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CLINTON/GORE
ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR ALL AMERICANS
Home ownership and decent housing are an essential
part of the American Dream. For too many
Americans, that dream is unobtainable.
Home prices have climbed out of the reach of
middle class Americans. Affordable housing is
often difficult to find for the working poor and
urban residents. During the Reagan-Bush years,
federal appropriations for low-income housing
assistance has dropped dramatically -- and a
massive housing shortage has been the result.
Millions of Americans have been left homeless on
our streets.
We can reverse the trend by renewing our commitment
to provide decent, safe and affordable homes to all
Americans, and by forging a new alliance between
federal officials, local community leaders,
residents, and housing professionals. Bill Clinton
and Al Gore have a plan to make home ownership more
than a dream for millions of hard-working
Americans. We can't afford to do without it.
Make home ownership a reality
- Raise the ceiling on FHA mortgage insurance to
95 percent of the price of a home in an
average metropolitan area. The increase will
enable half a million American families to buy
their first homes.
- Make home ownership possible for more
Americans through federal support for
low-income, long-term housing buyout programs,
like Tampa's innovative Resurrection of
Affordable Housing Program. Innovative
packages of long-term subsidized financing
encourage low-income buyers to purchase,
restore and sell condemned housing.
- Require HUD and the Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division to aggressively enforce
existing fair housing civil rights laws, to
open up housing opportunities currently closed
by discrimination.
- Maintain the mortgage revenue bond program to
make affordable housing a reality for
thousands of Americans.
Help America's renters
- Strengthen the HOME program by giving more
authority and flexibility to the state and
local officials who administer it. Congress
created HOME in 1990 to provide additional,
quality rental housing for low-income
Americans, but at the Administrations urging
it limited localities choices in the use of
HOME funds.
- Permanently extend the Low Income Housing Tax
Credit to spur private development of low- and
very low-income housing; the credit helps
produce more than 120,000 homes a year.
Revitalize America through community development
- Put neighborhoods at the center of our efforts
to revitalize America by coordinating existing
housing, education, employment training,
health care, drug treatment and crime
prevention programs. Target resources
community by community to make the most of
scarce federal housing funds.
- Create a nationwide network of community
development banks to provide small loans to
low-income businesses and entrepreneurs in the
inner cities. These banks will also invest in
affordable housing, and help mobilize private
lenders.
- Create urban enterprise zones in stagnant
inner cities, but only for companies willing
to take responsibility. Business taxes and
federal regulations will be minimized to
provide incentives to set up shop. In return,
companies will have to make jobs for local
residents a top priority.
- Ease the credit crunch in our inner cities by
passing a more progressive Community
Reinvestment Act to prevent redlining ;
require financial institutions to invest in
homes in their communities.
New hope for low-income housing and public housing
residents
- Empower low-income housing residents to expel
drug dealers and criminals from the buildings
in which they live: encourage programs like
the Chicago Housing Authorities Operation
Clean Sweep, which has helped housing
residents clean up buildings and kick out
criminals; give tenants a greater role in
building management to instill pride and
responsibility, and reduce bureaucracy.
- Preserve our nations multi-billion dollar
investment in public housing by ensuring that
adequate funding for maintenance and upkeep is
included in the HUD budget.
Fighting homelessness
- Transfer 10 percent of HUD and other
government-controlled housing to community
non-profit organizations and churches to house
the homeless.
- Use the housing available at closed military
bases to house the homeless, giving preference
to homeless military veterans.
- Develop targeted strategies to help different
homeless populations those who need
supported living environments, those who need
residential drug and alcohol treatment, and
those who need housing for their families
because they can't afford it.
- Hold a Housing and Homelessness Summit with
urban leaders and mayors to create a new
consensus for poverty programs, funding
levels, and federal assistance for innovative
housing crisis solutions.
The Record
- Governor Clinton created the Arkansas
Development Finance Authority in 1985. ADFA
has a national reputation for developing
innovative and result-oriented housing
programs which have made possible the purchase
of thousands of homes for low and moderate
income Arkansans. ADFA also initiated a
five-state, first-of-its-kind bond issue which
preserved 46,000 low-income housing units
across the nation.
- Founded the Arkansas Interagency Council for
the Homeless in order to prepare a plan to
address homelessness in Arkansas. As a
result, thirty state agencies have worked
together in efforts to help the homeless.
- Senator Gore was an active supporter and
cosponsor of the National Affordable Housing
Act, which provides more affordable housing
for all Americans. The legislation also
encourages more partnerships between the
federal government, the private sector, and
state and local governments.
- Cosponsored Fair Housing Amendments which add
families and handicapped individuals to the
list of protected groups and streamline the
procedures for enforcing fair housing
legislation.
- Coauthored the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless
Assistance Act which authorized health care,
emergency food and shelter, child care
services and training for the homeless.
Senator Gore was also an original cosponsor
of the Stewart McKinney Reauthorization Act.
As the number of Americans who are homeless
increases, Senator Gore continues the effort
to fully fund Stewart McKinney homeless
assistance programs.
- Cosponsored the Rural Homelessness Assistance
Act, which creates a grant program to treat
and prevent rural homelessness. The
legislation also makes FHA inventory housing
available for use as transitional permanent
housing.