Good
morning Mr. Chairman, Congressman Mollohan, and members of the committee.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak before you today on behalf
of requests for appropriations from constituents of my District.
I
want to urge the committee to give serious consideration to these appropriation
requests. They are the best kind of spending because they are investments
rather than consumption. This is most evident by the example of the
City of Chicago's request for $3 million to help them finance non-profit
housing developments for seniors and persons with disabilities through
HUD's Section 202 and 811 HUD programs.
That
$3 million will help Chicago meet its tremendous need for affordable housing
units. It should be noted that my district's housing crunch may be
worsened because we might lose over 700 affordable housing units--including
for over 250 apartments reserved for senior citizens--because of a failure
to renew Section 8 contracts with private landlords. Fortunately,
Chicago is working to help five non-profit developments, four of which
are reserved for seniors under the Section 202 program.
Unfortunately,
these developments are currently delayed because of an unavoidable gap
in financing. This gap occurred because the Section 202 program bases
its funding formula on the cost to build apartments meeting HUD specifications.
Local specifications, however, are stronger and make the development more
costly than HUD anticipates. Thus, a gap between allocation and need
occurs. At the same time, HUD rules discourage additional private
funding for this housing. The City, however, can and would fill the
gap, but it needs our help.
The
$3 million requested would help Chicago help these non-profits build four
202 and 811 developments totaling 285 units and adding to 1,393 other elderly
housing units built since 1992.
In
that same vein of productive spending, I urge the committee to fund two
programs for universities in my district.
Loyola
is requesting $2.99 million from HUD's Economic Development Initiative
to build four new Computer Information Resource Centers. These centers
will not only serve the student body, but will also be available to high
schools, community groups, and professionals. They will link the
corporate, municipal, non-profit and university communities in order to
prepare Chicagoans for the advanced technology and information management
skills needed for 21st century jobs.
Additionally,
Northwestern University requests $100,000 from the National Space Grant
College and Fellowship Program. In the past, Northwestern has used
this funding to place high school and college students in research programs.
Some of those same students have gone on to win Goldwater Fellowships,
NSF Grant Student fellowships, NASA Graduate Student Researcher Fellowships,
Westinghouse Talent Search Awards and Intel Talent Search awards.
I
respectfully urge your careful consideration of these requests. They
will go a long way towards helping the City of Chicago, Northwestern University
and Loyola University of Chicago strengthen my community.
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