On the recordNovember 8, 2017
I want to thank the gentlewoman from Texas for her eloquent remarks regarding this pressing need, this national crisis of housing. Let me just share with you some other numbers that will further ensure that the American people understand in full depth this crisis. In my district, as I said earlier, there are 75,463 residents of public housing out of 400,000 citywide. There are 34,035 NYCHA families in the district out of 174,283 citywide. Twenty-five percent are children who are subject to mold like you see right here on this easel, Mr. Speaker, mold that contributes to asthma and to other respiratory diseases that then lead to absenteeism in the schools and long-term problems for young people and children who live in these public housing units. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, 21 percent of the residents of these housing developments are seniors over 62 years old who are also subjected to mold, chipping paint, and elevators that don't work. They have to go up and down 18 or 20 stories. Some of them are in wheelchairs or have some real challenges getting around. Yet the Federal Government and its Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, continue to be an absentee landlord abandoning them to their own fate. Fifty-two percent of those residents, Mr. Speaker, are on fixed incomes, and 46 percent across the city have an employed family member. So these are the numbers that are very telling to this national crisis.…
