Adriano Espaillat: “I thank Ms. Norton for her contributions to this bill. I also want to extend my appreciation to Ranking Member Graves…”

“I thank Ms. Norton for her contributions to this bill. I also want to extend my appreciation to Ranking Member Graves, Chairwoman Titus, Subcommittee Ranking Member Katko, and committee staff for advancing this important legislation. Mr. Speaker, Aaron Davis with the committee has been particularly helpful to my team, my staff, for the past year and a half to get this bill over the line. I know it would have been very difficult without his help and expertise. Since Hurricanes Maria and Irma devastated the island of Puerto Rico in the fall of 2017, I have visited the island several times, including with some of my congressional colleagues. I have spoken about this with the Congresswoman from Puerto Rico, Miss Gonzalez-Colon, who has command of this issue. I have seen firsthand how public policy failures, our failures, have manifested on the island. The Housing Survivors of Major Disasters Act, which I was proud to introduce with Congresswoman Gonzalez-Colon, addresses some of these policy failures within the housing assistance programs our government deploys after natural disasters. Some of these programs' shortcomings have left thousands of Americans in Puerto Rico without the means to rebuild their homes. Our bill aims to fix this. Currently, folks applying for assistance must furnish the deed of their home and/or notarized statements confirming the ownership of their home. Mr. Speaker, I vividly remember when Hurricane Sandy struck my home State of New York.…”