Recognizing the 20TH Anniversary of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act
July 23, 2007
Rep. Maxine Waters [D-CA]: Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 561, recognizing the 20th anniversary of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987. I was pleased to join my Housing Subcommittee colleague Mr. Shays, and Congresswoman McCollum, in introducing this resolution to honor their late predecessors--Stewart McKinney of Connecticut and Bruce Vento of Minnesota--for their work across party lines to create the McKinney-Vento programs in response to the widespread homelessness that had reoccurred in the early 1980's for the first time since the Great Depression.
Since then, the McKinney-Vento Act programs have helped thousands of homeless men, women, and children return to stable housing and lives in which they can reach their full potential. I am pleased that we will take up for consideration today a FY 2008 appropriations bill for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which administers the majority of McKinney-Vento grants, that provides for $1.561 billion for the HUD homeless assistance account, a $234 million increase over FY 2006.
But as national homeless organizations noted poignantly at an event a few of us attended last week, this is truly a ``bittersweet'' anniversary. While this groundbreaking homeless legislation is a highlight of the legacy I inherit as the Chair of the Housing Subcommittee, the sad fact is that the McKinney-Vento Act programs should not still be so desperately needed on their 20th birthday.
In fact, because the McKinney-Vento Act was debated a few years before I entered Congress--though I had certainly addressed homeless issues during my tenure in the California state legislature--I had my staff provide me with some of the legislative history surrounding the bill. A couple of points are worth noting.
First, nobody ever thought that the McKinney-Vento Act was the answer to homelessness, despite its ambitious creation of 15 separate programs and authorization of over $400 million in funding. Indeed, the original House bill was entitled the ``Urgent Relief for the Homeless Act.''
Of it, my distinguished predecessor as Chair of the then-Housing and Community Development Subcommittee, the late Henry Gonzalez, said, ``The emergency assistance provided in this bill will not eradicate the causes of homelessness; but rather is an emergency short-term effort to assist homeless persons.''
In other words, the McKinney-Vento programs were always meant as a first step--a first step toward a social safety net in which no person is forced to live on the streets or in shelters because of poverty, whether or not that poverty is coupled with additional challenges like mental illness, drug addiction or HIV/AIDS.
What is also striking, however, is how much the people involved then knew or suspected, even in the midst of a new crisis, about the real long-term solutions to homelessness. Of necessity, perhaps, given the rapid and overwhelming growth in homelessness at the time, the majority of early McKinney-Vento Act authorizations and appropriations funded emergency food and shelter assistance. Yet, from the start, the McKinney-Vento Act invested in a wide range of interventions--including permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, education, mental health and substance addiction services, job training, and other interventions.
Building on this basic infrastructure, academic research coupled with the hard-earned knowledge of practitioners and government have moved us to a place where we know much more about who the homeless are, and what it takes to end homelessness for them than we did in 1987.
I am proud that the McKinney-Vento Act itself grew out of Housing Subcommittee hearings then-Chairman Gonzales convened starting 25 years ago, and, after Congress returns from its August recess, I intend to hold a series of four in-depth Subcommittee hearings to examine lessons learned in the intervening period in order to formulate better federal housing policy, starting with an updated McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
But reauthorizing the McKinney-Vento Act, no matter how perfectly, is only a small piece of a real federal agenda to end homelessness. Another glaring theme emerges from the 1987 Congressional Record--the increasing lack of affordable housing and the Federal government's progressive disinvestment in housing production programs.
Well, the situation has only gotten worse. As you know, the 800,000 people who experience homelessness on any given night--over 10 percent of them in my home city of Los Angeles--are only the most visible feature of an affordable housing crisis that has reached epic proportions across the country.
As Housing Subcommittee Chair, my response is simple. It's time to get the Federal government back in the affordable housing production business. I am hoping we start with enactment of H.R. 1851, The Section 8 Voucher Improvement Act and H.R. 2895, the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Simply put, if the Federal government does not re-engage on affordable housing at this scale, and more, our successors will face the prospect of introducing a resolution to mark the 40th anniversary of the McKinney-Vento Act in 2027. Let us hope we can render such a sad event unnecessary.
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Contact: Mikael Moore
202-225-2201
