Emanuel Cleaver: “Let me, first of all, thank Chairman Duffy from our subcommittee for working on this significant piece of legislation…”

“Let me, first of all, thank Chairman Duffy from our subcommittee for working on this significant piece of legislation, as well as the chair and the ranking member of the full committee. I am not going to take long. I think most of the salient points have already been made. If I had a chance to rename this piece of legislation, it would be the Living in Higher Opportunity Neighborhoods Act. That is exactly what we are doing when we pass this act. This bill should pass without anyone even doing third-level thinking. All you have to do is read the Harvard research project from Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, and Lawrence Katz, which spoke about the improved opportunities for children based on their location. Higher opportunity neighborhoods offer just about everything that we would want a child to have growing up in this country. This choice voucher act, under section 8 of the 1937 housing bill, will provide opportunities for people to move out of areas of high poverty concentration into neighborhoods where there are opportunities. As a former mayor, this is the part I wish we could do on a lot of projects, and that is, if public housing authorities want to participate in this program, they must submit a regional plan, which means that they will work beyond their own special interests. In the case of PHAs in Kansas City, Missouri, we are separated by five other cities by one street, called State Line.…”