| WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) delivered the following remarks at the National Fair Housing Alliance Conference titled: Closing the Gap: Challenges and Opportunities for People & Communities of Color. Below are excerpts of his remarks:
"There are a lot of women in this room. I've got my list of people to recognize and they are all women. But I want to recognize some of those women, first of all, my dear, dear friend who I love dearly and who I wanted to be the Governor of the state of Maryland…my County Executive…Angela Alsobrooks."
"I ran for the State Senate in 1966…In 1966, when we had done the Voting Rights Act, we had done public accommodations, and we done the ‘57 Act, but in 1966, the issue in that election was fair housing…I was one of 19 candidates for the State Senate, only three of us [were] for fair housing and two lost. I didn't. And to there were two Senators and the other Senator was not for fair housing. I was elected. I was elected in a district that George Wallace won…I knocked on doors in the black community. The black community was down about ten percent, nine percent in Prince George's County, and I was a skinny white boy people would open their doors and say: ‘What are you doing here?' [I'd say] ‘I'm asking for your vote.' [They said] ‘Well, nobody's ever been here asking for my vote.' I won because of the African-American community voted for me. Eight - nine to one and I won by 300 votes."
"Housing is a major crisis in America, the richest country on the face of the earth. The settlement, announced in February, righted an injustice regarding the maintenance and marketing of certain Fannie Mae owned homes and communities of color, while creating an opportunity for more equitable investment in housing for these communities. Thank you for doing that. Thank you [to] the lawyers…thank you for the persistent efforts of the National Fair Housing Alliance, a pillar of civil rights law and fair housing. The Fair Housing Act of '68, of which of which I've just spoken, and how they plan to make sure that lender-owned properties are maintained properly in every community in our country. I was glad to learn that the National Fair Housing Alliance is going to be using the Settlement Award to make a strong investment in fair housing in Prince George's County. One of the great counties in our country and very frankly, one of the most diverse and the richest, as I understand it, per capita minority counties in America, and perhaps the world, Prince George's County and the investments also being made here in the District of Columbia."
"All Americans deserve equitable access to tools that make homeownership and affordable housing possible. All Americans. The Great Recession and mortgage crisis unevenly impacted communities of color. Thanks to your research, evidence gathering, and determined legal effort, we can better understand some of the factors that led to an uneven housing recovery in the years that followed, with certain neighborhoods treated differently than others by Fannie Mae. That wasn't fair. It wasn't right. I have a picture of John Lewis outside [my] door. On January 6th, it was torn up and thrown away, and of course, we put another one up. And it's been there ever since John passed away, who said, if you see something that wasn't right, isn't fair, is unjust. You need to stand up. You need to speak out. You need to speak up. You need to act up. You need to get in trouble. Good trouble."
"Good trouble is demonstrating and urging and watching and marching. And speaking of things that you know are just, and are the concept of America, at the heart of America. All men, [our Founders] didn't say women, but clearly now if they were writing this, they would say all men and women are created equal, not the same, but equal. So that they can't, nor should they be discriminated against and made second-class citizens…We need to make sure that every American, and that's what you're doing with this legislation and with this effort of yours now with February's settlement, we have to make things fairer and do right by those communities that have faced discriminatory housing practices for a very long, long, long time."
"This goes back even further than the Great Recession. In fact, that goes back to the founding of our country. When I started in politics back in the 60s, and I just told you, I was an advocate for fair housing because I thought the Founders drawing up the Constitution and saying that you could not go into my home or your home as the state, as the king, or the police, without probable cause was a good, solid concept for America. But it was not a concept that should be used to discriminate in America. Practices like redlining are perpetuating two unequal Americas, one where the tools were in place for anyone to achieve the American dream. And another when those tools were replaced with barriers to building wealth and attaining economic security through homeownership."
"Ms. [Lisa] Rice was talking about [this], and Angela [Alsobrooks] talked about it: the importance of homeownership and building wealth in middle-class families. That's what we all have, our own wealth…we own a home, and every year that goes by, that makes our wealth a little greater unless there's discrimination and unfairness. Over the years, we've made strides as a nation by making discriminatory practices like redlining illegal, but we still confront practices and policies that lead to substantial inequality in housing affordability and access…"
"Well, I was on the Banking Committee and I was on a Housing Committee, and at that point in time, we started abandoning housing in America. We did not invest in housing in America, so what happened? Housing stock shrank, population went up, demand increased. Housing stock did not. What happens? The price goes up. And so we are pricing certainly the lower end of the scale, but the middle end of the scale is being priced out. We need to turn that around. And let me tell you what, [Chairwoman] Maxine Waters has been a tiger and a constant knocking on the door…We need to change our policy. We put billions of dollars into the CARES Act and other pieces of legislation to provide better housing stock to provide rental assistance for people…"
"…National Fair Housing Alliance is so important. We need to get this job done. The work you do is critical to building a better and stronger America, which is the objective of the Biden-Harris Administration and of our Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, hopefully, joined by a large number of Republicans because this is not a partisan issue. Are all of our people going to have decent housing in the richest country on the face of the Earth? There needs to be a resounding yes to that question. Thank you very much." |