LeadingAge has submitted a statement for the record for an October 21 hearing, A Strong Foundation: How Housing is the Key to Building Back a Better America, to be held by the House Committee on Financial Services. The hearing will highlight the many important features of the Build Back Better Act’s $327 billion investments in affordable housing programs.

Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA), a strong affordable housing champion who spoke passionately at LeadingAge’s 2017 “Save HUD 202” rally, included $2.4 billion for HUD’s Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program in the Committee’s Build Back Better housing package.

“LeadingAge firmly believes the availability of affordable, quality housing is critical for an America where older adults with low incomes are not living longer just to be saddled with exorbitant housing costs that squash their ability to live with dignity and choice. The Build Back Better Act must retain its $2.4 billion for HUD’s Section 202 program,” LeadingAge’s statement says. “For [older adult households on housing waiting lists] and the many more who don’t even bother getting on a waiting list or cannot do so because the waiting list is closed, the solution is to expand the supply of affordable senior housing. HUD’s Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program provides not only the affordable housing, but also the connection to services and supports. A significant expansion of this program is decades overdue.”

Hearing witnesses include John Harrison, Jr., Formerly Experienced Homelessness and Program Coordinator, Nick’s Place; Michael Edmonds, Resident, Tucson House, Tucson Public Housing Authority;  Symone Crawford, First-Generation Homeowner, Director of STASH and Homeownership Operations & Incoming Executive Director, Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance; Raj Chetty, William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics, Harvard University; Carlos del Rio, MD, Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Emory University School of Medicine; Lisa Rice, President and CEO, National Fair Housing Alliance; and, Khalil Shahyd, Senior Policy Advisor, Equity Environment and Just Communities, Healthy People & Thriving Communities Program, Natural Resources Defense Council.

Read LeadingAge’s statement here.

Watch the October 21, 10am ET hearing here.