Anking committee. Its an hour and 45 minutes. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] committee on Housing Urban Affairs is called to order. Thanks to the two witnesses joining us. Home is more than four walls and a roof for the play and do their homework home as we plan for the future and build wealth. Home is millions of families during the middle class. Homes are an anchor in our lives for too many families are in the country home they can afford and build their life around feels out of reach. I hear it and ohio, hear from everywhere from people mine by the city similar to where i grew up in mansfield. Fiftyfour apartments for working families just opened 54 partners at 50011 interested families but i hear it from rural Washington County in Southeast Ohio marietta, church town, they struggled for years 48 homes for seniors right here in Franklin County in central ohio, columbus population is grown by 14 to more than 1. 3 Million People housing supply has not kept up and prices have been rising for years and years. With more people that counted with worldclass schools and Skilled Workforce is great quality of life will only continue to grow. To hear the stories from across ohio. It is not just happening in ohio. Whether you are in downtown columbus, or minneapolis or rural south dakota or wyoming or South Carolina housing is too expensive. It has been for years. It has been for far too long. One big reason we do not have enough of it. For the past decade rent has gone up and up and out part one and four renters pay more than half their income for rent. More than half of your income goes to rent every month, it is hard to juggle all the bills you have let alone save for a down payment. Height rent stops people from becoming homeowners so many families think if i can only come up with theyre down payment the money for a down payment is what stands between millions of americans and building generational wealth. Thats why my bill supports a first generation homebuyers down payment toward equity act and the helper act specifically theyre down payment toward equity act is a broadly for teachers, firefighters and Police Officers to allow them to buy homes in their communities and other sources of assistance. All that is so important. Director thompson, you know these challenges because yourer agencies are at the center of our efforts to lower the cost of housing. Your agencies do not build housing of art Housing Markets your job is to make sure there is Affordable Housing for the hausers and builders and Housing Providers create the families can get a mortgage to buy their first home and as americans get older they can still live safely in their homes. Both of your agencies have announced changes that should help increase housing supply and bring down costa. Following calls from senator reid and me and others hud acted to improve access to financing for Affordable Housing through fha and the federal financing bag parade this will help Housing Providers and states build and preserve more Affordable Housing for renters across the country. Huds a long overdue update to load limits for manufactured housings new guidance to support conversion of Old Office Space into homes will open up new Housing Options. Especially in cities like cleveland. You have a limit upfront fees of fannie and freddie have in the past charge lower income firsttime homebuyers and borrowers who could not afford a big down payment to begin with. You also refocus to fannie and freddie the federal Home Loan Banks with their roles not just in Financial Markets but in helping to support housing families and communities need. The fact remains housing prices are still far too high. They have been for years and years it will take all of us working together Housing Providers, federal, state, local governments to lower cost hud and fha need to do more to be vigilant and ensuring taxpayer money is actually serving families not enriching shady landlords and wealthy investors. Wall street firms and other outside investors swoop into communities but they buy up properties they evicted tenants and drive up local housing prices we should pass my stop predatory investing act to end their tax breaks for buying up numbers of Single Family homes. We need to ensure all of our housing agencies are on the same page and working to stop not in any way supporting this predatory Business Model. State and local governments have a lot of influence over the housing and their communities more and more cities and counties are making changes like updates to zoning like shortening lengthy approval processes to open up opportunities for new housing, expand access to affordable homeownership. Hud is a critical partner in supporting that work. Franklin county commissioner kevin testified these sent on behalf of the National Association of counties about Critical Role homes, cdbg and the Housing Trust fund play and helping counties of every size to address housing needs. Local communities depend on this partnership. Even with more housing some families working lowwage jobs some seniors on fixed income still will not make enough. Sorry okay. Huds Housing Assistance program are critical to keep rent affordable. Excuse me. [laughter] well done. [laughter] i am almost done senator scott. Take your time mr. Chairman. [laughter] i need to make sure they work effectively and officially to serve our communities and protect our investments. Congress needs to do our part. Last month this committee had a hearing on legislative proposals help expand our housing supply and bring down the cost of housing lets continue our bipartisan work to move forward with common sense proposal help expand Housing Options and reduce cost i look forward to continue to work with Ranking Member scott on this committee towards that goal. I look forward to hearing today from the two leaders before us about what they have done. What more they can do. What resources they need to get their input of what congress can do to make housing more affordable for renters and for homeowners. Ranking member scott peck works works thankyou both for being h. Congratulations well done. Expect you to be completely prepared were going to talk about over the next several hours, likely. Thank you, mr. Chairman for holding this hearing. Ive been asking for about a year to have both of you in front of us. So it is certainly something that is absolute essential for us to be able to hear from our regulators as often as possible to achieve the goal of american homeownership because american homeownership is not just homeownership it is in fact in the eyes of so Many Americans the American Dream. If we are going to close the wealth gap with that we talk so much about we are persistent is by create equity in creating equity comes from homeownership in our economy so thank you both for being here. You think about the value of homeownership, consistently, americans owe somewhere around somewhere amount 12 trillion on their mortgages. Mortgage debt accounts for 70 plus of Consumer Debt in the United States of america. Not an insignificant amount of money. And yet, the last time we had this hearing was back during the trump years when chairman crapo was chairman of this committee. I certainly hope we have more opportunities you from both of you at the same time going forward. The American Dream of Home Ownership is further out of reach today than it was just a few years ago despite the subsidies the trillions of dollars we spent over the decades, little has changed in 1970 homeownership and america was 64 today it is 65 rate since the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968 the goal was to eliminate housing discrimination. The homeownership rate for African Americans has not changed much, 41 , 44 , it continues to have a very slow growth trajectory. Our housing regulators must testify up more often so that we can find ways to deal with the challenges that housing presents to so Many Americans. But sincePresident Bidens takee Mortgage Rates have ballooned by 150 . Rent have gone up about 20 . Homelessness is up 12 in a single year. The highest number on record in the history of our country despite empty promises from the white house about helping working families the simple fact is the housing under this administration has skyrocketed. I see that at home in South Carolina and i see that across the nation as i travel. I see that in families worried about how to make ends meet watching the dream of homeownership seemed further and further and further away. What has become apparent as this administration about affordability and housing has failed to line up with their policies. Reckless spending on progressive wish list fueled runaway inflation and now americans are painfully aware biden mixes not help them. Instead burdened them so much. The mountains of red tape and regulations this administration has put on Housing Providers are only making that matter so much worse. Officially, both hud and f hfa have taken several politicized actions that will unnecessary increase the cost for families and burden communities. I have recently imposed rent controls on low Income Housing tax credit properties. F hfa is Public Comments on policies enclosing correct rent controlviolent direction fe house. What do these policies mean in practice . They have the potential to limit the number of people served by these programs and restrict the supply of Affordable Housing. Decades of research have improvement rent control policies make housing supply and affordability issues worse, not better. This is the type of backward logic americans have come to expect from joe biden and biden makes. Second, hud and joined other federal agencies under this administration in attempting to add climate regulator to the list of duties. For instance hud proposed requiring all newly constructed subsidized housing be built to increase Energy Efficiency standards, even though hud itself admits lower income households may not be able to afford the added burdens of additional cost. According to the National Association of homebuilders these new environmental mandates could cost as much as 31000 to each new home. So, the same time a families facing doubling of sometimes tripling food costs in order to meet the green claimant goals this administration saddles them with an extra 31000 of additional expenses for a single home. Families and communities like the one i grew up in cannot afford new claimant costs that increases the cost of housing. Which brings me too my last example it appears this administration have been embraced by her housing regulators. Last year hud proposed a rule encouraging cities applying for federal funds to remove crime free ordinances local laws that keep a rental communities safe by keeping out convicted criminals. Even worse hud proposed a rule last week that will make it easier for criminals to lip and hud subsidized housing which risks making communities less safe. We need to reverse course and take a different road when it comes to federal housing policy that is why i announced housing is one of my Top Priorities for this year as a Ranking Member of this committee. Since our first hearing last april i focused my efforts on building consensus around the commonsense non partisan reforms to all segments of our Housing Market including my road to housing act. I continue to urge consideration might road into a housing act which takes a conference in view of federal housing policy re centers support around families, helping those who are homeless or renting or prepared to buy a house. It has a past time to consider my legislation along with other commonsense and bipartisan proposals that would include Real Solutions to tackle housing challenges. I look forward to and from both of the Witnesses Today and i look forward to having an eager conversation about some of the challenges so Many Americans face as it relates to building on their version of the American Dream. Thank you et cetera scott. Adrian todman welcome as his acting secretary of hud. She was confirmed as deputy secretary 2021 and prior to her service their acting secretary with National Association of housing and redevelopment. Held multiple roles at the d. C. Housing authority and served in several career positions at hud. Welcome back ms. Todman, good to see it. Sandra thompson was confirmed fhfa in 2022. Prior to leaving that agency she was the Deputy Director division of Housing Mission and goals from 2013 until 2021. Prior to joining she spent 18 years at fd i see where she held a number of senior level positions including director of the division of Risk Management and supervision. Welcome back. Madame acting secretary, welcome. Thank you. Chairperson brown, Ranking Member scott distinguished members of the Senate Banking committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on how the department of housing and urban development is executing our mission. I went to thank the over 8000 hud employees across the country who are helping us carry out that mission but first let me say the support of this committee is critical to ensuring the American People of access to housing. They can afford communities that are strong and resilient. Thank you for your continued efforts to lead and a legislate on these issues. As you are aware this is my fourth week serving as acting secretary. We are grateful for secretarys extraordinary stewardship on the department in the last years. Her northstar was ensuring we centered our artwork on the people and that star still shines brightly. Under the leadership of President BidenVice President harris, hud has made a storks drag to include outcomes for the people we serve but we have provided historic levels of rental assistance, expanded opportunities for homeownership supported the creation of Affordable Homes to rent and to buy. Supported resilient communities, or to root out housing discrimination and help to people who do not make a lot of money just get a fair shot. And resources are having a dramatic impact on people of every community from big cities and small towns or rural areas and tribal nations. But theres more under construction 2023 than any beyond record. We are working to build even more. Hud helps over 4 million households annually through our rental Assistance Programs. Under this administration have itimplemented a number of histoc changes we serve more families and support more choice in todays market. Hud has provided payments of 120,000 new incremental vouchers and that is a 20 year record. Actions are taken to promote homeownership and wealth building has resulted in a higher rate of firsttime homebuyers that we have seen in the last two decades. Through fha we have supported nearly 1. 8 million homeowners with the purchase mortgages including 1. 5 million firsttime homebuyers. Last year we awarded the first ever package of resources to specifically reach people experiencing homelessness and unsheltered settings and Rural Communities. And it taken charge to protect all people facing housing discrimination. Who provided committees with half a billion dollars so far in multifamily portfolio. And by doing so we are also making much and repairs to units across the country. We have pulled together practitioners, experts and thought leaders who are innovating and executing and researching new solutions weve improved hiring a focus on executing it procurement goals. We have had for clean audits in a row. Im grateful for the work of this committee and the members of congress you have worked to make Resources Available to us we can carry out our very important work. We relook ahead huds mission is critical is critical for young families to buy the first trumpets critical for people of maine lost their job and lost their home and are now on house to need her help. You make sure to removing Health Hazards and any home preventing and remedying the impacts of discrimination. Senators, over the past years executive branch has been executing her housing supply action plan as an outcome based collaborative effort across federal agencies and at work woi a