Jerry Nadler: “I urge adoption of the Velazquez amendment. Some of the reasons have been stated and I will briefly allude to them. The…”

“I urge adoption of the Velazquez amendment. Some of the reasons have been stated and I will briefly allude to them. The fact is that both amounts of money we are talking about are very small: $25 a month, $50 a month. But for people who do not have it, because they are suddenly faced with an unanticipated medical emergency, because they are in transition between homelessness and having housing, because they have just lost their job and for some reason cannot get unemployment insurance, because they have applied for public benefits but the public benefits have not come through yet, because they have lost their welfare benefits, and we have in recent years set up a myriad of ways that people can lose their welfare benefits even when they should not, because they are unemployed, for whatever reason, $25 can be a huge amount of money. There is no reason to change the current situation where the public housing authority can set the minimum and substitute a system where the person has to seek a waiver, go through the bureaucracy, and wait the time at a time of crisis in their own lives. There is no reason to do that. It really adds nothing to this bill.”