Our veterans had an average of 2200, 90 for clinton over the last 43 months have saved 206,885. Is are Homeless People that come to us. 124 participated and saved 259,000, a quarter of 1 million. The uptodate and agreed to child support, starting in the Second Quarter of the program. Did not go back to the life environment they left. Move into permanent housing, move into permit housing 86. 4 . Move into permanent nonsubsidized housing, 74 . And family reconciliation, that works out sometimes. They can do is homeless and penniless. Lets do a comparison. Federal prison, average in 2014, 30,619. State prison in a new york, 60,000. City of new york, jail, 167,731 a year. We should just put them in the waldorf. Life recovery, 22,900 a year. To ask you which one is better, 30,000, or 23, or 167,023. News bulletins. 48 year old white female serve a tenyear drug sentence, probation, and our program 15 months is working part time three jobs, say 2850 in because she got a match from another program, paid cash for car and her furniture purchases i will not be returning to prison and working towards reuniting with her daughter. This is not a giveaway. This is a program would have to work to what you were doing in the program. 8 probably will not make it. 92 can really change their lives. 86 have been stabilized condition and 72 can be in permanent place with a permanent job. This is the reality of rebuilding a life. I think youll see all practitioners had been successful as you have and that you have, have discovered that it takes comprehensive and with the same approach. With our customers, but the issue is the money, the funding for Antipoverty Programs do not follow this approach and it takes an organization to step back from the contract and say we have a model and we will find the money and use the money to follow our model, not, we will not be an agency that implements a contract. Government contract, the Antipoverty Programs that exist in this country are not designed at all in any of the ways you heard the three of us talk abo about. And they are not in any way measuring success or breeding success. Theres not one government contract to operate that requires an outcome. And operate 70 million worth of government contracts, and none of them require one outcome. So i have taken those contracts and put them on the side burner and use them as tools and bent them like beckham in order to make us work, and help people change their lives. And apply them when they are appropriate. For example, and not just use two very brief examples, if i can, section eight housing, subsidized housing is extremely useful tool. So if you dont tell so if they cannot for the rest of their lives. Which they can put you dont. You dont tell them that. You set out the right time in the right way and destruction the way it was designed to be originally that has become a crutch that allows people to just live in poverty for ever, as you said. And the other is Energy Efficient which would go to Great Lengths as an agency to help people develop sound financial practices and to establish good credit and many seniors on fixed incomes are going for Energy Assistance for the first time in their lives and they are applying and in order to get in new york state the full Energy Assistance which isnt going to carry you through a winter anyway, youre going to have to default on your bill. In order to default youre going to ruin your credit and when they default Energy Company comes and shuts off and charges everybody a shot off the Big Energy Companies dont lose money. They go to the Public Commission and say we lost money lashkars we were raised our rates. The taxpayers paying for the subsidy for the person on Energy Assistance without defaulting to get the full benefit, and that is costing taxers more because the rates are going to come up because the Utility Companies are paying more money. All you have to do is take Utility Company to give eligible customers to subsidize energy rate and cut out 10 layers of bureaucracy. And stop putting people into default. Just small examples of every Antipoverty Program that exist. Every single one of them is flawed and needs to be reworked and needs to Work Together but they are all operating in government silos and it takes an organization operates either many times in housing programs were many times ive Antipoverty Programs to be able to step back and take that approach. That was a great, great beginning. I think we will transition, we will make a few comments on whether as we get the congressman to come up. Come. Seemed to be weird about work requirements, coordination among programs, serving the whole person as opposed to just one aspect of the person, we heard about the federal role. It seems to me its clear that there is a federal role in helping americans and people on the frontlines recognize that, providing resources and money and assistance. And then finally we heard about local control, ability of localities and local leaders to structure the programs the way they want. I also think i heard from the three to come will come back to these issues come is a willingness to accept evidence an outcome measurements to hold you accountable. For the second part of our presentation today we have three distinguished congressman from the house of representatives come and going in order, ma congressman barr, congressman reed, congressman walker. A member of the committee on Financial Services, he is committed to great a better environment for job creation and Economic Growth, is presented with the Economic Growth to increase wages for kentucky families and restoring fiscal sanity to washington. Tom reed after congressman barr will go next. Is serving his third full term in congress representing new yorks 23rd district and is a member of the house ways and means committee. He is engaged in the house of representatives at our efforts as well as tax reform, Energy Security and manufacturing policy. Before his time in congress, he was a Small Business owner working in law and real estate. Has great Public Service began in 2008, was a successful mayoral run in his hometown of corning, new york, which by the what is in the finger lakes. Thats where my mother grew up. Congressman walker represents north july 6 district in the house of representatives. He is serving his first term in congress serving on the House Committee on oversight and government reform, Homeland Security and administration. Is a member of several caucuses including the Bipartisan Congressional Historically Black College and universitys. Before he is elected he served as an executive pastor, music and worship pastor and lead pastor we are pleased to have you here. Congressman barr, your first. Thank you to the American Enterprise institute for hosting this important forum, to my colleagues and to our constituents who have come to share their stories and their successors in combating poverty in particular there at like to thank dean hammond and bill gray have demonstrated a real successful and innovative model of combating poverty and helping people recover from addiction. I come from a Congressional District like some other members of congress that features urban poverty but in the far eastern part of my Congressional District we have a number of counties that are designated safer but economically distressed as part of that regional commissioner theres a lot of rural poverty not just in my Congressional District but throughout appalachia and throughout the country. After 50 years of the war on poverty and trillions of taxpayer dollars spent, i think its her to say washington has failed Many Americans who are most in need. Bureaucratic inertia has crept in to government officials who refuse to give up on failing policies that almost could as dogma. For example, housing and urban Development SecretaryJulian Castro who will appear again before House Financial Services committee again this week has pushed Housing First model that are not all of the factors of beneficiaries of obeying or selfsufficiency. Lesson with secretary castro testified before our committee got asked him how he measured success and he responded, getting a roof over someones head and he touted the number of people in Public Housing was increasing. But isnt really an appropriate measure of success . Both private and nonprofit assistance initiatives such as alcohol and drug Abuse Recovery programs focus on the number of people they have helped achieve sobriety or recovery, not how many are currently in the program. I think we need to focus on outcomes as opposed to the size of government or the number of government programs. There will always be a need for safety net programs. And for those of fallen on hard times. To assist those who cannot work such as seniors and the disabled but the measure of success should not how many people struggling in poverty the measure of success should not be how many people struggling in poverty are propped up by taxpayer dollars. Instead should how many people have we helped achieve escape out of, legally help achieve upward mobility in achieving the American Dream. Despite 22 trillion spent since announcement of the Great Society, poverty rates have been essentially level. Debate is about 46. 7 million people, including one in five children who are struggling in poverty. And force measurements of social mobility a pair to be heading in the wrong direction, as business formation of a new ship are the generational low. In some if youre born poor, youre as likely to remain in poverty today as you were when the Great Society are when the war on poverty was announced in 1965. Thats the referrers out the American Dream at all should. So more of the same cannot be the solution because when my colleagues and i working for the republican study committees Empowerment Initiative have produced a comprehensive review of federal Antipoverty Programs to inform legislative proposals to create a new model. This is a better way to fight poverty. Been on housing reform, an issue Financial Services committee. Hud can no longer treat those in need as liabilities. Warehouse for generation and public assisted housing. Our fellow americans want to recognize their full potential to contribute to their communities, to our body politic and to our national economy. And Arthur Brooks with the American Enterprise institute so publicly put it in his book, the conservative heart, when he talked about poor people not being liabilities to be managed by some distant, ma remote government bureaucracy in washington, d. C. , but for people are dormant assets, untapped potential. And we view as brooks does that work is not a punishment that they should be viewed as a punishment. Work is a blessing. It gives people the opportunity to achieve their potential and give back to their fellow human being. Get people back in the workforce, reduce poverty and ease the cost of taxpayers. The more efficiently can be in helping people, the more people we can reach with a limited federal resources. This model has worked before. We are building on the successes of the 1996 welfare reform model which led to Unemployment Rate increasing by 15 and dramatically reduce child poverty. In recent years these reforms have been chipped away and the results speak for themselves with their low Labor Participation rates. The lowest Labor Participation since the malaise of the late 1970s. Our plan approves flexibility for states and encourages this dilution of pilot programs to test innovative assistance models like those demonstrated by our panel. The work of dean hammond and the st. James place this model works but its not compatible with huds Housing First model. We must break down such arbitrary bureaucratic barriers to benefit solutions that would meaningfully improve lives. Warehousing for people is not a solution. Identifying underlying causes of homelessness and dealing with those issues is a better approach. We also should consolidate access to assistance of the beneficiaries can receive unemployment, Food Assistance and housing benefits all in one place well getting their questions answered quickly to avoid being caught in red tape. Our plan would encourage competition. So that scarce resources for section eight vouchers or vouchers for housing would not be simply allocated to one Public Housing authority, but instead those housing authorities out there that are doing a good job helping people graduate into nonsubsidized housing situations would be rewarded for services that are actually working, and it would take on a greater responsibility. I believe we should also open it up to the institutions of private society, dioceses, faithbased institutions, churches, synagogues and nonprofits that have the results and it comes to graduating people from public assistance into selfsufficient situations. Finally, our plan would demand results and accountability no more useless metrics or ambiguous mission statements. If programs administered by state and local governments are not moving people to welfare to work an and selfsufficiency, ad they should that deserve taxpayer support. As we all know one definition of insanity isnt the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Washingtons approach towards fighting poverty has been insane as has been a failure. We ca can and must either to internal american is by the conditions of his or her birth or by unexpected hardship. If we Work Together on these legislators solutions, i truly do believe we can restore the American Dream. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much and thank you to my colleagues, and he and mark, for joining us here today gone into robert and aei and you all go and roberta and in pushing the frontline on this important issue. And taking on poverty. I will tell you im often asked why, why they made this a priority in your tenure in congress. The fundamental answer is just as many of you, i care. I care and im a republican member of congress and i will tell you im told that my mission in life in congress is to penalize people, judge people and usher in a type of compassion for people. I can tell you that my colleagues will attest am i left and right, we do care. We just offer a different way. We offer a different way and i will share with the story of my life with you. I will share the story of being the youngest of 12, eight older sisters, three older brothers, whose father passed away when i was too. I was raised by a single mom. Who is given a curveball in life was either given a choice, either due to develop a chip on your shoulder, not kind of never get back a. Are what you did is you could take that curveball and make lemonade. You can get back up and you can smile and you can count your blessings and treat each other with respect and work hard. Thats the lesson she taught to me. When i was in when i first got out of school of represented kids, law or guardians represent kids interest actions throughout the court systems. I went on in that one my clients for the first time, an eight year old young man in western new york which is a beautiful part, as robert pointed out of the country. Is essential in appalachia. Essentially we have dirt floors. I sat with him in his living room and asked them what do you want to be when you get older, just to develop a friendship, relationship he and his attorney and a court precedent. And the response was eyeopening. The response was essentially, what do you mean . This is what we do. I thought maybe he would stay after that, police officer, cure cancer, Something Like that. Essentially then it dawned upon me. How could i expect that the man who was eight years old, which is 21, 22 to know anything different in the life he was exposed to . Thats the cycle of poverty. I have seen firsthand. When i come to this issue to i e at it from a personal perspective that we must do better. We need to do better. The status quo of the federal government has been taking on the war on poverty for decades just doesnt work. I am influenced by a lot of leaders across the country. And formerly of the country and i see jimmy. His father comes in western new york. Jack kemp is somebody i looked up to and look up to each and every day. What he taught us to be as a happy warrior, to take on these issues and look at people in the eye and recognized the potential that is there. The systems we have developed in the federal government at the state level and the local level just dont do that. The files have been talked about by roberta and others, that andy mentioned, the left hand of government not with the right hand is doing, recognizing under ou