Mitch Landrieu: “The amendment I was going to offer to the underlying HUD appropriations bill is part of a blueprint for action that our…”

“The amendment I was going to offer to the underlying HUD appropriations bill is part of a blueprint for action that our delegation--Republicans and Democrats--from Louisiana has asked the Congress to consider. Not only would this work for Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas today, but if something like this were in law, it could work for every city and every State in the event that some catastrophic event occurred, where hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed and people were displaced. My amendment, which I am not going to ask for a vote on but will offer at some time, would provide for a 6-month deferral from mortgages--not a waiver of mortgages, not a forgiveness of mortgages, but 6 months for Americans, for families to get their legs underneath them, until they can figure out what their insurance is going to cover and not cover, where their children might go to school, where they might find a job. These are Americans who have worked hard, played by the rules, invested in their home--which is their largest asset--and, in the blink of an eye, it is gone. In the United States of America, in the year 2005, we do not have in place a system to give them a break--not for a month, not for 2 months, not for 3 months. The average savings on a mortgage would be $4,317 in Louisiana, $4,740 in Alabama, $4,131 in Mississippi, and $4,875 would be a 6-month average mortgage. The families in my State could use this extra money.…”