The chair is authorized at any time and all members will skr five legislative days to submit to the chair for inclusion in the record. Entitled the future of housing in america oversight of the department of housing in urban development. I recognize myself for three and a half minutes to give an Opening Statement. Today we welcome the 17th sick tear of the department of housing and urban development. Welcome, sir. At least in one respect he may be among the most qualified individuals to ever serve as hud secretary. Secretary carson was raised by a single mother who had a third grade education. He grew up in communities who grew up in boston. Not only does he understand poverty personally but he understands what it takes to escape it. He is passionate about helping others escape as well. He also understands that huds approach to eliminating poverty too often fails and thankfully he is committed to changing it. When it was created 52 years ago hud was intended to be the main weapon in the war on poverty. 1. 6 trillion later the poverty rate remains unchanged. Hud has failed to live up to the aspirations of its birth. I do not it is invaluable part of our social safety net. But i remind all that for the ablebodied there is no bet are Affordable Housing program than a growing committee that creates better jobs and brighter tomorrows. After suffering from eight years of bod Public Policy leading to a sluggish committee that has been growing at barely half of the historic norm working americans deserve fundamental tax returns. There hasnt been any significant tax reform in a century that hasnt groan tax revenues. This growth erased a 5. 6 billion deficit and turned it into a surplus. Even going back to the coolage era, a series of tax relief resulted in annual average exhibition growth of 4. 7 . We have seen it time and time again when we remove the bushrds and allow them to take more of what they earned we unleashed to create opportunity for everyone. Its not economic theory. Its economic history. Its the very embodiment of Affordable Housing. I also wonder, how can one be for Affordable Housing yet oppose allowing working americans to keep more of their paycheck . So i look forward to hearing more of the new vision for hud and the programs he and his team are beginning to reform. I now yield to the Ranking Member for an Opening Statement. Thank you mr. Chairman. America is currently in the midst of the worst housing crisis we ever experienced. It is hitting our lowest income families the hardest. According to the low Income Coalition the United States has a shortage of 7. 2 million or extremely low income households. Our country is also at a virtual standstill when it comes to rebusing homelessness. In some parts of the country homelessness has reached crisis proportions. We also face homeowner ship challenges with minority homeowner ship rates continuing to lag even as the Housing Market recovers. In the face of Housing NeedsPresident Trump chose dr. Ben car on carson to serve as head as urban development. The secretary of hud is supposed to be at the forefront to expand access to safe, decent and Affordable Housing and enforce housing rights. Housing is the foundation on which our entire society is built. It is a flat form for economic mobility and well being. It is a crucial part of our national economy. It is a necessary human right. We need strong leadership and a bold vision for hud in order to expand access to Affordable Housing in this country. Unfortunately i have seen nothing to indicate that secretary carson is up to the challenge. Secretary carson has expressed views that are deeply alarming to his role as hud such as describing poverty as more of a choice than anything else and saying he doesnt think Public Housing should be too comfortable. His few actions so far as hud secretary are deeply troubling as well. Secretary carson has supported a budget that slashes funding for critical Housing Programs and proposes harmful rent increases on some of the most vulnerable American Families. He has also moved to roll back obama initiatives with little or no explanation. So i am very much looking forward to hearing from secretary carson today about his actions so far and his plans for serving our nations most vulnerable families. I thank you mr. Chairman and yield back the balance of my time. We recognize mr. Duff fi for one and a half minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Over here. Right here. Its hard to find people. I dont know if its secretary or doctor. I think you can tell youll be in for an interesting hearing based on the Opening Statement of the Ranking Member. I would note that poor people have been worse off over the last eight years and snorts have faired worse than the rest of the population. I would argue that with a bigger government you got middle class. Poor people get poorer. Rich people get richer. It happens when ever you implement these policies. To go back to a system that gives people a hand up that helps move them, one of the greatest Brain Surgeons is the american story. Im looking forward to your testimony today. I know you have a lot of reforms you want to discuss with us. Im looking forward to hearing that. I would also like to hear your vision on the prior secretary, when they would look at success of hud, success was viewed in the realm of how many people do we get into the system . Not how many people can i get in, whats me measure of success, i look forward to Housing Finance reform, rural poverty. My time is up. I yield back. The time has expired. The future of housing in america strikes me. Thank you for being here. I may be of dpraeter value if i just tell you that i sat down with shaq to tell him how his father in law and i grew up. I ended up getting the opportunity bought a lot, bought a house, moved the house and i mentioned to you and i always think what would have happened if nobody had helped my mother and father as they were strug e struggling. Thank you mr. Chairman. Im glad we are having this hearing. Im glad youre here. The condition of americas cities and towns is a subject thats the jurisdiction of your department. I think in neither case or some time to be fair to you preceding your entry into this position that subject has not gotten nearly the attention that it should. Unfortunately for decades important investment in cities and towns, the home program have faced really deep cuts. We had a similar childhood experience. A lot of people know flint now because of the terrible crisis that it is facing, coming out of the poisoning. It was on the brink of insol van si because the federal government had eliminated essential support for development of those cases. Im anxious no hear how you can square your suggestions to cut further those programs with the sworn oath you took. Time of the gentleman has expired. Today we welcome honorable ben carson. It is the first time he has appeared before the committee. Dr. Ben carson was sworn in on march 2nd, 2017. He earned a bachelors degree from yale and received his md from university of michigan medical school. Previously secretary carson served as at Johns Hopkins childrens center. Without objection the witnesss written statement will be made part of the record. Youre recognized to give an oral presentation. It is on now. Ranking member waters, thank you for inviting me to discuss what we do at houszing and urban development. Texas, florida, georgia and u. S. Virgin islands. Huds team with our territory yall and local Agency Partners providing Housing Solutions for survivors and helping hud assisted clients and fha ensured borrowers. It is the Recovery Efforts in these disaster impacted regions as they rebuild. Helping these communities is and will remain a priority for me and this administration. America has changed greatly since hud was established as part of johnsons society half a century ago. We must learn to evolve with the country. Many Americans Still struggle to find Affordable Housing. Chronic homelessness continues to plague tens of thousands of our country men and many millions remain in poverty rather than being guide on a path out of it. We must constantly evaluate to ensure we are delivering services effectively and efficiently with the best practices and technologies. Since i arrived at hud in march it has been my mission to employ the wealth of knowledge held by career staff and remain careful stewards of taxpayer dollars. Our team has outlined a bold plan for constitutional reform and improvement that will better serve all americans. Its called the Forward Initiative. The policy elements of a Forward Initiative each fall under what we have named the three rs, reimagine how hud works, restore the American Dream and rethink American Communities. First reimagining how hud works refers to internal processes, working conditions and training. The goal of every improvement made at hud is to provide Better Service to those. Getting americans back on their feet and permanently improving their lives. Of course hud is committed to continuing to serve those families that might always need someone to lean ochblt additionally we have an opportunity to eliminate veterans, homelessness in america. They sacrificed for our country and deserve all of the support we can give. And fooinally we need to rethin American Communities and how we can make them thrive. Expanding through publishtry pro publicspry vat partnerships to live in of childhood exposure to dangerous building materials. Ridding our homes of these hazards is a worthy cause with great benefits to future generations. While pursuing its mission to provide safe, decent and Affordable Housing, the hud team is also cognizant of its vital duty to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars. The president has directed federal agencies to take special care against burdening American Families and their businesses with unnecessary and expensive regulations. Hud is reviewing its existing regulations to assess their compliance costs, reduce Regulatory Burden and build a more efficient and effective agency. Let me close by reiterating the interest of our administration and my personal interest in working with this committee on Housing Finance reform. Hud will be an active participant in this critical dialogue because of our fundamental Housing Mission and because our fha Mortgage Insurance Program and our ginny may Mortgage Backed security guarantee. Reform should be built on shared goals of ensuring a well functioning Housing Finance system that provides access for credit worthy borrowers who are ready to own a home. Expands the role of the private sector and reduces overall taxpayer exposure. Thank you for inviting me to testify today and i welcome any questions. Chair recognizes himself for five minutes for questions. My clegolleague, mr. Duffy, alld in his Opening Statement to kind of metrics of success. And there are some who view the success of hud to be tied to the size of its budget or the number of people who have section 8 vouchers. But i am curious, does hud have or is hud developing any different metric . I mean, how many people actually get to escape poverty . How many ablebodied individuals are able to escape poverty to move beyond section 8 housing and maybe at one point enjoy the dream of Home Ownership . Does hud have any way to measure this . Are we looking at this wrong . Should there be a different metric of success for what youre doing . There have been a number of studies over the course of decades. And as was mentioned in your Opening Statement, there hasnt been a tremendous amount of progress there. This is not because the people who have been there have had bad intentions. I think they have very good intentions. But we do have to look at the fact that were not making a great deal with progress with poverty. And thats why we are looking to reform this whole thing. And really looking more at the person than at the housing complex. Housing is a component of developing people. We have to recognize that we only have 330 Million People in this country. We have to compete in the future with china and india, who have four times that many people. That means, if we dont develop all of our people, we are not going to be able to keep up in the future. Its as simple as that. We have to start thinking in terms of Wholistic Development of people and communities. How do we enable people to climb that ladder of opportunity. How do we incentivize them to climb that ladder of opportunity so that they become part of the strength of this country. Part of Affordable Housing is obviously tied to our Housing Finance system. Recently Federal Reserve governor Jerome Powell said, if congress does not enact reforms over the next few years we are at risk of settling for the status quo, a government dominated Mortgage Market with insufficient private capital to protect taxpayers and insufficient competition to drive innovation. Do you agree or disagree with governor powells assessment . There is no question that we need to engage in a serious discussion about finance reform. A lot of progress has been made, by the way. Ten years ago we were talking about how important it is to get everybody into Home Ownership. And again, i am not criticizing the people who did that. But i dont think they realized that to put somebody in a home that they cant afford is not really doing them a favor. They lose the home. They lose their credit. They lose their future opportunities. We have to learn from those kinds of situations. And innovation is the hallmark of america. Mr. Secretary, can we reform our Housing Finance system without reforming fha, which is obviously under hud . Fha, as you probably know, the largest guarantor of mortgages in the world. So its an essential part of it and needs to be reformed as well. Well, historically the mission of fha was to support firsttime and lowincome lowtomoderate income families. And it had a small footprint in the market. Now it has a very large footprint in the market and, in many areas of the u. S. , the fha loan limits are the same as the conventional market, 636,150 in socalled highcost areas. At least where i come from, only the top wage earners can afford a mortgage of 636,000. Do you agree that establishing a home price or loan limit more in line, say, with the median home price in the area will better serve the target customer for fha and get it refocused on low to moderate income and firsttime home buyers . Thank you for that question. If one looks at the actual statistics and looks at the bell curve, you know, 95 of the mortgages fall in the 200,000 range. On the very tips there are going to be very low ones and very high ones. So i tend to want to focus on the large group and not on the outliers. Its very, very rare that we deal with a 636,000 mortgage. Thank you, mr. Secretary. I now recognize the Ranking Member for five minutes. Thank you very much. I had intended to start to talk about the housing crisis that we have, but since the president was busy tweeting this morning and you referred to huds role in dealing with the hurricane disasters and what you and the administration are doing, this morning trump threatened to abandon puerto rico Recovery Efforts. President trump served notice thursday that he may pull back federal relief workers from puerto rico effectively threatening to abandon the u. S. Territory amid a staggering humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of hurricane maria. In a trio of tweets, he wrote, we cannot keep fema, the military, and the First Responders who have been amazing in puerto rico forever. On thursday he sought to shame the territory for its own plight. He tweeted, electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricane. So you talked about what you, hud, is doing in cooperation with, i guess, the administration. Do you agree with the president . I certainly agree that puerto rico is a very important territory. The people from puerto rico have contributed greatly to the culture of america. I am not talking about that. What i am talking about is these tweets where the president threatened to abandon puerto rico Recovery Efforts. Do you agree that they should be abandoned, that puerto rico should be abandoned . Well, first of all, as i was saying, puerto rico is a very important part i want to know whether or not you agree with the president , who is threatening to abandon puerto rico Recovery Efforts. I think i just said i have no intention of an bbandoning puer rico. They are a very important part of what we are. He