Selfsufficiency, and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. Duffy, and the gentleman from connecticut, mr. Himes, each will control 20 minutes. The chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin. Mr. Duffy mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on this bill. The speaker pro tempore without objection, so ordered. Mr. Duffy mr. Speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields. Mr. Duffy thank you, mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of h. R. 4258, the family selfsufficiency act. This legislation will streamline a Program Designed to help those unable to purchase a home while reducing their dependency on welfare assistance and rental assistance provided by the government. I want to thank my colleague from missouri, my friend from missouri, mr. Cleaver, for all of his bipartisan and helpful work on this legislation. It passed out of our committee 580, which is somewhat historic for the Financial Services committee. This program is focused on helping families in Public Housing and the Housing Choice Voucher Program. The goal is to utilize a number of services coordinated through the program to help families with individual training to increase their employability and become less dependent on assistance. These services can include basic education, child care, transportation, education. Financial literacy, Mental Health referrals. And Home Ownership counseling. While receiving these services, an interestbearing escrow account is established for the family that can be used for any purpose once the family has graduated from the program. Now, currently h. U. D. Operates one program for families served by the Housing Choice Voucher Program and a separate program for those families searched serbed served by the Public Housing program. This legislation will combine those two separate programs into one to streamline and reduce regulatory burdens. The bill will also broaden the scope of support of services that may be offered to families that could include attainment of a g. E. D. , education in pursuit of a postsecondary degree or certification, and, i think this is important, but training in Financial Literacy. Lastly, h. R. 4258 opens the f. S. S. Program to families that live in privately owned profits properties that are subsidized by probablybased rental assistance. Now, 4,793 families have successfully completed the program. With 1,557 graduates exiting rental assistance within another 606 graduates that eventually went on and were able to purchase a home. So more than 10 of the people who graduate from the program go on to buy a home. I want to leave you with just a quick antidote, written testimony that came to our committee from the compass working capital group. And its a story about tanya. And she graduated from the f. S. S. Program in massachusetts. Now, when she enrolled in the f. S. S. Program she had been receiving Housing Assistance for about four years. She was working full time and raising two children. But she had bigger dreams. And one of those dreams was to one day own a house. At the time tanya believed that owning a home was in her words, quote, not for families like mine. A lowincome, single mother who came from a family where no one has ever owned a home. So when tanya graduated from the program, she got the assistance, got the counseling, and in the end she was able to increase her annual income by 8,000, she was able to improve her credit score by 140 points, pay down her debt and save 3,000. She graduated from the program in 2015 and achieved her dream of becoming a homeowner the first homeowner, the first person in her family to do. So she said, but what makes me happiest of all is seeing my children love their new home. And she said, thanks to the compass f. S. S. Program, now i too believe that families like mine can get ahead, live better, and accomplish our big dreams and goals such as buying a home. This is a remarkable story of a program that actually works. That helps people get from public assistance into selfsufficiency and hopefully into Home Ownership and i think its this kind of artful review of policy that our committee has done in a bipartisan level that brings us to reforms that can look at the successes of a program, but build upon those sex and make them work those successes and make them work for more families. I want to thank my colleagues and friends across the aisle for working on this legislation and again bringing it out with such a bipartisan vote. With that, i would reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from wisconsin reserves. The gentleman from connecticut is recognized. Thank you, mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as i may consume. Mr. Speaker, hrment r. 4 h. R. 4258, makes several improvements to the h. U. D. Family selfsufficiency program or f. S. S. , which is the only Asset Building Program at h. U. D. To help increase Economic Opportunities for its lowincome households. When i was a commissioner of the Housing Authority many years ago, i saw this program in action and it deals with one of the challenges of what happens to a family as their incomes go up and they find it increasingly hard to invest and save because their rents typically go up. Mr. Himes mr. Speaker, this bill expands the scope of support of Services Provided to residents to include g. E. D. Train, education in pursuit of a postsecondary degree, or certification and training in financially the are a sifment the bill also expands the literacy. The bill also expands programs to ensure low income families can continue to participate in this program as their incomes increase. This is particularly important a particularly important improvement since under current law, once a family reaches 50 of area median income, they no longer are able to accrue Additional Savings in their escrow accounts. This bill fixes that issue. This bill is an important step in the right direction and i hope we can continue to find ways to expand the program, this very successful program, beyond the current 72,000 households it can serve. Im glad to see that my friend from wisconsin and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle recognize the success of this voluntary program and i hope we can Work Together to find ways to improve it and to give energy to other programs which allow people to lift themselves out of lower income circumstances. Mr. Speaker, this bill was passed out of committee 580 and so i urge my colleagues to support the bill and let me now yield five minutes to my friend and colleague, mr. Cleesker of missouri. The speaker pro tempore cleaver of missouri. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields five minutes and the gentleman from missouri has five minutes. Cleesk cleave thank you, mr. Speaker. Let mr. Cleaver thank you, mr. Speaker. Let me first of all state the obvious. Im rising to support h. R. 4258. The family selfsufficiency act. Then i would like to thank chairman duffy for the spirit f bipartisanship that he has demonstrated on this. And on other legislation as well. And mr. Himes, the gentleman from connecticut, who is managing this piece of legislation. It is also appropriate to thank the chair and the Ranking Member of the committee for giving their support to this piece of legislation. H. R. 4258 would make important updates to the department of housing and urban Development Family selfsufficiency program, the f. S. S. Program, which is a voluntary program that encourages residents who use housing vouchers or live in Public Housing to connect with Program Coordinators to create selfsufficiency plans, obtain Educational Resources and pursue work opportunities. This program also creates an interestbearing escrow account for participants that can be accessed upon graduation from the program. Money from this account can be used for jobrelated expenses or as savings for a home. If i can deeskate from my written comments deviate from my written comments to say that there are a number of Great Stories like the ones of tanya that mr. Duffy shared. As a fiveyear resident of Public Housing when i was growing up, during the time that my father was working on three jobs, trying to save money for a house, and to buy what became his first car, our first car, an oldsmobile rocket 88, rocket 88, i want to emphasize, and it was the pride of our family and our community, frankly, when that happened. But it would have been infinitely easier if there had been some kind of escrow account that my father could have moved money into to save so that when he found that lot and the house that he lives in today, that would have been money delite available for right there available for him to pay down on it or pay it off. Didnt seem like a lot it seems like a lot of money then, but the lot was 5,000 and the money that he could have saved over that period of time could have been so significant. We managed to do it anyway. But this program would help countless numbers of people who want to take advantage of the help that the federal government can give them with housing, but at the same time work and work and strive toward independence. And that is what i think the great value of this program is. I dont want to repeat what has already been said so i want to just give you a list of the organizations supporting this legislation. The center on budget and policy priorities, preservation of Affordable Housing, the national least housing association, conference working capital, National Association of housing redevelopment officials, Housing Partnership network, the National Housing trust and stewards of Affordable Housing for the future. A similar version of this bill was introduced by senators reid and senator blunt from my home state of missouri over in the senate. And i am encouraged by this bipartisanship and the bicameral process. Im also hopeful that we can continue to work as mr. Himes said on further improvements of Housing Resources all across the country. And i urge my colleagues to support this bill. I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. Himes mr. Speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from connecticut reserves. The gentleman from wisconsin. Mr. Duffy i have no further speakers and am prepared to close. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from connecticut. Mr. Himes mr. Speaker, i have no further requests for time. I yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. The gentleman from wisconsin. Mr. Duffy i want to briefly oftentimes ng, we find people who get stuck in a cycle of poverty. And i think the goal of programs should be to help people get out of poverty and get to selfsufficiency. And if you look at this program, and it takes an initiative by the person in f. S. S. A to say, im going raise my hand, i want to take advantage of these opportunities, but helping them get an education. I have eight kids and i have a wife. A single mom with a couple kids and trying to go to school or do job training or get a job without some help on child care cant work, cant make that happen. And thats offered in this program. Again, additional education, Financial Literacy training, counseling on Home Ownership. If you have Mental Health issues, you can get training on that. Its whats right about government in the sense that we dont want people to get stuck. We dont want people to get caught in a cycle of poverty. We want to help lift them up and its this kind of a program where these kinds of reforms that i think we have worked together on that accomplishes that goal, help people live the american dream. Which is get a job that allows them to eventually save enough money and buy a house and the escrow part of this, when you get out of the program, you might have a small little nest egg that you can use as a deposit for that home. So i think this is a Great Program that does the right thing. So if youre a liberal or a conservative, no matter what side of the political spectrum you sit on, this program is making government work for people. So when that i would en so with that i would encourage my colleagues to support this legislation and i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields. The question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the ill h. R. 4258, as amended. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, 2 3 having responded in the affirmative mr. Duffy mr. Speaker, i request the yeas and nays. The speaker pro tempore the yeas and nays are requested. All those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. A sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on uestion will be postponed. For what purpose does the gentleman from wisconsin seek recognition . Mr. Duffy mr. Speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill h. R. 770, as amended. The speaker pro tempore the clerk will report the title of the bill. The clerk h. R. 770, a bill to require the secretary of the treasury to mint coins in recognition of American Innovation and significant innovation and pioneering efforts of individuals or groups from each of the 50 states, the district of and the United States territories, to promote the importance of innovation in the United States, the district of columbia, and the United States territories, and for other. Rposes the speaker pro tempore pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. Duffy, and the gentleman from connecticut, mr. Himes, each will control 20 minutes. The chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin. Mr. Duffy mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on this bill. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Duffy mr. Speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields. Mr. Duffy mr. Speaker, i rise today in support of h. R. 770, the American Innovation 1 coin act, which was introduced by my friend from connecticut, mr. Himes. The legislation seeks to honor that which is best about america, her innovative spirit. If enacted the legislation would authorize a program under which the treasury departments United States mint would produce a series of 1 coins celebrating the innovative capacity of the United States and by the way, its that innovative capacity that makes us so great and competitive that allows our salaries and incomes to rise. Under the program, the front of the coin would have the standardized image symbolic of liberty and the design on the reverse would be an images emblematic of a significant innovation or innovator or pioneer or group of innovators or pioneers. Four different reverse images would be issued annually representing innovations or innovators representing the states, territories. It would be strictly alphabetical. The first issue would be for the great state of alabama. The number of coins for each design would be determined by the treasury secretary while the coins technical would be usable as in order commerce, there is no demand for circulating the demand for 1 coin. It would be produced with no cost to the taxpayer. Mr. Himes made sure of that. Depending on the collector demand, it actually price produce a surplus that would then be returned to the general fund at treasury. The legislation explicitly states that minting of the innovation coin would in no way interfere with the minting of the 1 coins honoring native americans. Those coins similarly have a standardized front design and reverse design that changes regularly honoring the great contributions that have been made to this country by native americans. And so mr. Speaker, the president ial dollar, when produced for collectors, had a demand of a little more than five million coins per design, that seems to indicate enough interest that would and should approve this program as it can proceed at no cost to the taxpayer while allowing the mint to fully use its facilities. The language we are considering contains some minor technical amendmentes that will allow the coin production to begin more swiftly which i think makes more sense. I think this is a good bill where mr. Himes has kind of thought through any red flags that could be risen by any member on the floor. Hes addressed those. I support this bill and would encourage my colleagues to do the same. I would then reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from connecticut is recognized. Mr. Himes thank you, mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as i may consume. And thank my friend from wisconsin for his support of this bill and the kind words he made about it. This bill addresses the coin sales resulting from the discontinuation of the president ial 1 coin series. When enacted, this bill will First Commission the u. S. Mint to create a yearlong introductory coin series bearing the semblance of George Washingtons signature on the first patent. The bill will then direct the mint to release four 1 coins each year, as my friend from wisconsin said, feat