Representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. The clerk the speakers room, washington, d. C. , august 20, 2019. I hereby appoint the honorable William Lacy Clay to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore the prayer will be offered by the guest chaplain, reverend michael wilker, Lutheran Church of the reformation, washington, d. C. The chaplain god, who spretched the spanningled stretched the spangeled, share inventive powers with you. Thank you for the delightful and awesome creation of which we are a part. Thank you, also, for the scientists of this nation, especially those who serve in our government. We are sorry for the times our lazyness, ignorance, greed and fear have caused us to misuse your gift to use science and technology. Grant us diligence, wisdom, curiosity, and compassion regarding the science and technologies before us. Help legislators and Staff Members craft legislation, appropriate funds, and provide oversight to support and encourage scientific study, advance technological innovation, and deepen our understanding of human societies and bodies. In all we learn and do, may we care for creation, serve our neighbors, and honor you, great creator. Amen. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to section 5a of House Resolution 509, the journal of the last days proceedings is approved. The chair will now lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Pursuant to section 5b of House Resolution 509, the house stands adjourned until 10 00 a. M. On friday, august you can follow it live on cspan. We returnwe return now to the hn homelessness held last week in los angeles. Mayor garcetti we have a dozen cities that will give you free land, and the mayor will come in not just cut the ribbon, it will help you build. On the other hand, if you want to build housing, you pay an impact fee. And you may have seen the headline in the los angeles times. One reason housing is so expensive in california, cities and counties charge high developer fees. Financewe do so that we government based on ability to the state income tax being a good way to measure that, and instead we finance based upon whether youre build it you are building something that the City Government has to provide police and Fire Protection for . Mayor garcetti as somebody who lead on tax policy in the board of equalization, it is a great question from you, representative. Between impact fees, and i do weieve after tom bradley, passed a linkage fee which says if you are building luxury housing like we do from for parks, have to put money aside for Affordable Housing. I think we will raise as much as 100 million worth of subsidized low how loan housing. You are right, you cant keep putting everything on developers. Between getting nothing done by having no fees on them and having fees, there is something in between that enough cities do not use which is the power of zoning. It does not cost you anything but it can produce more housing. Rep. Sherman at a minimum, i hope you would join me, in trying to get the sales tax that is generated by building, because you have all of the building materials, allocated to the city where the building takes place rather than where the warehouse for the Building Supplies is located. I do want to point out that we are focused on homeless, but i think there was agreement before you got here, the rents are too damn high. And it is not just for the homeless. The homeless is the tip of the iceberg. For every homeless person, there could gety that evicted tomorrow, and they may never get evicted, but they are losing stomach lining today because they could to get evicted tomorrow. There are people going to payday lenders to be able to there are people paying a late fee and they will somehow stay in their unit. We have to do Everything Possible to build more housing, and the more affordable that housing is, the better. Together inwell be chatsworth tomorrow where there was the old l. A. Times plant. Now it is going to be in part housing, and you had to sweep aside some problems for that to happen because the land was so so industrial paired what can we do on a systemic level to make sure that if you want to build Affordable Housing and rentable housing, you can do it regardless of zoning restrictions . I can see that you may not want one unit among the bond among a bunch of factories. What can be done to say yes to those who want to build rental housing . Mayor garcetti that is where i was headed. Rep. Waters without the mayor having to intervene. Mayor garcetti it should not require political leadership. We have changed the zoning. We are investing in 15 new rail lines in los angeles, the Biggest Program of a city in u. S. History thanks to the voters of measure m. Already along those transfer lines have said that if you are close to transit rep. Sherman let me point out, in other parts of the city, you gradeose to a subway or separated rail. Only in the San Fernando Valley do you call it transit because you have a bus stop. We will talk about that. Mayor garcetti you and i have and we have made sure the valley from where i am from is not written out of that. We look forward to equitable treatment there. What we have done is said you could go higher and denser around transit, if you build Affordable Housing on your own dime. It is not a linkage fee, not an additional cost, it is an additional opportunity and benefit. Half of the housing now in Los Angeles City is coming through this one change. Fully half of it los angeles is building 75 of the housing and l. A. County and we are just 40 of the population. Your point about those neighboring cities and towns, no one can afford to say no and say where does homelessness come from if you cannot build Affordable Housing. To your rent piece, the state level, i hope that the state legislature will pass on another governor will sign 1482, an antirent doubting ordinance which says you cannot rep. Sherman i want to point out one or one other thing. If we get split role, it has to be tied to ending fees. Mayor garcetti absolutely. Rep. Waters thank you very much. I now recognize the gentleman from texas, mr. Green, fork five minutes for five minutes. Rep. Green thank you. I think you them mayor i think the mayor for appearing. Purposes,dification while you may appear to be alone, it is happening in houston, it is in washington, d. C. , and the numbers are growing, for various reasons. One question for me to take to my constituents and persons letter interested in this would be what can we do to prevent, while we are not where you are, but headed in your direction, what should we do now to prevent to take preventative measures . Mayor garcetti three things. Thank you for that question. , andre the previous levels pass this measure that chairwoman waters put forward. Second, put up assistance for eviction, fund of that. We are doing that out of dollars we dont really have. I know you talked about being a legal lawyer, most landlords are good. The unscrupulous ones have a bad impact on your neighborhoods. We are giving Legal Assistance to folks who are threatened with evictions, often who face language barriers and poverty barriers. Three, have a Mental Health system that is not stage for intervention. Stage four intervention. If you want to understand the thele on the streets, with deep Mental Health needs, if we wait until someone is stage four, and a four of us came into an emergency room with a Mental Health problem, i bet none of the four of us would be seen. If four of us came with broken legs, we will be treated. It is reprehensible that in this country, we wait until we are basically at stage four. People are dying on our streets before we intervene with the right to Mental Health care in the city. When i walked that river yesterday, nine out of 10 of the people i spoke to, you could just see, have Mental Health problems that are going untreated. If you expected this to be cleaned up by a bunch of folks who will bring you the Police Officers or sanitation workers, that aint going to happen. What i did not finish with the president , i found this out that in japan where he set homelessness did not exist, it did a few years ago. A lot of seniors were homeless on the streets. Treated terribly in japan. They were shamed of it. Guess what the japanese government did . They put Forward Housing assistance, income assistance, and they are not Homeless People on the streets in japan anymore. This is about putting those resources in place on the Mental Health and income and treating this earlier. Rep. Green thank you. An additional question. Want you to just yourself at risk by answering this question. But if you had the resources, you have mentioned resources, what are we talking about and over what period of time if you have the necessary resources . How much and over what period of time before you were to us what results . Mayor garcetti i remind people that those of us who are veterans are not different from nonveterans. We are as diverse as the nonveteran population. In four years, we could reduce by 80 the veteran population. If we had the resources, you could make a sizable dent in five years and you could end a street homelessness in 10. But do people have the will to do that . Will we build something to never let this happen again . So that when we see that day in los angeles and houston other dachshund other places, will we have a system to catch people early, Mental Health indicators, people being released from prison. Theres a great federal change, but is there a plan for these people . I say that in all seriousness. Those of us who support criminal justice reform, there was nobody to meet them and greet them and train them for a job and give them Substance Abuse or Mental Health counseling that they needed. If they are in prison because they had a gram of some of too much, they have never had that problem dealt with and in three weeks, they are using again and breaking into cars to feed that habit. Put that in place, but i think a decade is what we are talking about. Rep. Green finally, this is probably at a different level for us to take up at a later time, but we have a circumstance we are in, about 1 of the people hold about 40 of the wealth. 90 of the wealth. I marvel at how we have been conditioned to believe that this is normal, this is the way it should be, that people at the very top should have enough wealth such that they alone can fund solutions. Your, i am not going to ask to get into the distribution of wealth mayor garcetti always happy to do that. Rep. Green with the top 20 holding 90 of the wealth, is in thisactor homelessness problem . Mayor garcetti unquestionably. This is the biggest income gap and the biggest wealth gap we have had since the great depression. I say that as often as i can because the second gilded age feels like a lot of fun if you are doing well. There has never been a better time to be in the cities in i say that as often as i can because the second gilded age terms of the culture in museums and food. But even the successful cities have a deep underclass. And other cities are being left behind. That is not what this country is. It is not who we are. When people get scared about redistribution, ioa say, forget about what b what is being forget forget about what is being taken away, but is the cost to you going around your city and seeing people in cop intense in tents . Something to give people assistance for six months so they can make that rent. That is what is perversely wrong in this moment. I appreciate your voice on the voice of these members to make sure we do not forget there are structural reasons we have a homelessness problem in los angeles. Mayor garcetti thank you. Rep. Green thank you. Rep. Waters i now recognize the gentle lady from texas, ms. Garcia. Rep. Garcia thank you very much. Coming, yourr presence here today is a strong indicator of your concerns and your sentiments on this issue. I wanted to focus on something that several of the other speakers talked about but no questions have come up that directly addresses it. I have had some real concerns, even in my own city, about the criminalization of homelessness. In addition to being from the same