Ayanna Pressley

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.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for convening this important and timely hearing.

For our most marginalized communities, the right to abortion guaranteed by Roe v. Wade has really only been a right in name only.

I was proud to see the House take swift action to pass the Women's Health Protection Act last week.

It is critical that Congress legislate and combat these attacks once and for all.

These misguided bans will not actually prevent all abortions. They simply put safe and necessary abortion care out of reach for our most vulnerable.