Maxine Waters: “I am so very proud of the work of this committee. I am so very, very pleased and honored to have the opportunity to work…”

“I am so very proud of the work of this committee. I am so very, very pleased and honored to have the opportunity to work with Barney Frank. Not only is he a committed public policy maker, he is smart, and he is creative. And he is helping us to understand how to use this wonderful opportunity that has been afforded to us to do good for the people of this country. I am so pleased about this particular bill, because I am so keenly aware of the housing crisis that we have in this country. As we stand here this evening, there are people who are sleeping under bridges; living with them are families, children. Some of them are veterans. I come from a time and place where people did not have decent housing. I know, too, that not only has this occurred for many years in this country, where people have been living in substandard housing, even today we have people without running water. We have people without proper health facilities of any kind in their homes. We have families that are crowded into one and two rooms. We have people whose roofs were leaking this evening. But because of this government and our ability to help government understand what it can do to help the least fortunate, we are able to pass this kind of legislation.”