On the recordJune 10, 2010
I appreciate the opportunity. I also want to thank my colleague, Mr. Miller, with whom I offer this amendment. This is a similar amendment--in fact, it is identical to one that was adopted by voice vote. There are problems with some FHA programs, and they are addressed in this bill. And there are some losing programs; there are some programs that simply haven't worked out very well. One program that has been a consistent money-maker for the taxpayer and one that has driven the marketplace to do good things is the Multifamily Loan Program. However, in that program, the limits set for how much the loan can be guaranteed for have not risen as fast as the cost in a lot of communities. So what the Weiner-Miller amendment would do is simply raise the limits to keep up with the cost and create something called an ``extreme high-cost area.'' The way the program works is they essentially say, this is the limit to which we will underwrite, guarantee a loan for new construction or to modify a home. But if you have an apartment building--four, five, 10, 50, 100 units--obviously the costs wind up going up as you need things like elevators and HVAC going into big buildings. And what happens is, in places like Los Angeles and New York and Las Vegas and Miami, these costs have simply not been kept up with. The result has been that the loan program has not been very useful there.
