desk that you could go back and seek counsel and come back and say, no, we really decided all doesn't mean all? >> pursuant to the ig act, no, you would get everything. >> i have a real issue when any agency steps in and says, i know congress has required all these pages to be turned over, but we've discussed it as an agency and we're not going to turn it over. i have an issue with that. i have an issue anytime an agency steps up and says, we don't like some of the information coming out, and so we're going to choose not to give it. i don't like it when i read reports from the attorney general when he writes back to the inspector general and says, i have determined that providing the oig with access to it is helpful to me. and so i'm going to turn this over because it's helpful to me. that implies to me that he's also reviewing other documents and saying, i'm determining this is not helpful to me so i'm not turning it over. that is not the responsibility of the attorney general of the united states to conceal documents that are not helpful and turn over documents that are. with that, i have several questions. the road blocks that y'all have experienced over the last several years, mr. horowitz, you've been at this how many years? >> a little over two years. >> of what you have seen, and the folks that you have talked to -- mr. elkins, how long have you been at this, as an inspector general or with the inspect general's office? >> just a little over four years. >> ms. buller? >> six years. >> okay. the question is, this is obviously an old law. this is not new. this is requiring the administration, every administration, any administration, to say american tax dollars are at use here. what have you seen, what are they experiencing now that has changed and has it changed? is this just normal protocol from every administration to drag their feet on every investigation or is something changing? i'm not asking this in a political way. i'm just trying to figure out, is this just typical normal protocol from every administration, every agency? >> i can certainly speak to our situation. i talked to my predecessors, and the answer is clearly no in our circumstances. we did fbi oversight after the attacks of 9/11, after the robert hanson scandal. we were given complete access to the materials we needed. we didn't face these kinds of issues. frankly, we didn't face these issues until 2010. are you finding that forrier requests and information coming from out foyer requests are coming out as fast or of equal speed that you're getting from the inspect general's office? >> i haven't compared those, so i couldn't speak to that. >> i can say here in congress we are finding that. that at times we'll make a request of a document, and a foyer request happens. and the foyer request gets it the same day we do. sometimes faster. so that has been an issue. mr. elkins, i have a question for you. you're dealing with the epa. you said in your oral testimony that you're being blocked from the epa receiving information that they have deemed intelligence activity. tell me about that. >> yes, sir. the epa under homeland security has asserted that it is the primary office in epa to handle any issues related that have intelligence connected to it. unfortunately, they do not have investigation authority. there's only two entities within the epa that has investigative authorities. one is the oig, and the other is cid. in terms of employing these cases which typically result in -- where you have intelligence information where individuals inside the agency is doing something illegal, it's going to be related to an employee misconduct. >> can you tell what intelligence activity is within the epa? what they're saying -- they're withholding this information, and you can't look at it because it's intelligence activity. can you tell what that is? >> to the extent they have the intelligence activities information, i don't know because they don't share that information with me. >> i can tell you this committee finds this ironic. it wasn't that long ago we had someone sitting at that same table that pretended to be with the cia and was also with the epa and for years, for years eluded epa oversight because they claimed he was secretly working for the cia. i find it ironic the epa is telling the inspector general this is intelligence related, we can't pass this on for oversight. i'll be interested to hear from the epa what intelligence activities that they are doing on the american people, and what intelligence activities that they're doing nationwide or worldwide related to the environmental protection act. and why they would say this is so secret that we're not going to allow the american people to see the activities of the epa or allow the inspector general to participate in the oversight for that. i think that's a reasonable question to ask any agency that doesn't have investigative intelligence responsibilities, how they have somehow created their own intelligence department and what they're doing with that. mr. chairman, thank you for allowing me the extra seconds here of questioning. and i thank you all for your work. >> i thank the gentleman. i recognize the gentleman from nevada, mr. horsford. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate very much this hearing. and we started off saying that this is going to be nonpartisan, and unfortunately as usual it turns into a bit more partisan than it should because the role that the ig plays is very important. your mission is important. and we should be working in a nonpartisan fashion to support that. mr. horowitz, i do want to follow up on your comments by my good friend, the gentleman from oklahoma, and to ask you to clarify a little bit based on your testimony today and your previous testimony in january. i want to ask you about some of the concerns that you raised regarding your office's access to categories of information relevant to ongoing ig reviews, including wiretaps and grand jury materials and documents related to the department of justice's use of material witness warrants. mr. horowitz, as i understand it, in specific instances, you have had to seek access to this information from the department's leadership, correct? >> that's correct. >> when testifying about this same issue before the committee on january 15th, you stated, and i quote, in each instance, the attorney general or the deputy attorney general provided us with the permission to receive the materials. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> you also wrote in your testimony today that the department has informed you that, quote, it is their intent to continue to grant permission to access records in future audits and reviews, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> so mr. horowitz, as a preliminary matter, has all of the information you have sought from the department been provided to you? >> we are told that it has been. >> has any information that you have requested from the department ultimately been withheld from you? >> ultimately, no. we've gotten it after many months. >> so during the january hearing, you testified that your office's access issues were, quote, not necessarily specific to this attorney general, this deputy attorney general, it is an issue that my predecessors have had to deal with. is that correct? >> it is correct that they've had to deal with timely production of materials. >> so when you were asked by my good friend, the gentleman from oklahoma, is this an issue that is unique to this department's leadership, that was not the answer you just gave. >> the issue arose in 2010 when my predecessor was still there and continued beyond that. there were other issues that predated in terms of timeliness. but we have not had a legal objection raised by a component until then. >> i appreciate that clarification. it is my understanding that the department recently requested a formal opinion from the office of legal counsel to resolve a conflict between the interpretation of 6-a of the ig act which grants the ig prompt and full access to all necessary requested information and several statutes that restrict the release of certain types of protected information such as a grand jury and wiretap material. it is also my understanding that the department has told you that it is committed to working with you to provide access to all materials necessary for your office to complete its review until the olc releases its opinions. is this correct? is this a correct understanding? >> as i made clear in my testimony, the leadership has made that clear. the problem is, every day this goes on without a decision, we don't have -- we're not independent. we're not acting independently. >> but that is not an issue of the leadership of that department. >> as i testified today, the leadership has made it clear they will continue to issue orders to the components to get us the records. but the issue is whether that's really required by congress' act. >> and so, therefore, mr. chairman, i think to the degree there is some clarification, it's the clarification within the disputes with section 6-a and the statutes, not as some would like to assert, somehow the department's leadership and a lack of providing information that's being requested of them. i think that needs to be made clear for the record. i'm encouraged that the department's leadership has been working to provide your office with access to the information it needs to do your job, including grand jury and wiretap information that must be closely guarded. and i hope that both parties continue to work together as we move forward on this important issue. thank you very much, mr. chairman. i yield back my time. >> i thank the gentleman. and i guess i would express my pleasure at this hearing so far, up until now, that it has been bipartisan, non-partisan, looking for answers of what is happening now so that we can move forward and do it right. and so i would state that i think that is what this committee hearing has developed around and over and has been carried on. i appreciate the bipartisan fashion and the nonpartisan fashion so far. having said that, let me recognize -- looking at the list here -- mr. duncan from tennessee. >> well, thank you, mr. chairman. i'm sorry i had to preside over the house, so i couldn't hear all of your testimony. but i introduced the original bill to create an inspector general for the tennessee valley authority. and i've always believed very strongly in the inspector general process. it has been very, very helpful to the work of this committee. but i was really amazed by the number of inspectors general that signed this letter. i'm told it was -- i haven't tried to count it, but i was told it was 47, or something like that. that's pretty amazing. i think that certainly is not something that we've ever seen before. so apparently there's pretty serious concern by people who are in the know, so to speak. mr. horowitz, i understand, though, that there are several high-profile investigations such as in the new black panther case, and the prosecution of the late senator ted stevens, and the torture memo case, other matters where your investigation has been hindered or delayed or something by the office of professional responsibility? could you explain a little bit about what that's done to your work? >> certainly, congressman. the issue there is that when congress set up the ig, our ig office in 1988, we weren't part of the original ig act, it kept in place the office of professional responsibility. and it provided that unlike with regard to all the other employees in the justice department, that we don't have jurisdiction to review alleged misconduct by department attorneys. so as a result, matters such as those cases go to the office of professional responsibility, which lacks statutory independence instead of coming to us. we actually have no authority to investigate those matters. >> well, i understand that. but what i'm asking, there have been these high-profile situations, and i'm sure several much lower profile cases where there have been -- there has been misconduct by department of justice lawyers. do you think that your office would be capable of investigating this type of misconduct along with the office of professional responsibility? >> we absolutely think that. and i think we've demonstrated that, frankly, by issuing reports regarding agent misconduct such as some of the work we've done in the fbi context. we've demonstrated quite ably our abilities to do that. and i think the same independence that congress believes is important over the fbi should also exist with regard to the department attorneys. >> i'll ask the panel as a whole, do you feel that there's been an overclassification of documents by the departments or agencies with which you've worked, or in which you've worked? or in other departments that you've read or heard about? >> i have to concur with mr. horowitz here. yes, i have heard that. in my particular agency, that has not been an issue particularly, but i have heard that issue raised, yes. >> peace corps doesn't have original classification authority, so that's really not an issue at the peace corps. >> we have found some issues related to that in one of the reports we did last year and have reported out on that. >> all right. well, thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> i thank the gentleman. and the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. davis. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. and let me begin by emphasizing how much i value the work of the inspector generals community in helping our government function better and become more efficient. so i want to thank all of you for being here. it is imperative that all inspectors general have a good working relationship with the agencies they're tasked with overseeing in order to fulfill their mission of identifying and eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government. mr. horowitz, i'd like to ask about the department's overall level of cooperation with your office. you testified before the committee on january 15th of this year that, and i quote, most of our audits and reviews are conducted with full and timely cooperation from the department's components, end of quotation. is that a correct -- >> that's correct. most of our work, we had full cooperation. >> would it be fair to say that the access concerns you raised in your testimony are limited to specific instances and not representative of a larger scale agencywide problem? >> i would say there are limited reviews where we've had this problem. the problem, though, is that as ig elkins said and ig buller said, we get, frankly, frivolous objections that don't have to go to the deputy attorney general or the attorney general, because i have -- i'm able to work them out with agency leadership at the dea or fbi or wherever it is. but these problems, once some people see they can object, you get more and more objections, frankly. >> thank you. your office's semi-annual report to congress for the october 2013 through march 2014 reporting period states that it has closed 184 investigations, issued 35 audit reports, and made 137 recommendations for management improvement, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> the report mentions, for example, that your office issued an audit of the department's efforts to address mortgage fraud and the department agreed with all seven the ig's recommendations, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> your office also examined the fbi's terrorist watch list operations and practices and issued 12 recommendations, all of which the fbi agreed with. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> mr. horowitz, can you then give us an overview of how these audits and recommendations helped streamline costs and improved the department's programs and operations? >> well, we make these recommendations to do precisely that, congressman, so that we can not only advise the agency leadership what steps need to be taken but the congress itself as it does its oversight, and the recommendations we make go to the deficiencies we find, either management or waste, fraud, misuse that save the taxpayers every year tens of millions of dollars. >> then it sounds to me like your office is doing a great deal of very valuable work to ensure that the agency maintains high standards of integrity and accountability. i want to commend and thank you again for your efforts, and i thank all of you for being here this morning and clarifying, testifying, and giving us the assurances that we need to have to know that you're doing good work and that the oversight of our government is in good hands. mr. chairman, i thank you and yield back the balance of my time. >> i thank the gentleman, and the chair recognizes himself for five minutes. thank you, all of you, for your testimony, mr. elkins in particular, welcome. it's been a real pleasure to work with you in a nonpartisan way. i think all of us here would agree that we don't want republicans, democrats, or unaffiliated or agencies to influence your work, that indeed it needs to be independent, that the american taxpayers depend on your work, and so i just say thank you to each one of you. miss buller, i want to start with you. if this continued stonewalling of access to documents, what kind of harm -- potential harm can you see that would come from this, specifically with your work? >> well, in our case we do have the memorandum of understanding, so we are somewhat receiving information, but the problem with that is it's a temporary measure, and we can't rely on it being there because it can be taken away at any time. and if we don't receive access to the information that we need, we can't ensure the volunteers who have been victims of sexual assault are receiving the types of care and services that they need and are entitled to in order for them to move on with their lives. >> so is it your testimony today that victims might potentially continue to suffer if you don't get the kind of access to documents that is outlined in the memo of understanding, but if they quit providing that, could victims continue to be harmed? >> we'll never be able to tell. that's the big problem. we won't be able to tell whether the agency is doing what it's supposed to do or whether or not they're actually performing in a poorer manner than they were before. we will be able to tell only from when the victims come in like they did in 2010 and complain about their treatment by the agency. >> so what rationale would be out there to justify, and this question is to all of you, what rationale is out there to preclude you from getting information that would be deemed beneficial to the american people? why should they withhold stuff from you? mr. elkins, we can start with you. >> yes, sir. i think that's a good question and i scratch my head sometimes trying to figure out the answer to that, but it seems to me that sometimes some of these defenses are made out of whole cloth. they just kind of pop up. based on the circumstances. so it's random, and that's part of the problem. >> so there are times when they will very willingly give you information, and then other times where they say you can't have this. >> yeah, i think that's a fair -- >> is that because the employees that you have working for the oig are somewhat inferior to the employees of the agencies? >> no, no. >> i would hope you would answer that in that manner, and so what you're saying is the level of professionalism of your employees would be equal with the agency? >> oh, absolutely. >> do you think that the level of professionalism and privacy concerns within your agency is equal to that of the epa as a whole? >> absolutely. >> would you agree with that, mr. horowitz? would you say you would have the same desire to protect the integrity of the process? >> absolutely, and we have a track record of handling among the most sensitive national security information that the fbi has through our review of 702 of fisa, various patriot act reviews we've done that congress mandated. we have among the most sensitive information that exists in our possession. >> so there's not a clearance issue here. there's not a proprity issue. there's no reason you should not be getting 100% of what you request. >> absolutely. >> miss buller, you said earlier there's never been a case where some of that information has been disclosed by the oig in terms of causing harm to a potential victim, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and so if we have all of these, then what is the real genesis of this whole problem of why they do not wan to share it with really the only independent source out there to protect the american people. what is the reason these agencies would do that, mr. elkins? >> it seems to me that there may be a belief that the ig act doesn't mean what it says that it means. >> so has this been a new revelation that all of a sudden we have this new revelation in the last couple of years that it doesn't mean that or what -- why did they come to this conclusion recently? >> that's a good question, and that's probably one that -- >> so we've got new counsel that's interpreting it a little bit differently. so what you're saying is from a bipartisan standpoint, what we need to do is make sure that the ranking member and the chairman come together and say, well, we mean what we say? >> and one of the things, there is no enforcement mechanism in the ig act. >> i'm going to close with this. what would be the great enforcement mechanism that if they don't give you 100% of the dount documents, that they get their budget cut by 10%. >> sir, i will leave that up to -- >> i'll certainly yield to the ranking member. >> just one question. i am just trying to figure out what you are able to get under the memorandum of understanding. let's take, for example, someone is raped. you -- right now you can get -- what can you get? >> right now we can get access to the restricted report that's filed in the incident report. we may have more difficulty getting other information concerning that particular incident because we can't -- we don't have a personal identifying number or anything to associate with it. >> so you can get the details of the rape? because i'm kind of confused what you agreed to. >> with the exception of explicit details and we've tried to define that mou very narrowly, sa laslacious, thingst wouldn't necessarily add anything to our review. >> i see. thank you. >> i thank the gentleman. the chair is going to recognize the gentleman from oklahoma for four minutes at this point. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm going to need all that time. i need to follow up. one of the documents that mr. horowitz you provided was some background information about grand jury investigations, specifically about an oklahoma case that i want to bring up to you. in the 1990s the office of inspector general at that time requested information about -- re lated to an fbi's testimony and the bureau of prison and a man who died in the prison named kent trinity. there's a lot that happened around that case and still a lot of questions spin around the death of kent trinity in oklahoma. your reference to that case, i just want to ask why you're bringing that up at this point, what you have learned from, it what was established then, and what's happening now. >> so this is now the 1997-1998 time period. our office was involved in the misconduct review related to that matter. we needed grand jury information, and the justice department, civil rights division then, but the justice department supported our right of access to grand jury information and went to court to two different federal judges in oklahoma to confirm that the department's reading of the grand jury statute allowed them to give us those materials. two judges both said hyou, justice department, are right in your legal interpretation, and under the law the ig is entitled to get these grand jury materials. to our mind that should have resolved this issue. that's now 15 years ago, two federal judges have both ruled. they're article 3 judges. we're at a loss to understand why nonconstitutional officers would be deciding the issue any differently. >> fast forward to today and what you're dealing with. you're not getting access to grand jury information currently, is that correct? >> the objection is we're not entitled as a matter of law so we have to go through this mechanism to get the attorney general or the deputy attorney general's approval to get it. >> at that point you now have to make -- you now have to make a request and the attorney general can say i either want you to have this or i don't want you to have this. it goes back to some of the earlier statements that i made that he now has the ability to say this helps me or doesn't help me and so i'm going to give it to you or not give it to you not based on i've made the request. a federal judge has already ruled on this in oklahoma, this is resolved issues. is that correct or not correct? >> it is left to the discretion of the attorney general or the deputy attorney general. >> rather than i make the request you're already entitled to that. >> correct. >> how many cases are out there like that for you? do you have a guess of how many documents or cases you're getting delayed response or partial response or getting a response at some date in a future time period? because you had testified earlier, you are getting records. you're just not getting them in a timely manner. >> there are probably ten or more examples i could give of instances where we've either had the legal objection raised or the timeliness issue come up in the last two years at least. i could probably make a longer list if i went through with my staff. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i appreciate you allowing me to ask that oklahoma-related question. thank you. >> i thank the gentleman from oklahoma. the chair recognizes the gentleman from maryland, mr. cummings. >> as we close i want to thank all of you for being here today. these disputes are very serious serious because they without a doubt impede you from doing your work. on the other hand, of course, you have the agencies such as in i guess in all these cases who cite laws that conflict with your duties and your -- and the rules and regulations that you operate under. it seems like we ought to be able to resolve this. i have two concerns and one is if we were to pass legislation and sharing your viewpoint, mr. elkins and if we -- if it does not prevail, i think that makes your position weaker. your present position. the other thing that i'm concerned about is that if we were to do a universal thing that says your access to information is superior to everything, i don't know what that universe of everything is. you know? and i'm sure you don't either. you may know in your area but we're talking about 47 of you all. so then i considering what the chairman talked about in executive order, i think the president prey probably would face the same kind of problem with regard to what that universe is. but there's got to be a way to deal with this. miss boller the reason why i keep coming back to you is because, i mean, you know, when they -- we've got an agency that -- when you have an ig office whose duty it is to get information and protect these victims and not be trusted with the information, that, you know, that seems like there's something missing there that we ought to be able to get to the bottom line is how do we protect victims, how do we get the information that we need so that we can accomplish that. so you know, we're going to put our heads together and see what we can do to try to resolve these issues but they are -- they are serious issues. i would imagine that if the agencies came in, they probably would say, you know, we do believe in what we're doing. we're trying to obey the law, too. so it's going to take a little bit of effort, and a lot of effort but i do believe that we should be able to resolve this. do you all -- my last question, do you all believe an executive order is the answer, miss buehler? >> i think anything that sends a very strong message to agencies that the ig is there to perform oversight and in order to provide that oversight they need access to agency records. anything that is very clear and states that without exception i think would help. >> mr. elkins. >> i agree that executive order would be helpful. you know, also i'd just like to remind the panel here that in administrative law cases there's a very rock solid case called chevron that agencies rely on to determine whether or not deference should be played to an agency that has jurisdiction. well, i think in our case, chevron would apply, as well. the ig act we're the subject matter experts there. there should be a certain amount of deference to our interpretation as to what our access should be. that deference is not given to us. agencies would use it all the time but in our circumstance when we try to assert a chevron argument, it's ignored. >> i would agree with you, congressman, that a clarification is critical. an executive order, a prompt olc decision, we've been waiting for a few months now that would say what does the law mean because that's the objection we're all getting at some level which is congress didn't mean in 6-a what we all think it means. the fbi is reinterpreting it statutes, d.j. others in my agency. others inspectors general have said the same thing. ultimately they're trying to interpret what congress meant. >> right. >> so it's really all your issue here that you've got the executive branch in my case olc which speaks for the executive branch trying to devine does 6-a mean what it says which we think has always been the case, at least until 2010 when the fbi general counsel raised an objection. or what the fbi general counsel and some others have said. we need clarity on that issue, an executive order would do it. an immediate olc order would do it, and then congress can decide whether to fix 6-a at that point or not. but that's really what we need. >> again, thank you all very much. thank you, sir. >> i thank the gentleman and each of you for your testimony. i think today highlights really in a bipartisan way the need for full disclosure to the oigs. not just with your agencies that you oversee but across the board. miss buller, you know, some of the testimony that you've given us gives us great pause because sometimes we look at these things as just administrative. and yet, the victims that you have you discussed are real. and i don't believe that we can tolerate the lack of cooperation. ultimately, the information that these agencies have belong to the american taxpayers. they're not proprietary to an agency. they're not proprietary to congress, not even proprietary to you. they belong to the american taxpayers. what we must do is have full and complete disclosure. to give the best example if the irs comes in and does an audit, i don't know the universe of which they may be asking for when they say they want all the documents, generally they mean all the documents. and i would suggest that that simple test be one that the agencies hear loud and clear today that when you request it, they are to provide it and then we're going to hold you accountable to make sure that those disclosures and integrity and professionalism that each one of you have assured me that you have that that gets abided by because a fracture there really does irreparable harm. we've got a lot of great federal workers. for many of the american taxpayers, the oig is the only thing that they can believe in to hold these agencies accountable. mr. elkins, you know in my particular district, i've got an issue that has been going on for 25 years with the e.p.a.. they have no confidence, are democrats, republicans, unaffiliated, none of them have confidence in that agency to deal with that problem. their last hope, their truly their last hope is your office. and your involvement in the independence of that and the full disclosure is what they're counting on. and so i think that that can be echoed across all of the oigs and so i thank you for your testimony. i thank the ranking member for his closing comments and i look forward to you providing to this committee three recommendations on how we can help with the enforcement component, the stick or the carrot that we need to have, i need to know three suggestions that you might have that we can encourage these agencies to provide what the american people deserve. and with that, i adjourn this hearing. coming up today, a virginia house debate for the state's tenth congressional district in the washington, d.c. suburbs. republican barbara comstock and democrat john faust are vying for the seat of frank wolf who is retiring. that debate can be seen live at 12:30 p.m. on our website, c-span.org. here are some of the candidate ads. >> barbara comstock wants to make abortion illegal even in cases of rape and incest. just like the right wing republicans in congress. they want to overturn roe vs. wade. so does she. >> i think roe vs. wade should be overturned. >> barbara comstock even voted with right wing republicans to require women seeking an abortion to undergo transvaginal ultrasounds. that's all i need to know. >> i'm john foust and i approve this message. >> trash talking politics from john foust. foust wages a desperate, dishonest and negative campaign against barbara comstock. foust attacks, sexist, bizarre, ignorant. barbara comstock is an award winning legislator who gets results. comstock wrotes law that protected women and children from human traffickers, restored millions of dollars in school funding brought better paying jobs to virginia. john foust talks trash. barbara comstock gets results. >> i'm barbara comstock and i approve this message. >> i'm john foust, i balanced seven budgets in fairfax county we had to cut a lot of waste. we consolidated offices. share printers. we can walk a few feet. replaced computers. but kept the monitors. we're fine. we even discovered that the phone company overcharged us by $3 million. i approved this message because congress doesn't need another right winger. they need someone who can balance a budget. oh. and we definitely didn't need so many government studies. >> barbara comstock is a devoted wife, mother, and public servant. she was elected to the house of delegates where she wrote the law to protect women and children from human traffickers. barbara comstock gets results. her leadership create new jobs, save taxpayers millions of dollars, and helped restore millions more to our schools. barbara comstock was a trust ed age int and she'll be a great congresswoman for all of us. >> i'm barbara comstock and i approved this message. >> today's live debate in virginia's tenth congressional district is one of over 100 house, senate and governor's debates we will be bringing you during the campaign season on the c-span networks. president obama will be chairing the united nations security council this afternoon. as it meets to discuss foreign fighters traveling to conflict zones, and joining terrorist organizations. live coverage at the security council session starts at 3:00 p.m. eastern time on c-span. next, a conference examining the housing needs of senior citizens. including affordability, long-term health care, community engagement, seniors' ability to maintain their independence, and safety issues. representatives from the public and private sectors along with former housing and urban development secretary henry cisneros will take part. harvard joint center for housing studies and the aarp foundation host the event. >> i'm ann norton. i have, as lisa said, just the most amazing panel here of housing leaders and i'm just thrilled to be a part of it. we have, starting on my right, the office of the aarp foundation. this is in your schedule also your agenda, terri ludwig, she's with enterprise. kathy greenlee who is the assistant secretary of aging, and also the administrator for the administration for community living. did i get that right? then we have lindsay goldman from new york city where we all want to go now, who is going to talk to us today about the age friendly community effort that's going on in new york and i understand some other communities across the country. i'm struggling here not to feel gloom and doom. because i know that the report is, you know, has outlined so many of the challenges that are facing us going forward. but we are going to change all that with this panel. we're here to tell you that all is not gloom and doom, that there are some -- many of us, including the wonderful women here with me today and the organizations they are associated with are aware of these challenges, are working very pro actively within their organization and across the country to find tried and true ways to address these challenges as well as coming up with some more innovative solutions. so our goal here today for the rest of the panel is to try to make you feel all more optimistic about the futd your of aging in our country going forward, particularly on the housing and long-term services arena. i just wanted to begin -- in doing some research for the panel besides getting to know my colleagues here, i also rediscovered the founder of aarp. i'm going to give a plug for aarp here because dr. and rues who started aarp was concerned about housing and housing for seniors and creating livable communities. this was back in the '50s. i don't know -- i certainly didn't know and many of you might not know that she actually started one of the first independent living facilities for seniors in california called the gray gables. their principle was that seniors should have environments that allow them to continue to contribute to the communities so that we're not all problems. we also are vibrant contributors to our neighborhoods and our communities. she also started acacia, which is a skilled nursing facility in california. this was back in the late '50s. she developed a design for the freedom houses or house of freedom. she did a ribbon cutting with president eisenhower in 1961 showcasing the house of freedom which actually incorporated a lot of visibility features that we have heard talked about today. some of the solutions have been with us for a long time. it's not too late. we do need some innovation because of our current economic climate, our current political climate. but there are solutions. it's never too late to begin. with that, we're going to begin -- to give you a bit of an idea about our format. i'm going to ask the panelists questions about their work and what they have identified as best practices and also what some of the gaps are and a couple of other questions about what's happening now that's positive and solution-based. then we will take questions from the floor. i will begin with assistant secretary greenlee. this morning we have heard about the current and impending housing needs and challenges for the 50-plus population in our community. this includes the need for affordability, accessibility, connectivity and housing and long-term care. what in your work with the administration and as the assistant secretary of aging, can you tell us that you have identified at the federal, state and/or local level some of the best practices and policies for addressing some of these challenges? >> i wanted to start by acknowledging secretary cisneros, your comprehensive overview that was so impressive. of all of the issues, the innovations around the country -- you did such a wonderful job in your overview. i would like to start in left field and just announce it's left field before i do this. why do people move to a nursing home? services. what do we pay for when we move to a nursing home? we pay for room and board and we pay for services. the concept talking about housing and services may feel like a new collision of the world of housing and services. but we're not. we've always known this that at some point when someone needs support, we will pay. for all of it. for the medicaid program, this is very expensive. obvio obviously. the medicaid -- it seems like people have a place to live. even that sets up -- the medicaid program is not our goal that people need assistance. [ inaudible ] -- is taking place in an upstream conversation which teases out -- [ inaudible ] how do we integrate housing and services and talk about them sooner in a more focused way? i think this conversation actually is very positive. think about the older americans programs which are programs that we administer through the administration and the agency. the services that we all know about -- what do older americans have that is not provided is the comprehensive case management versus on-site to make it all work. part of why -- it's a secret of the doorman that at some point you need someone who sees the whole person and all of their needs. that's where we find -- the secretary mentioned [ inaudible ] what does it take to look comprehensively -- to one person -- or one person in a community to really help someone -- i was thinking about this. i was in my 40s when i asked myself the question that all of us have asked. just what do old people do all day? -- >> i'm going to ask panelists to turn on your mics -- turn them on in the back. >> what do old people do all day? this is a really fundamental question that needs to be answered. how do we create societies? mine is on. >> no, it's not. >> i didn't turn it off. >> i asked the question about what old people do all day. i think at some point it comes back to their individual conversations, even though [ inaudible ] how do we get back to fundamentals of one person at a time toying what do you need as you age? what are your goals as you age? what are your plans? who is helping with your care? all of the planning needs to come about in a way that's comprehensive. if we do that, it is positive. [ inaudible ] we take first the big picture -- the individual and what do they need and how do we provide services that provide that connection so that they can meet their goals. >> some old people are sitting up on the panel today. >> i never said i was -- >> i didn't mean you. i meant me. lindsay, you are actually engaged or i think the age friendly community started from the point that the assistant secretary is mentioning, right? it was at the grassroots level with seniors themselves being involved in the process. can you tell us a little bit about what you've learned that's working well with the age-friendly community in new york? >> absolutely. age-friendly new york city was started in around 2007. it's a partnership between the new york academy of medicine, the new york city council and the office of the mayor to look at all aspects of city life to see where improvements to policies, practices and programs can really make a difference for older people in maximizing their participation in society. so what we have done is we have used the world health organization's framework for active aging, which identifies eight domains of an age-friendly community. one of which is housing. we work across those domains. the first step is always to go straight to the source. older people themselves. we do this through community consultations and focus groups and surveys. we ask older people exactly that question that you just posed, which is, what do you do all day? what is your day-to-day life like? what do you like about your community? what do you like about your housing? what do you not like? what are the barriers that may prevent you from being as involved as possible? and then we bring all of the relevant sectors to the table along with the older people to collectively strategize creative solutions to those problems that older people have identified. so i'm talking about the housing sector, the non-profit and faith-based sector, arts and culture, transportation. we operate according to the premise that you can actually slow or reverse the disability trajectory by modifying the environment, the social environment, the economic environment and the physical environment in addition to certain lifestyle changes. so i think that we see older people from a right space rather than a needs based perspective. we see older tenants and older homeowners ass asets to communities. often long-term residents who are among the most civically engaged who have a real comprehensive understanding of their community's assets and vulnerabilities. this is a good story for us. i can get into more specifics later. but i think what's been really essential is that we have the right people around the table and that we not relegate the issues of older adults and their housing to one government agency like the department for the aging but rather we see this as everyone's issue. it's an issue for all sectors and government agencies. we bring those people to the table. we do it across the city and more localized ways. we go by community district. this strategy has produced really incredible results to really improve the quality of life for older new yorkers. >> could you give us an example in the housing arena of house having the right people -- the right stake holders at the table has led to success? maybe just one example? >> absolutely. i love that you touched on the doorman issue. so we have partnered with local 32 bj, the building service workers union. they have about 50,000 members. what they have done is really taken this up as their issue. they have created a training that's part of the career ladder for their members so that they -- door men and porters and other building service workers learn about the needs and assets of older people, specifically how to identify signs of elder abuse, signs of cognitive decline. building service workers are often very well positioned to identify subtle changes that occur in an individual over time. so we have empowered them to provide assistance and to know where they can refer these tenants when they start to notice certain troubling signs. and now we have actually expanded that program to include a module on the needs of older people in disasters. because we found during hurricane sandy that building service workers were essential in meeting the needs of their older tenants. >> thank you. i want to move on to you, terri. i know you work in new york, i think, but also all across the country. maybe you could tell us -- i think that you enterprise does a lot of work in assisting communities and developers, both private and nonprofit developers, produce housing, correct? >> absolutely. >> can you tell us, what are some of the best practices and policies that you have discovered actually help address some of these housing issues that we have discussed so much today? >> absolutely. i would say just as a starting point, enterprise is a national organization that looks at safe and healthy housing as a fundamental platform for delivering opportunity. kind of think of it as the first rung on the ladder of opportunity. we try to look at connecting housing to healthcare, to education, to jobs, to transit. that's very much what we believe. that's our theory of change, if you will. so in our work, what we have found is that those critical intersections between today as we're discussing -- many of those intersections but health and housing is so fundamentally important. so what we try to do is really look at the needs starting with what are the resident needs? what are the needs of that older american that's there? we are working across a variety of age ranges. we take that and think about the systems change that we're trying to embrace. from that perspective. so we're looking at a whole spectrum of services. just to give you a sense of that, we're starting with a building level look. then we're looking at what does it take to get the building constructed, the financing, the design, the construction, all the way through to what are the services that are needed. we're looking at that whole piece. i would say some of the things that we have learned as we have done this work for the last 30 years, one is that all these things have to -- they have to work together. so at the building level, we actually have a design practice that's looking at how do you build the housing that's culturally appropriate? how do you look at the special needs of the tenants? especially in the course of disaster but in the course of the day to day. secondly, we have looked to say -- as we look -- we know the financing models, fantastic keynote. i think certainly henry suggested the shortage of resources. we all have to learn how to leverage resources better. so one of the things that we're trying to look at as we look at financing streams is how do we mix the financing streams and what we are seeing is developers are becoming more -- they are getting better at mixing housing, financing streams with some of the other financing streams like coming out of medicare, medicaid, a lot happening at the state level. we're seeing that happening. i think that the developers we work with understand the criticality of that. but at the end of the day, i also think that one of the most important things that we have been able to do is to look at -- there's a lot of fragmentation. there's two big themes in my mind. one is how do you drive the cross -- those sector -- cross-sector conversations and break down those silos. the second thing is just there's a lot of fragmentation. one of the things we did a number of years ago is to introduce enterprise green criteria that said there's ways we can look at sustainability. how do we look at energy and water efficiency? bring that together. we have taken that criteria and start to say, what else should we do to try to help create a common ground so that developers are looking at how they develop housing that we could actually influence that process? in this case, pertinent to this conversation today for older adults, we have taken that green community criteria and expanded it to include siding. where is housing getting built relative to transit? universal design. we now have a full segment on universal design. and that's significant, because then you build that set of criteria into the policy mechanisms where incentives are. for example, in developing affordable housing, we know low-income housing tax credit is the biggest driver. those allocations and tax credits are awarded at the state level through an allocation process, a competitive funding round. we now have our criteria imbedded in 25 states. what that starts to do is to say, if you meet the set of criteria, let's say universal design, you score better on that incentive. so you start to really drive capital flows in new ways. we kind of start with what are the basic needs, what can we agree upon, how do you we innovate and be open sourced about that taking it to the needs of our developers, the needs of of the residents and start to put things that we can agree to and start to drive those capital flows. for us, that's been really meaningful work. what we're finding is we need to adopt that work. we're open sourced about that. we're doing that with our partners, many in the room today, to try to evolve that work and think about what are the policy mechanisms, the capital flows and what are the local solutions that are needed. >> the universal design criteria in the qaps that you have worked to get those in, i would imagine that that would be a really important education process, too, to stress and to get the local fenders to adopt the state housing agency or the entitlement to adopt criteria that reflect an understanding. >> absolutely. what we're seeing is we have started out with making those optional. but it's a pathway for them to achieve certification. they're more entitled to the incentives. that's a huge education process. but what we're finding is a lot of energy and excitement about this, even though it's optional. people are saying, this is a smart way of building. it makes business sense given the demographics as well. it's a huge education process. we're learning, if you will, as an organization from our work that we did with many folks on the sustainability side. if we want healthy homes, this is also a way -- the green communities encourage a healthy home. we're dealing with asthma from the onset. we're dealing with some of the critical issues. we learned -- we had some tough love in learning how to take that and really make that practical. we have a lot of those lessons. we had to work with asset managers running the buildings and boilers to figure out -- the residents themselves, how do you take a set of practices and make them work? we're doing the same thing with universal design and thinking about working with many partners to say, how do we smartly innovate around that? >> that's wonderful. vivian you're with the philanthropic community, with aarp foundation. have you thought about what some of the best practices and policies are that you have seen to enable communities and individuals to better meet these needs? >> sure. yeah. i think -- aarp to see the breadth of best practices happening across the country. i read the report, i am optimistic there are opportunities. we focus on low income which can be more challenging. i think we're seeing some innovations happen. having been in housing for many years, one of the things i know is there tend to be a lot of silos in community. this connection of conversation is critical. how do we engage the housing community to interact with the healthcare community, transportation and other sectors? enterprise is a great example of how this is happening. one of the emerging best practices that i would like to share with you is something that's coming out of vermont. we work with an organization leading age, a learning collaborative. i invite you to learn about that by visiting our website. we have a connection to that. it looks at models across the country that are working. these are very local -- state and local issues. to have one national best practice is probably not the case. it's a lot of models that work in different communities. in vermont, cathedral square, nancy eldridge, have done a fantastic job of working with the state on a blueprint for health where they work in collaboration with the healthcare sector and administrators across the state to look at coordinating care and providing a care coordinator, wellness nurse in addition to the housing. the program is sash, services and supportive housing. it's part of the evaluation that the learning collaborative is doing. we're helping to work with this learning collaborative to create a guide which will be kind of a dictionary, a 101 for health and housing to come together before you even have those conversations, or are even speaking the same language. i think that's one of the challenges in this space. i was at a meeting last week. they were talking about healthcare. they were using acronyms. and they were raising their hand, do you mind to translate? you're talking about cdbg, all these other housing acronyms, they don't understand you, either. i think as we look at connecting the systems, we have to start with the fundamentals and basics. that's one of the things the learning collaborative is doing. there's great models with cathedral square in vermont. which i think one of the biggest criticisms well vermont is unique and independent. how are you ever going to translate that across the country? i think you look at the pieces of that and you tailor that to your community. i think there are other examples, as well, through some of the work that mercy housing is doing an enterprise. i think it is going back to listening to residents. really listening to what their needs are and how do we connect those services to their housing. >> you all mentioned some great things that are working well, some of the factors that need to be in place. what do you see as some of the major gaps? what are we missing? what do we need to work better at? what do we need more of to not only address the issues of services and connectivity but also affordability? we have heard about the needs of low-income renters, the housing shortage, the lack of sufficient subsidies to keep the housing affordable. what would you say are a few of those gaps? is it just money? is it -- whether we talk about new housing, is it community awareness? is it political will? all of the above? you want to start? >> i will start. i will put a plug in for rental housing. the data speaks to this is an emerging trend. when we talk about diverse markets, we know that they tend to have higher rental incidents than homeowners which tend to be white. looking at the need for rental housing, the lower income housing tax credit has been a successful program to model and build housing. how do we have more like that? there's a huge shortage. the need is very extensive. and how we incent communities to have more affordable rental housing is in my opinion a big gap. >> i couldn't agree more. maybe i would build on that. the importance of also bringing in the private sector i think could not be overestimated. because we all know there's incredible shortage. one of the things about the low-income housing tax credit has worked is it's a public private partnership. we have all worked through publish/private partnerships at enterprise. i think there's a lot of -- maybe the half empty view would be that there's simply not enough resources. the half full view might be that now more than ever we're seeing a lot of interest in private sector players to come in and say, how can we help? they also see housing as a critical intervention. i like to quote one of my board members who runs children's health watch who says housing is a vaccine. i know that as a doctor, i have got to have a safe and affordable healthy home for a child to go back to. it's the same with older adults. it's a vaccine. so we're starting to see people in the healthcare sector actually invest in low-income housing tax credits. someone like united healthcare has been an investor with us, and beyond that are now helping us with some pilots, for example in texas, with some of our developers down there, to say, hey, i've got a state, texas state health plan. i could help deliver services in a community-based way. they're not only investors from their financial books, on the treasury side but getting interested in the issue and starting to bring practice alongside the investments. i think that is huge. and they're just one example. >> i think that leads us into the issue of health. >> yes. was there a question or just -- >> we're there. we have been there all day. the gaps that you think we have that we need to fill to make better progress on these issues, whether they're policy gaps or practice gaps. is it just money? is it more cross silo collaboration? community resistance? from a federal level, what would you say? >> it's possible this will be my glass half empty part of my answer. i think as a nation, we need to do a better job of talking about the continuum. i'm not talking about levels of care. but the continuum between clinical care, long-term care and community-based care. part of the struggle when we deal with health is it's still too isolated when we're talking about older adults to acute episodes where they're in the hospital, and home. i mean that those kind of crisis episodes and not sufficient conversation about the fact that long-term supports and services are a part of healthcare and so are community-based organizations. there are interventions taking place at each stage but they're not necessarily viewed comprehensively as what are the right investments we need to make all along the way? we tend to focus too much as a country on the escalating healthcare costs, which is clearly an issue we need to address. for older adults, life happens between these crisis incidents. that is not addressed comprehensively enough. part of what we have been able to do -- this started in the early 2000s through the administration on aging is invest more evidence-based programs. they maintain diabetes, deal with depression, stay upright and not fall. how do we integrate evidence-based programs into our healthcare system? i talked to a colleague recently who works elsewhere within hhs. we were venting our mutual frustration that if you found a pill that did that, there's a pathway for adoption. if you found a device that did that, there's a pathway for adoption. but to find a self-efficacy intervention that has evidence, there's not a pathway for adoption. and there needs to be. we have good practices, good science and not an opportunity to make sure we integrate across the healthcare system, the front end of this delivery system. >> would you say the same about integrating the housing issue with the healthcare? >> clearly. this is where the real housing experts in the group can talk about the critical nature of housing having housing support health or impede health. it's interesting to talk about the new housing stock, new opportunities, much of where i end up thinking just for the nature of my work is the existing housing stock. what do we do with what we have now? how do we do person-centered assessments? i mean, you can't be paternalistic. listen to what older people want. how do we provide support? we have to be sensitive to the need to be completely innovative in order to support health. since i have the mike, i want to mention one more thing. i don't want us to get way from this without mentioning the advances of technology that i think can help connect housing and health. the fact that we need to pay attention to aesthetics. i'm into audience participation. have you been to the big box stores and looked for grab bars? there's some really ugly ones that look like hospitals. and then there's ones that look okay that i'd like. i think as we talk about supporting people in health and housing, we also have to make sure that we're building things that don't further stigmatize or stereotype what it looks like to be old. i will give you this ugly looking walker, this ramp, these things that we have to look at universal design, adapt things to make it clear that these are supportive supports. that they are visually appealing and we -- we receive resistance from older people at the time we're trying to provide assistance. if our solution as a society is to bring them a bunch of ugly stuff to put in their house so they can stay home, they will resist that. >> i think that also pertains to the issue that chris brought up which is i characterize as the denial of my generation that we're actually going to get old and need support. the more attractive they are, the more willing we might be to embrace them. how about you, lindsay? what can we do better in terms of policies or practices to help make the age-friendly community initiative more successful? >> i think that policymakers need to incorporate the voices of older people into decision making and that policies need to support older people in remaining connected to their formal and informal support systems whenever possible. so that in new york, we have larger contingent of renters who are older, about 80% of them rely on rent subsidies. i think that there's a real affordable housing shortage, which our mayor is trying to address through a very comprehensive plan. so there's competition for units. so, for example, when you have an older person living alone in a three-bedroom unit, there's a huge waiting list of families who need that space. so there becomes this pressure to move that person somewhere. when we think about doing that, we need to consider, what are the health ramifications of separating a person from his or her support system? because we know very clearly that displacement can have really negative consequences for older people. we saw that during hurricane sandy. so that's something we also need to consider in relocating people after disasters. as we change or build new housing, we need to think about how is that housing integrated within the larger community? both from a physical perspective, to a social perspective. i think that large numbers of older people sort of living alone in large high-rise buildings, which is what we have in the city in the absence of any sort of connection to the broader community is problematic for everyone. >> great point. along those lines, i know enterprise is doing some amazing innovative work in my hometown of denver in terms of where buildings are sited and enabling seniors to maintain the connectivity as well as affordability. could you tell us about that? >> sure. absolutely. i mentioned before when we're thinking about creating opportunities for families, that connection to transit and the accessibility issue. it's just so important. a number of years ago, we set out to look at what's the connection between housing and the transit systems and other community-based facilities? really with a focus on housing to think about how we encourage that -- i will do the shorter version given the time. a transit-oriented development fund. working with our partners out there, we have a number of partners, the city of denver, the urban land conservancy, private funders, public sector funders, many who are in the room tomorrow. hello, ford foundation. it has been a fabulous opportunity to say, how could we create communities, make sure we're building housing and preserving housing near transit? whether it's light rail, bus system, as the systems come into denver. we had incredible public sector support. done a lot of local intervention in creating the coalitions that are needed to come together to have the political influence and then to have the practical ability to get something done on the ground. one of the things we found that was missing was the financing. so we created the first really innovative fund around a structured fund for transit-oriented development. it's about a $15 million fund. that's all been disbursed today. the goal is to make sure that we're having housing near transit and that a good proportion of that is going for seniors and for older adults. it's all 100% intended to have universal design and a very significant chunk of that will be for seniors. based on that about how to really drive the presidenter -- the preservation of housing near transit, we have expanded that into eight cities across the country. we're working on expanded initiatives where we look at critical intersections. it drives health outcomes so dramatically and other outcomes. we're doing that work today. we have -- we're in a small r and d place. we piloted in denver. we are in scale mode with a number of terrific partners across the country. for us, affordable housing, if you are giving back, but 77 cents or so is given back in transportation. social isolation, accessibility are fundamental. when we look at the systems cost. we have to look at that. what we're finding is that this is where tables are being set across the country. as transportation dollars come in -- there's not a lot of dollars for housing in a place like los angeles, for example, msh measure "r," people have taxed themselves to build out transportation systems. what we're finding is, as those dollars come in, at enterprise we're very focused on low income, the most vulnerable among us, that we've got to be able to focus on those dollars coming in and thinking about, what are the outcomes for low-income families as the dollars come in in terms of their housing, economic opportunities healthcare outcomes, education outcomes. that's where i would say, you know, many people talk about the collective impact model or talk about different term nolgs but it's basically how do we break down those silos. work on a local/regional scale, and then try to share those learnings across the country. >> great model. i see that -- we could have this go on for hours. we do want to take questions from the floor. if you have a question, there are mikes set up. i see one here. is there just one? there's just one mike. i would ask you to go to the mike so we can hear your question. any questions? yes, ma'am. >> hi. i'm julie sun. terri i want to applaud the leadership role you played in terms of your green initiative. i think back ten years ago or so before you all started having green housing was only for people of wealth. you know, who have wealth. and it really is amazing how you made it into a standard practice in terms of developing housing for low and moderate income households. i wanted to build on secretary greenlee's comment about technology. there's so much opportunities there in terms of leveraging technology for housing, especially to support affordable housing. i was wondering if -- what enterprise is doing to perhaps even make smart homes as common language among the rest of the country as you made green housing. i'm thinking also in terms of 3-d printers, building homes, and that could be one of the ways of really lowering the cost of affordable housing. i was wondering if you knew how wide or what would be some of the best practices on that? >> sure. i'm going to say that i wish i had a better answer than i do. we have had fabulous partners, aarp, safe, leading age, with our seniors collaborative trying to learn technology is one of those angles we have been trying to learn with. i think that we're touching the tip of the iceberg there. i do think it's a really important area for us to move. we have a lot of fabulous partners across the country that are certainly using technology to allow aging in place, whether it's being able to prevent falls, looking at medication and dosage, looking at all sorts of pieces of how technology might be part of the season. in california, we are working with a number of folks who are looking to bring broadband in as a -- with the broadband, having to limit social isolation. also to -- education front, for a lot of reasons, broadband is really important. we have looked at technology. certainly, along the sustainability front, we have made partnerships to make sure on the green side, there's a lot of technology that allows to you do a lot more and be more productive along that. we have done some of that. i think it's a challenge for us all. i think to really engage the technology -- not just the technology companies but it's a great opportunity -- i have a board retreat next week in silly -- in san francisco. we're doing an innovation segment with a lot of technology companies. i'm very interested in this question of, how could we amplify this? what are the critical investments that would need to be made? what role do technology companies play? what role do -- there's a number of players that could be involved here. >> thank you. >> hi. candice baldwin, capital impact partners. i'm pleased that the discussion today has also included the importance of social components and connectiveness. as we've been working on villages for the last five years so that's a big innovation. one of the things as a former housing developer who has been in aging, which is kind of a fun little space to be in, one of the things that always created the silo for me was the policy mismatch of eligibility criteria between being eligible for housing subsidies and being eligible for medicaid and oaa and all of the other things. if there's one thing that could start to bridge some of these gaps, especially, i was wondering if there's discussion about how to align those eligibility cry tear onso that people aren't falling through the gaps and that they can really leverage all of the systems to work together. i was wondering if that's a conversation that's being had. >> we're going to look at me and i don't know the answer. i don't. if someone here does, we should let the audience help inform when i don't. obviously, half of the equation i know is the half of the equation you just described in terms of medicaid and the older americans act. but not the opportunity to bridge with the hud world in terms of 202 or 811 or any of the other services. does anyone know? >> or section 8. >> or section 8. [ inaudible ] >> since i can barely hear you -- >> if you wouldn't mind coming to the mike. >> as you are my life line, we should give you a microphone. >> you're bailing her out. >> how many do you get? do you get just one? >> i will hand you the mike. you can have as many as you want. it's an excellent point. that's why -- >> fantastic point. my name is lisa anderson, department of housing and urban development. jennifer hoe hat hud has been working with hhs primarily to help with aligning policies for hud and for hhs so that the conversation wouldn't be so disconnected. and they're moving forward, we're working with one accord. >> this issue of mutual eligibility on the table? >> it is. it's so blanketed in terms of the different issues on the table, whether or not it's making sure that -- first of all 202 is for very low income. and a lot of medicaid and medicare program are for more so extremely low income. so we're having that conversation and figuring out what changes need to happen. so there's multiple issues on the table. but jennifer hu is the contact. >> i know jennifer. hhs and hud have had a collaborative for several years looking at homelessness, looking at the way to integrate housing services. hud has encouraged some local collaboration that will help people score better when they apply for hud support. i simply don't know whether or apply for hud support. i don't know whether or not the eligibility is part of it. thank you. >> great point. >> and of course, one of the major issues is there just isn't enough in terms of housing subsidies for low-income renters of all ages, but particularly for seniors. yes, ma'am? >> donna butts with generations united. i just want to say thank you for today. ft it's been a rich discussion, fascinating. so many things to work on. one thing that struck me as lindsay talked about the three bedroom apartment in new york that relates back to a report that was released late last year that vivian and other people were advisers on. we looked at housing through an intergenerational lens. and one of the things we challenged our experts to do is to think about things differently. one of the recommendations we had was to think about taking some of the lessons from other countries, and in this particular case it had to do with spain and their home share program. you have older adults who want to age in place. and then you have a young population that wants to go to university. in spain they have married those so young people can go to university without incuring debt. so in this country when you think about the issues that we're facing, what's the potential for looking at how to address someone that has three bedrooms and this younger population that's being so burdened by student debt and what our experts came back with is moving in like a home share program and providing services to help that older person age in place or a young person who moves into a neighborhood like teach for america and offers "x" amount of services to people aging in their home, and then we could reduce the student loan debt or at least reduce the interest on that. so i was thinking outside of the silo that we often times do. what i think about with age friendly communities is i love it. i hear they are old age friendly. and so i'm wondering if the panel could make some recommendations, some suggestions, have some ideas about how to make sure when we're talking about age friendly we're talking about all ages. thank you. >> great point. you want to start with that, lindsey? >> one thing that's really critical is that we promote and implement age smart employment practices. i think this is the strategy that benefits older people but also younger workers. really people of all ages. talking about policies like job sharing and phase retirement and caregiver support programs. health and wellness programming. flexible schedules. those kinds of things. i think that the more younger people are exposed older people the better society is at large. work has positive associations with physical and mental health and leads to less reliance on social insurance programs. so we really want to do what we can to keep people employed as long as possible. especially if they want to be working. incentives for companies to hire and retain older workers. you know, when working -- to complement working we want to promote civic engagement. there is one city that provides local tax credits for older people who do a certain number of volunteer hours. recognizing that not all older people are terribly frail and in need of a lot of services, but that, you know, it's a real continuum. we are talking about a 30-year age range. i think work is really a key piece of this puzzle. in new york city we have 25% of older people still working. you know, we'd like to keep it that way. >> thanks for bringing up the intergenerational issue. highlights with hispanic and asian families in particular that multi generational households are common. i know in my family we were a three-generation household for years until my fwrand parents years until my grandparents passed away. we look at it as part of aging in place or an age friendly that we would live together in a communal environment. and i think that's what we're seeing now is some home builders are looking at creating for different communities, houses that allow for all those generations to live together in one roof. and i think somebody mentioned earlier the policy around changes in zoning to allow things such as accessory dwelling units, mother-in-law suites, to enable those generations to come together and still retain independence and separation, which is very much american cultural trait but allow them to live together. i think there are a lot of positives. again having experienced growing up with older aunts and aun kls, you benefit much from them. that was a very enriching experience. it's a good policy thing and societal thing. we talk about social isolation so much in the housing report to make sure that we continue those connections with family and also just with relationships. with friends. bringing younger and older people together. it's a great solution. i've been to a lot of meetings lately. we talk about mill enyals and their challenges. it seems like a great intersect. >> do you have anything to add to that? is multigenerational housing more on the agenda? >> absolutely. we are seeing more mixed income communities, more and more mixed age communities. i think it's interventions everyone has talked about are really important. we look at what the community is made of. a whole range of ages. synagogues, churches, communities. you know, we have looked at some of the models, too. we know a lot of folks we serve need other forms of income. i was intrigued with the question. because i think that we've looked at accessory dwelling units. we've looked at other ways like granny flats and other things that may be on one hand an income generating model for a family that's low income. you know, drive a little density into the community. but do it in a responsible way. we have looked at some. models but many have challenges with them. often zoning. but i think there will be some interesting opportunities. >> i think the home sharing model also isn't being used just for younger people moving into older folks' home but single older people moving in together to share resources. >> we once had a brilliant idea of doing a mother-in-law could move into your place where you had excess and you would trade mother-in-laws. you take mine. i'll take yours. that was the sharing. >> i don't know. seemed interesting. there were a few problems inherent in that. >> sounds like a new reality show. >> it does. >> thank you. first just thank you. for those of us plodding away in the field, this report is really meaningful. i'm very, very grateful. thank you. so my question is the magnitude of the problems cited in the report or the opportunities, depending on how you see it and then the kind of solutions we're talking about seem like it's a disconnect. when mr. cisneros was secretary of hud and public housing was a problem, he didn't try to do two little things. he combined everything and did a bold program, the hope 6. in the report there is a mention and people talked about the 202 and it's gone as if it is not a big deal and a complete waste of opportunity. whether it's integrating housing and health care. and while i do -- we're an enterpriinte enterprise partner. i'm very proud of that. the last building had 17 sources of financing. the impact of that was a $42 million project, and only $26 million was in construction and design. the rest was lawyers, accounts, and transaction costs in contrast to a building we built with 202 funds where it was $10 million grant and $9.6 million was for actual construction costs. there was hardly any transaction cost. we have gone into a situation where you have to spend millions of dollars on consultants and on lawyers to make basic transactions. why are we letting everyone get away with the elimination of the 202 program which is efficient and produced so many more savings than medicaid could pay for ten times what the 202 program was with and still save money. why are we letting them off the hook? >> hear, hear. >> yeah. [ applause ] >> well, if anybody wants to respond to that, feel free. >> i would just say that we certainly have, you know, we've done -- participated with the bipartisan housing commission. i think what you saw come out of that was a real push to expand resources, you know, the 202-low-income housing tax credits, and so on. i think your point is exactly right. it takes building a lot of public will to do it. we have to do that. we just did a big study on the cost of affordable housing. and, you know, well, thank you. thanks for your partnership. we learned from all our partners on the ground what things are really escalating costs? and how do we do this differently? and the financial strains are very challenging. local zoning. all the things we've been able to talk about. we need to advocate for more resources to do what we can more officially. and built p public will to support the programs that we need. >> and rely on what we know works. we know some things that work very well. and let's not forget about those. >> thank you. we have quick, tiny little bit of time for one more question. sir? >> hi. i'm really encouraged by today. my name is louis tenenbaum. i have been working on the issue of ageing in placer for 20-some years.

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