Blaine Luetkemeyer: “I want to close with a few remarks here. It won't take very long. I think you can see that this is a very important and…”

“I want to close with a few remarks here. It won't take very long. I think you can see that this is a very important and, also, very emotional issue for many, many people and it is extremely important for those folks who are in and around and utilize public housing. In putting this bill together, we tried to listen to all the different parties as well as both sides of the aisle and address all the concerns that everybody had. We have a few amendments to go here, but I think we are going to work through those pretty quickly. I think you can see from the support that we have seen on both sides of the aisle today, from the discussions we have had that we have come to an agreement on what is in the provisions of this bill. You have here a whole list of 30 different letters of support from different groups from around the country that represent all the different groups, from leased housing to housing authorities, to investment individuals, to Realtors, to you name it. We have yet to receive a single letter against this proposal. So I think you can see that we managed to find the right balance with the bill, to find the middle ground where we can all agree that we can accept the provisions that we have. In the bill, we have done things with flexibility that people within the different housing authorities have asked for who manage these things to be able to do things more efficiently, more effectively.…”