Ayanna Pressley

The Build Back Better Act must include investments to preserve and build new affordable housing.

It costs the economy $4 billion--that is 'billion,' with a 'b'--a year from lost productivity.

Residents in my district are moving farther and farther away from work to find housing that is affordable.

So, passing legislation that creates millions of good-paying jobs is absolutely critical.

Housing is a human right, period. Everyone deserves a safe and stable home, period.

It is possible to enact policies that advance equity.

Every elected official should stand ready to fix this.

From Massachusetts to West Virginia and Arizona, Black homeownership lags far behind White homeownership.

This is the kind of targeted, race-conscious housing policy that we need to scale up.

The Massachusetts STASH program is the first of its kind. It helps eligible first-generation homebuyers buy a home.

Housing is infrastructure.

This is a necessary part of Build Back Better, and there is no time like today to significantly invest in our nation's first-generation homebuyers.

We desperately need funds for first-generation homebuyers in order to address racial and economic inequities that existed before COVID-19 struck and then worsened over the course of the pandemic.

We can and we need to break this pattern.

It can help protect our right to bodily autonomy and to advance reproductive freedom, especially for the most vulnerable and marginalized.

Certainly, systemic racial discrimination is widespread in the financial services industry.

It is ensuring that we do more than just recover to a pre-COVID unjust status or normal.

I simply reject these often unjust binary false choices that are foisted upon us.

Housing is a human right. I know our chairwoman agrees. I implore you to take action to help address these egregious behaviors.

It has been well-documented how private equity firms were protected from the 2008 economic crisis.

Meanwhile, private equity CEOs are living lavishly, and pocketing billions of dollars in profit off of the backs of these hard-working families struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

The affordable housing and eviction crises are racial and economic justice crises, and stable housing has been a matter of life or death for millions of people vulnerable to eviction during this pandemic.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the private equity industry has exploded, tripling the amount they manage from $1.5 trillion to $4.5 trillion.

I think it should be available under both declarations.

Certainly, natural disasters are disruptive and traumatic life events.