[StBernard] House Passes Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Thu Mar 22 20:49:13 EDT 2007


House Passes Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act

Washington, DC - In a major step to bring relief to the displaced families
of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, the House of Representatives today
overwhelmingly passed H.R. 1227, the "Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery
Act." The bipartisan bill, which passed by a vote of 302 to 125, will
provide immediate assistance to the displaced families of the Gulf Coast by
increasing flexibility to use funds that were already allocated to the
relief effort. In addition, the bill will also free up rebuilding funds for
homeowners, provide tough oversight of state housing assistance plans, and
require HUD to reopen public housing and provide voucher assistance for
added affordable housing.

"Today the House of Representatives took a big step in removing many of the
obstacles to the recovery faced by Hurricane Katrina victims by passing a
bill that will expedite housing opportunities, return residents to public
housing, and make permanent rental assistance for all of those people on
temporary rental assistance for so long," said Rep. Maxine Waters (D -CA),
Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity and the
original sponsor of the bill. "We are extremely pleased with the progress
that we made today and we look forward this bill getting signed into law."

The passage of the "Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act"
will finally begin to address the Gulf Coast region's crisis in affordable
housing. Currently, the crisis in affordable housing in the Gulf Coast has
prevented tens of thousands of families from returning to their homes. This
bill will allow for long-awaited action to address the damaged or destroyed
public housing units and provide the opportunity for people to return home.


The Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act comes after a series of
hearing held in the Financial Services Committee both in Washington and in
the Gulf Coast. This bill takes into consideration the issues and concerns
that were outlined in the testimony of the witnesses at these hearings.

Preservation of Affordable Housing

The bill includes provisions designed to improve flexibility for previously
appropriated funds for hurricane recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast:

FEMA has been holding up Louisiana's use of $1.175 billion in Hazard
Mitigation Grant Program funds for the Louisiana Road Home program - greatly
slowing down the program. FEMA has cited its concern with certain features
of the program. This bill would free up this $1.175 billion, by prohibiting
FEMA from disapproving or restricting the use of such FEMA funds based on
its concerns with the features of the Louisiana Road Home program that
provide financial incentives for people to come back and live in the state.


Preservation of Affordable Housing

The bill includes provisions designed to preserve the supply of affordable
rental housing:

Requires HUD to give timely approval of all feasible requests to restore
project-based rental assistance or transfer such assistance to another site,
in the case of damaged or destroyed federally assisted housing developments.


Authorizes 4,500 new housing vouchers for the purpose of project-based
assistance for supportive housing units for seniors, people with
disabilities, and the homeless.

Requires HUD to provide a replacement voucher for every public housing and
assisted housing unit that is not brought back on line.

Preserves the availability of public housing units in hurricane-affected
areas by preventing the sale of public housing units without preserving
long-term affordability requirements.

Conditions demolition of public housing units in hurricane-affected areas on
providing alternative housing units for residents of the units being
demolished and on replacing such units either with other public housing or
comparable units that are affordable.

Requires the New Orleans Public Housing Authority to survey pre-Katrina
residents to identify which residents want to return and when, and to
provide public housing or comparable units to those residents who want to
return, but in any case no less than 3,000 units by August 1st. Also
authorizes funding for repair, rehabilitation and development of New Orleans
public housing units.

Rental Housing Assistance

The bill includes provisions to help families that would otherwise lose
rental housing assistance:

The adopted amendment offered by Rep. Al Green (D-TX) will address the
looming August deadline for the cutoff of some 37,000 families receiving
rental housing assistance under FEMA's Section 408 program. The Green
amendment will also authorize extension of assistance under this program
through the end of the year, and provision of HUD Section 8 vouchers for
eligible low income families after that date. The amendment will also
authorize provision of such vouchers for eligible low income families
currently living in temporary FEMA trailers.

Faced with a looming September deadline for the cutoff of some 12,000
families currently receiving Disaster Voucher Program (DVP) assistance,
authorizes such sums as may be necessary for extending the DVP program for
three months and authorizes replacement vouchers to affected families when
the program terminates.

Reimbursement for Communities and Landlords that Assisted Evacuees

The bill also includes provisions to provide reimbursements to communities
and landlords that were generous in providing assistance to hurricane
evacuees in the aftermath of the storms:

Authorizes funding for reimbursement of localities that used their own CDBG
funds to provide rental housing assistance to such evacuees.

Authorizes reimbursement to landlords who participated in the FEMA Section
403 program under which local communities co-signed private lease agreements
- but who suffered financial losses arising from FEMA subsequently breaking
their agreement to provide reimbursements under this program.



http://financialservices.house.gov/







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