Walter B. Jones: “For 60 years this country has essentially run its public housing program the same way year after year. For 60 years…”

“For 60 years this country has essentially run its public housing program the same way year after year. For 60 years public housing has gotten worse and worse. People living in public housing should have a right to live in clean and safe conditions, and taxpayers should have a right to know that their money is being well invested. For that to happen, we must make changes. This bill will eliminate the 60-year-old law which has given us rundown and unsafe public housing projects. It will give more local control, and it will require more responsibility from public housing residents. Mr. Chairman, for too long we have concentrated the poorest families in the worst housing. For too long we have punished public housing residents who work. We have had generations of children who have grown up in public housing complexes and never seen a parent or anyone else get up and go to work. They have only lived in projects that are covered with graffiti, overgrown with weeds and littered with empty wine bottles. The only business people they have ever known are drug dealers, prostitutes and food stamp hustlers. Mr. Chairman, that is wrong. With this bill we will begin to change the reality of life for poor children across America.”