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Today, the House Financial Services Committee is holding a Housing and Insurance Subcommittee hearing, led by Subcommittee Chair Mike Flood (NE-01), to explore bipartisan proposals to modernize the HOME Investment Partnerships Program.

Read Subcommittee Chair Flood’s opening remarks as prepared for delivery:

"I’d like to thank our witnesses for being with us today, and I very much look forward to hearing their testimony on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOME Investment Partnership Program.

"For those that are not familiar with it, the HOME program was created in 1990 with the passage of the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act.

"The HOME program provides block grant funding to states and municipalities for the purpose of building and rehabilitating affordable housing. In practice, HOME is often used as gap financing for housing projects—often in conjunction with the low-income housing tax credit.

"Since the early 1990s, the program has continued to be funded without many statutory changes and without a reauthorization. In other words, the HOME program is ripe for a fresh look from this committee.

"Our work in this subcommittee this year has been focused on one thing so far—addressing rising housing costs in this country.

"The one way to curb rising costs is to increase housing supply. No amount of rental assistance, down payment assistance or other demand-side subsidies will get us out of our housing cost problem. We need to build more housing in this country; that’s the only solution that will move the needle.

"The underlying supply problem is what made me so interested in the HOME program to begin with. HOME is a program within our jurisdiction that specifically is geared towards building housing supply; I figured it would make sense to take a closer look at HOME and figure out what works with the program, and what doesn’t work with the program.

"To that end, I’ve been working closely with my colleague Ranking Member Cleaver to get to the bottom of those questions.

"In April, the two of us released a video requesting comments from states, cities, non-profits and developers on the HOME program. We received over 140 letters from organizations across the country in response.

"In May, the two of us sat together in a room for six hours, meeting with different requesters and asking them questions on how they would change HOME.

"Now, finally, we have a public hearing on this topic.

"In the comments we received from a diverse set of stakeholders, there were four themes that came up repeatedly as pain points that drive up housing costs in the HOME program. They are what I call the Four Horsemen of the Housing Apocalypse:

"1. Environmental Review requirements that delay a project’s start and drive up its cost.

"2. Build America Buy America requirements that drive up the cost of critical construction materials.

"3. Davis-Bacon requirements that, from what I’ve heard, are much more costly due to the associated reporting requirements than they are for the actual cost of paying prevailing wages;

"4. And Section 3 requirements that make it more difficult to find contractors to do the job—particularly in rural areas with some of the workforce challenges I mentioned.

"The legislation attached to this hearing intends to address each of those four factors that drive up costs in the HOME program.

"Additionally, it seeks to provide a little more flexibility for jurisdictions to use funds to build more supply rather than for the permissible demand-side uses of the program.

"I expect during our conversation today that Members and witnesses may raise things they’d like changed with this draft legislation. That’s okay. In fact, it’s more than okay—that’s why we’re here in the first place.

"This is not a perfect product. It’s a draft—not final. I fully expect it to change as we receive more feedback from stakeholders and Members.

"We have a duty as the authorizing committee for HUD to roll up our sleeves and take a close look at some of these programs under our jurisdiction that need updating. This hearing is part of that important work.

"As I close, I’d like to thank Ranking Member Cleaver for working in good faith with me over the last several months. It has been a pleasure to develop a closer relationship with him through this process.

"With that, I am excited to hear testimony from our witnesses on the HOME program and housing supply."