Vicente Gonzalez: “I came from my hometown with a housing background and can recall vividly, and I am old enough to, the outrageous…”

“I came from my hometown with a housing background and can recall vividly, and I am old enough to, the outrageous situation that was costing lives and the city, my home city, the dubious distinction of the tuberculosis capital of the country. We are fast pulling the clock back if we continue. Mr. Chairman, there are no guarantees that the current public housing inventory will have to be maintained under this because there are no guarantees that the public housing authorities will receive funding from the city. This is not only outrageous, it is inviting the disinvestment in $90 billion of Federal investment, and of course it is duplicative. Indeed, the cities may choose to start up a new quote, unquote, public housing program and let the current housing inventory deteriorate. But the reason we came to the Federal level is that the cities and the States and the counties would not do anything. That has been the history of all of our social legislation. I know that there is a provision which protects the public housing authorities from disillusion, disillusion, but there are no similar protections that they will be given the money to operate with. It is somewhat ironic that with this block grant we could be taking money from the public housing authorities that this legislation purports to support.”