Dan Coats: “I am here today to announce, along with several Members--in fact, a coalition of 30 Republican Members from both the…”

“I am here today to announce, along with several Members--in fact, a coalition of 30 Republican Members from both the House and the Senate called the Renewal Alliance, which has been in business now for a considerable amount of time--more than a year--will be jointly introducing new initiatives to help restore hard-pressed urban neighborhoods of our country to reach out to families and communities and neighbors that are dealing with some of the most difficult and intractable social problems that affect our society. This package, called REAL Life--renewal, empowerment, achievement, and learning for life--contains what we believe are essential elements to help bring improvements and restore hope to impoverished communities and to bring self-sufficiency to low-income individuals and families. REAL Life seeks to address the critical deficits facing neighborhoods and communities, families, those communities and neighborhoods who lie behind the gleaming skyscrapers, the neighborhoods where some of the most difficult problems in our society--homelessness, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, poverty, and violence--are found in some of the most complex and intractable forms in the neighborhoods, however, where groups of individuals and private community organizations and leaders are already at work defeating the poverty and dysfunction that have defied our well-intentioned and lavishly funded Federal efforts.”