▶ 0:17:30Chair Scott: Call this committee to order. I would like to take the time to say that I'm very grateful to my republican colleagues for allowing me to serve as the chairman for this 119th congress, and would also like to welcome our new members to the united states committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs. Let me suggest that this is not simply a banking committee.
▶ 0:17:58Chair Scott: Without question, urban affairs and housing are critical to meeting the needs and objectives of the american people. Our new members include senator pete ricketts, senator jim bates , senator bernie moreno, senator dave mccormick, senator andy kim , senator gallego, senator lisa blunt rochester, and senator
▶ 0:18:29Chair Scott: Angela alsobrooks. I look forward to working with our ranking member, elizabeth warren, on addressing some of the issues that our nation will face without question. My hope is in many ways we will have an opportunity to have a bipartisan conversation and bipartisan solutions to many issues. That will probably not likely be the case all the time, but it will some of the times. When it is we should look to achieve the objective for the american people.
▶ 0:18:59Chair Scott: At this time I would like to ask for unanimous consent to enter the letters, four letters, from organizations to support Mr. turner's nomination. We are honored to have our colleague from texas, senator john cornyn, who will introduce Mr. turner. The floor is yours.
▶ 0:19:24Sen. Cornyn: Thank you, it is a pleasure to be here today to introduce my friend and fellow texan, scott turner, to be the next secretary of the U.S. housing -- department of housing and urban development. Thank you for allowing me the honor of just saying a few words. Scott is a fourth generation texan. That is a big deal in texas. People brag about how many generations have lived there. He is from richardson, texas.
▶ 0:19:56Sen. Cornyn: For those of you who are not acquainted with texas geography -- I know senator warren is -- it is in the dallas-fort worth metroplex, one of the fastest-growing parts of the country. If any of you in this room are nfl fans, Mr.
▶ 0:20:10Sen. Cornyn: Chairman, for example, you may remember that scott played in the nfl for nine years for the washington redskins, now known as the washington commanders -- which, by the way, are doing pretty well these days -- the san diego chargers, and denver broncos. Unfortunately, he didn't play for the dallas cowboys. I know that that is a source of disappointment to you.
▶ 0:20:37Chair Scott: It is indeed a source of disappointment.
▶ 0:20:43Sen. Cornyn: Scott is more than an accomplished football player come he is a public servant, elected to the statehouse in texas in 2012. He went on to serve at the white house under president trump as the director of the opportunity and revitalization council.
▶ 0:20:59Sen. Cornyn: The council was established by president trump in 2018 to carry out the implementation of the bipartisan opportunity zones, which were passed as part of the tax cuts and jobs act to promote investment in areas that need revitalization. Lest we forget that the committee chairman, the other scott in the room, was a driving force behind the opportunity zone portion of the tax cuts and jobs act.
▶ 0:21:27Sen. Cornyn: This was a perfect position for scott turner, who was an accomplished businessman. He served in sea suite and advisory roles in multiple positions and he and his wife owned their own company p he has an active member in his community. Scott founded a nonprofit called the community engagement and opportunity counsel to support impoverished children.
▶ 0:21:50Sen. Cornyn: He served as a coach for the nfl's legends community transition program, which helps players move into more meaningful employment when they leave professional sports. I am looking at senator britt who happens to be married to someone who did exactly that. He served as an associate pastor in plano, texas.
▶ 0:22:14Sen. Cornyn: Scott currently serves as the chair of the center for education opportunity for the american first policy institute. His business acumen, his experience in government, especially with the first trump administration, his demonstrated ability to use housing and development to create brighter prospects for his fellow americans, leaves him qualified to leave the department of housing and urban development.
▶ 0:22:43Sen. Cornyn: I have no doubt about his ability to do an outstanding job . It is my honor to support his nomination. Thank you, Mr. chairman, ranking member warren, for the privilege of introducing my friend, scott turner. I hope that you will vote his nomination out of the committee promptly so we can get him confirmed and put him to work. Thank you so much.
▶ 0:23:05Chair Scott: Thank you you, senator cornyn. Next, I will have my opening statement, then we will hear from the opening member and I will swear you in, scott. The american people have seen their economic fortunes turn to dust. The devastation of the biden administration's policies lead to mortgage rates going from 2.65% in january of 2021 to 7.79% by october 2023.
▶ 0:23:38Chair Scott: Crushing dreams of billions of americans wanting to be homeowners. Draining savings of so many people. Devastating hope around the greatest country on the planet. Reckless spending was literally stealing the spending power of so many americans.
▶ 0:24:05Chair Scott: I remember these similar days when I was growing up as a poor kid in a single parent household. Homeownership was just so far away for me and my mom. It just wasn't an option. Housing isn't just about shelter. Housing is about opportunity and it is about stability.
▶ 0:24:33Chair Scott: Housing creates a foundation for achieving the american dream. It is about creating strong communities, where families can thrive and build a better, brighter future. Under the biden administration and progressive leadership, hud spending at the same time sword to record levels, and yet the latest homelessness survey found an 18% increase in just the last 12 months.
▶ 0:25:04Chair Scott: 33% increase since 2020. Since president biden took office, mortgage rates have ballooned by 150% and rents by 20%, despite all of the subsidies and all of the trillions of dollars they spent. Not much good has happened.
▶ 0:25:30Chair Scott: I've said it before and I will say it again, I feel like the big picture, african-american homeownership, the levels have not changed substantially since 1968 when the fair housing act was passed. The data is clear. The american dream of homeownership is slipping further and further away. Today, it is a new day in america.
▶ 0:25:59Chair Scott: New leadership brings hope and opportunity and enthusiasm back to the american people. Scott turner is a native texan who has had an exceptional journey from professional at the public servant. He understands firsthand the importance of hard work and what it means, as he was a dishwasher when he was in high school.
▶ 0:26:26Chair Scott: He also understands the challenges that families face due to drug addiction within the family. He worked his butt off and had a very successful nfl career. He played cornerback for nine seasons.
▶ 0:26:42Chair Scott: He played for the denver broncos, the san diego chargers -- it is going to be ok -- and the washington redskins. For a guy who now spends too much time in washington, D.C., I always thought the dallas cowboys. I apologize. I know that is going to cause a lot of bad emails coming my way. Mr.
▶ 0:27:12Chair Scott: Turner, I won't hold that against you that you played for the redskins, because you are here to serve the american people. Sometimes two different sides have to come together to make something powerful and positive happen for other people. One thing that I found to be completely clear about who you are, I met you many years ago, you never give up. I don't think giving up is in your vocabulary.
▶ 0:27:43Chair Scott: We need a visionary leader just like that at hud. After hanging up your cleats, Mr. turner, you spent two terms in the state legislature in texas. You recently were the executive director, as senator cornyn said, of the white house opportunity and revitalization council under president trump.
▶ 0:28:04Chair Scott: In this role you helped the opportunity zones, that I wrote, become a very successful program, with over $50 billion in private investment going into opportunity zones, devastated communities -- typically majority minority, seeing revitalization and rehabilitation become a reality without gentrifying those communities.
▶ 0:28:34Chair Scott: As a former chairman of the county counsel in charleston, south carolina, I can tell you that the vast majority, the vast majority of housing issues must be solved at the local level. But there are things that we can do in congress to address the affordability crisis. In that role, it is getting government out of the way as often as possible.
▶ 0:29:02Chair Scott: This is why I introduced my road to housing act in congress. I'm thankful for so many supporters in this room of that bill. I have seen firsthand the negative impact of renting your house only to give it back. That is in a few short words a 2008 crisis. Let's not relive the mistakes of the past, but instead forge a new path for everyday americans.
▶ 0:29:28Chair Scott: This commonsense bill takes a commonsense view of federal housing policy and re-centers support around families, helping those who are homeless, those who are renting, and those who will be homeowners. I look forward to marking up this bill in the weeks ahead and working with my colleagues on a bipartisan framework, so we can make sure that all segments of the housing market get the necessary attention to move forward. As we start this new chapter, we need new leadership.
▶ 0:29:57Chair Scott: Scott turner is the solution we are looking for, and I look forward to his leadership at the department of housing and urban development. Senator warren, the floor is yours.
▶ 0:30:09Sen. Warren: Thank you very much, Mr. chairman. Today is our first time to come together as committee chairman and ranking member. I want to offer my congratulations to you, Mr. chairman. While I don't want to paper over our differences, I want to ensure you and every member here that I will work with you to advance our shared interests. I also want to say welcome to eight new members on this committee. Have you checked? Is that a record?
▶ 0:30:39Chair Scott: It should be.
▶ 0:30:40Sen. Warren: It should be. I think this is exciting. We can find common ground. As ranking member, my focus will be the same as that of all democrats. We will work to un-rig the economy and make life affordable for working families. There are three critical areas where I think that we should focus.
▶ 0:31:02Sen. Warren: First, we need to make sure that the financial system works for all americans, preventing too big to fail banks from loading up on risk and getting even bigger. Protecting community banks. Making our financial regulations simple or and stronger -- simpler and stronger. I support action, but not all action is good action.
▶ 0:31:26Sen. Warren: I will fight tooth and nail against attempts to make it easier for wall street to rip off consumers or crash our economic system. We all remember what happened under the first trump administration. Congress and the president weakened the financial rules on big banks. The nation's financial regulators took hint and went to sleep.
▶ 0:31:52Sen. Warren: Executives got greedy, and, no surprise, a few years later in 2023 we had the second, third, and fourth largest bank failures in our nations history. Those mistakes cannot be repeated. Second, we must advance the nation's economic and national security. We must use export controls, trade policies, sanctions, and other levers to support economic security at home and promote our values abroad.
▶ 0:32:24Sen. Warren: We must protect our financial system from being exploited by criminals, rogue states, and terrorists, and we must grow american industry, invest in critical infrastructure, and build resilient supply chains here at home. Third, we must focus on lowering costs for working families. The committee must hold giant corporations accountable when they gouge families.
▶ 0:32:56Sen. Warren: We should partner with the consumer financial protection bureau and other law enforcement agencies to continue the fight against junk fees and anti-competitive pricing. We must work to fix our housing system. All across this country, housing costs too much. This is econ 101, supply and demand. We are not building enough housing. We need more housing everywhere for everyone.
▶ 0:33:23Sen. Warren: Big cities, small towns, first-time homebuyers, renters, seniors, veterans, students, people with disabilities, everyone, everywhere. To do that, we need to make some big changes and really move the needle. The federal government needs to be a good partner, investing in affordable housing and spurring local innovation to cut red tape. We can and should do even more.
▶ 0:33:53Sen. Warren: It is time to crackdown on corporate landlords that engage in illegal price-fixing to drive up rents. It is time to stop private equity firms from squeezing families and buying huge swaths of our housing market, which they then turn around and turn into overpriced rentals. Solving the housing crisis will be an all hands on deck effort.
▶ 0:34:23Sen. Warren: That brings us to today's hearing on the nomination of scott turner to be secretary of housing and urban development. Welcome, Mr. turner. It is good to have you here. Congratulations on your nomination. If you are confirmed, you will lead our nation's response to the housing crisis. I have appreciated our conversations so far.
▶ 0:34:48Sen. Warren: If you are confirmed, I will work with you however I can, but we face an enormous task to reduce the cost of housing. Our work is urgently important for tens of millions of american families. You have a limited public record, and the american people need a chance to hear from you and hear the details about how you are going to help make housing more affordable.
▶ 0:35:19Sen. Warren: They need to hear your plans for building the millions of homes that america needs. They need to hear how you will support renters and make sure that seniors and families who cannot afford rent will get the assistance that they need. They need to hear your plans to help the 800,000 americans experiencing homelessness. They need to hear your plans to enforce the nation's fair housing laws.
▶ 0:35:47Sen. Warren: They need to hear how you will crack down on greedy corporate landlords and manage an agency that provides critical support for homeowners, renters, and communities across this country. This hearing is an opportunity for you to lay out your plans. I have sent you a 13-page letter of 75 questions earlier this week. As you know, I take this seriously.
▶ 0:36:15Sen. Warren: I trust you will give me answers to those detailed questions before we vote on your nomination. General principles are not enough. We are all in the same place on general principles. It will be the nuts and bolts and telling the american people how we will make change happen. Mr. turner, I am looking forward to your testimony today, and I hope you will give the american people a clear sense of your plans to run hud. Thank you.
▶ 0:36:44Chair Scott: I will now swear in the nominee. Mr. turner, will you rise and raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? You agree to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee of the senate? You may sit down.
▶ 0:37:14Chair Scott: Your written statement will be made part of the record in its entirety. Mr. turner, please proceed.
▶ 0:37:26Mr. Turner: Thank you, Mr. chairman and ranking member warren and committee. I am happy and honored to be here with you all today. I thank all the members of the committee. Thank you for your thoughtfulness, engagement, and ideas on rebuilding the american dream for our nation's forgotten communities.
▶ 0:37:52Mr. Turner: It was a pleasure to visit with each and every one of you all but one, and that was just because of a scheduling conflict. I'm grateful to have that time to meet with you. Thank you for making that effort . I hope our conversations will not be the end but only the beginning of a great, true partnership to meet the mission of hud and serve the american people.
▶ 0:38:14Mr. Turner: I would like to take a moment to thank my wife, robin, who is here with us, for her unwavering support over nearly three decades of us being together. From college at the university of illinois, to the nfl, the texas house, the white house, business, ministry, and our family foundation, robin has been a true partner in building god's kingdom and the work he has called us to do together. Robin, thank you for your support.
▶ 0:38:44Mr. Turner: And all of the friends and family who are here. I want to thank president trump for his confidence and support in nominating me for this, such a crucial position, and even more so purpose. I want to thank president-elect trump. I sit before you today as a nominee to lead the department of housing and urban development, but deep down, committee members, this opportunity is also personal to me.
▶ 0:39:14Mr. Turner: I grew up as a kid, as was mentioned before, in richardson, texas and before that in plano, texas with my parents. I xas with my parents. I worked h my parents. I worked as y parents. I worked as a parents. I worked as a dishwasher at spring creek barbecue, one of my claims to fame. Early in childhood, my family was broken due to divorce and later moving into a blended family. I love my mother, I love my father, and all of my brothers and sisters, but when you go through a divorce, many would say that the odds are now stacked against you. I overcame extreme adversity.
▶ 0:39:45Mr. Turner: Going against the status quo in attending and graduating college. In spite of being drafted in the seventh round of the nfl, which is the last round for those who don't know, I was blessed to have a successful career in the national football league. I went on to serve in the texas legislature, which was a great honor for me, and work in the white house to advance the opportunities own initiative.
▶ 0:40:12Mr. Turner: I sit before you today, committee members, humbled by the call to serve my country as a member of president trump's cabinet. I know my upbringing and background is not totally unique to me. There are many in this country, even those sitting in this room today, who at one point or another have had to overcome adversity in your own lives. We have all been there at one time or another. I recognize this and I hope we can all work together as you, ranking member warren, have said.
▶ 0:40:40Mr. Turner: Work together to better the american dream for the american people. I share my story because I think it's important for you to know my heart of who I am, and also because of the challenges that hud faces that are vital to our nation as well as personal to me. These are not just things that I heard about or read about. These are things that my family and I have experienced through the years. I believe that that perspective would be very beneficial to hud as I become the leader is confirmed by this committee.
▶ 0:41:11Mr. Turner: Hud's mission is to create strong and sustainable communities and quality housing serving the most vulnerable of our nation. As we sit here, we have a housing crisis in our country. We have the american people and families who are struggling every day. We have a homelessness crisis in our country. Hud, if you will, is failing at its most basic mission, and that has to come to an end.
▶ 0:41:37Mr. Turner: The point in time report that was sent out by hud on december 27 said that there were 770,000 americans a homeless on one night in january of 20 four. 770,000 plus people, many of which our families, were homeless. This cannot continue. As a country, we are not building enough housing. We need millions of homes, all kinds, multi family, single-family family, duplex, you name it.
▶ 0:42:07Mr. Turner: We need housing for individuals and families to have a roof over their head and call home. Then, the hud workforce, the portion that I have read says that hud is at the bottom when it comes to employees returning to work. I've been on many teams in my career, and I believe we need to bring hud staff back to work to the office to do the job and empower them to serve the american people.
▶ 0:42:32Mr. Turner: In this moment, we are not just talking about fixing what is broken, but about continuing and expanding the policies from the first trump administration. I'm talking about policies that worked for the american people. I was fortunate enough to lead the opportunities own initiative, which I'm so grateful for your leadership on that.
▶ 0:42:52Mr. Turner: I saw firsthand the impact of this initiative as it gave americans living in underserved communities an opportunity, an foundation to start businesses, to live in better homes, to be self-sustaining, to be self-confident, and unleash that promise and potential that the lord has given each of us in our country. When I played in the nfl we had game film. We watched film after every game.
▶ 0:43:19Mr. Turner: You could tell your coach one thing on the sideline, but the film told the story. It wasn't about your chatter or the noise, it was what the film said. It showed us our weaknesses, our mistakes, and helped us get at her. This is the same type of leadership, if confirmed, that I want to bring us a leader of hud, because every day we will have the opportunity to get better. Every day we will have the opportunity to take inventory and make hud the best place. Mr.
▶ 0:43:49Mr. Turner: Chairman, my heart is ready, I am ready. I thank god for this opportunity, and I thank you and the committee members for this chance.
▶ 0:43:56Chair Scott: Thank you for your testimony, Mr. turner. I will remind our new members and those of us will been on the committee for a while that we have a five-minute clock and we hold tightly to that five-minute clock, including myself. That is my goal. We will get started right now. Mr. turner, one of the things that I hope you will realize is this is a bipartisan committee. We represent different communities around the country and I think that the government should never serve the party that is in power.
▶ 0:44:28Chair Scott: Government should serve all americans. Whether we vote for you or not, your job is to stay out of the political lane and serve the american people. For me, one of the most effective ways to serve people is to go where they are. I have asked to come into the bubble of this building, but we have to get out of our offices and go into the community.
▶ 0:44:55Chair Scott: My first question for you is, will you commit to visiting communities as diverse as north charleston and as different as detroit and your first several months on the job? I think you need to see firsthand -- play that funky music. I won't finish that.
▶ 0:45:21Chair Scott: I hope that you will go to detroit, michigan and see the devastation and the sense of hopelessness that can be turned very quickly into hope. I want you to come to my home town of north charleston and take a tour of some of the impoverished areas and look at mixed development. Remind people that we care about everybody. What do you say?
▶ 0:45:44Mr. Turner: Yes, sir. I am in agreement. I remember when I was appointed to do the opportunities own job as the executive director. After I thank to the president for the appointment, I said I won't be here because I'm going to the streets where the people are. I went to over 70 cities visiting places like birmingham, alabama, dallas, texas, liberty city.
▶ 0:46:11Mr. Turner: That is a limit from me that I will visit the neighborhoods, visit the leaders to see, what is the problem you're having and how can we work together to come up with sustainable solutions? I think that's very important.
▶ 0:46:26Chair Scott: Thank you. One of the challenges I think we have is meeting the housing needs of our citizens. Elizabeth and I both agree over 70 million needed units. Part of my road to housing act suggests that the definition that we use for manufacturing needs to be updated if we are going to meet the needs of the average person.
▶ 0:46:51Chair Scott: I think improving the definition of manufactured home in the hud code to remove the permanent chastity requirement is important. Do you support updating the hud code to change the definition of manufactured homes?
▶ 0:47:09Mr. Turner: Thank you, Mr. chairman. I know how important manufactured homes are when it comes to housing availability and housing affordability. To look at those codes and all of the codes at hud and take inventory of how we can reduce the burden and make it less cumbersome to build these houses, including manufactured houses come as a commitment, I give to you, sir.
▶ 0:47:26Chair Scott: Homelessness has increased by 30% since 2020. Devastating. Do you have specific thoughts in 30 seconds or so on how you would address the homelessness issue and start bringing it down some?
▶ 0:47:43Mr. Turner: Yes, sir. Homelessness, I think we need to engage local communities. Local communities and organizations, faith-based organizations and institutions have real results when it comes to combating homelessness. I think the federal government can be a partner, but we need to engage those on the local level that have great results as it pertains to homelessness and work with them.
▶ 0:48:09Chair Scott: I think the 50 laboratories of democracy gives us an opportunity to see what is working and what is not working. We should direct our attention to the initiatives that are working. I had an opportunity to meet with democratic mayors in south carolina. One thing they were celebrating was the success of opportunity zones, for the first time bringing affordable housing back into their communities. I've seen that in south carolina.
▶ 0:48:33Chair Scott: I have heard across our country that this is one of the programs where my favorite mayors around the country, many of whom are democrats, celebrate opportunity zones. My favorite governors around the country are often republicans, celebrate opportunity zones. I'm not suggesting that we should celebrate opportunity zones, but they do.
▶ 0:49:03Chair Scott: Can you speak to the benefit of opportunity zones eliminating poverty and creating opportunities for everyday americans? 20 seconds.
▶ 0:49:06Mr. Turner: Opportunity zones were very impactful. If you look at the opportunities own counsel, million people were lifted out of poverty. Housing went up for minority families. Salaries went up for minority families. To give people an opportunity to invest in places that had not seen investment in many decades is great for our nation as it pertains to housing, affordable housing, and operating businesses.
▶ 0:49:32Chair Scott: Thank you very much. Senator warren.
▶ 0:49:33Sen. Warren: Mr. turner, I want to ask about why housing costs are so high. You recently said there is, "an ever growing need for high quality, affordable housing in our nation." experts have said we need about 7 million new housing units in america. There are a lot of explanations for our housing shortage. Local zoning and land-use restrictions can make it harder to build homes.
▶ 0:50:01Sen. Warren: The cost of capital, which had been made worse by the fed decision to keep interest rates high makes it more difficult both to build and buy housing. There are places where the federal government can help. Take the home program. Hud gives grants to states and localities to help build and preserve affordable housing. It works.
▶ 0:50:26Sen. Warren: In its history, home has supported the development of more than one million affordable units nationwide, including more than 100,000 homes in your home state of texas. Mr. turner, in 2023 you said, "it is more expensive than ever to build and developers need access to more capital." do you support additional federal investment in programs so we can lower the cost of building affordable housing?
▶ 0:50:54Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator warren. I appreciate our visit together. Thank you for your time. There are many factors to why housing is so expensive now. I believe first we have to get our fiscal house in order. Interest rates are at an all-time high, inflation --
▶ 0:51:15Sen. Warren: Fair enough. I would like to focus because it's a big problem. I'm sorry to interrupt but the chairman is going to be tough on time. I want to make sure I understand, you support additional federal investment in programs so we can lower the cost of building affordable housing?
▶ 0:51:33Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator warren. What I support is maximizing the budget that we do have and making sure that the money --
▶ 0:51:41Sen. Warren: Is that a no two additional investments?
▶ 0:51:46Mr. Turner: It is a yes to maximizing the investment we have and making sure the programs we do have our meeting the intended need and serving those it is intended to serve.
▶ 0:51:55Sen. Warren: That gives me real pause. We established we have a terrible gap of affordable housing and we have a program here that has helped close that gap. State and local governments, I understand they are doing what they can, but they don't have enough money to match the scale of the problem nationwide.
▶ 0:52:21Sen. Warren: What I am looking for is a commitment that we are at least going to look, try to get help to the state and local communities that are trying to build affordable housing.
▶ 0:52:27Mr. Turner: Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I look forward to looking at the home program and other programs, but my point is, there is record funding from hud. Hud's budget is $7 billion at this point and we are still not meeting the need we are supposed to be meeting.
▶ 0:52:44Sen. Warren: Which might mean we need more money. Let me turn to another topic. Unfortunately, some people are trying to take advantage of our housing shortage instead of trying to fix it. Private equity firms and corporate landlords have moved into local housing markets and they have driven up costs even higher for families. In 2011, no single investor anywhere in america owned more than 1000 single-family homes.
▶ 0:53:15Sen. Warren: By 2022, just five investors collectively owned nearly 300,000 homes. In fact, in your home state of texas, in 2021 big investors moved in and they bought a whopping 28% of all homes that went on the market. Mr.
▶ 0:53:36Sen. Warren: Turner, the governor of texas, greg abbott, recently said, "corporate large-scale buying of residential homes seems to be distorting the market and making it harder for the average texan to purchase a home." do you agree it is a problem if big corporate investors are beating out families to try to buy homes?
▶ 0:53:56Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator. I have not seen that statement from governor abbott, but I look forward to looking at this issue and even working with you and your staff on this issue. I believe we do have a housing affordability crisis in our country. The more capital we get into the market, the better. Obviously, we want the right people, qualified people to invest. The stats that I saw said about 2% of institutional investors own single-family homes.
▶ 0:54:27Mr. Turner: If I am confirmed by this committee, I look forward to digging into this more with you so that we can look at this issue together.
▶ 0:54:34Sen. Warren: We have to be laser focused on lowering the cost of housing for families.
▶ 0:54:38Mr. Turner: Yes, ma'am. Thank you. >> congratulations to both of you in your new positions. Mr. turner, thank you for the opportunity to visit with you in my office.
▶ 0:54:56Mr. Turner: I think that we have the same focus when the traditional market is available, interest rates are low and individuals can afford to literally get a mortgage, and when the opportunities are available so that the entry way to getting that mortgage rate is simplified and brought down, more people can, through the traditional markets, have homeownership.
▶ 0:55:25Mr. Turner: I personally believe that equity in the home should be with the homeowner and not the federal government.I like the idea of having the individual have that homeownership opportunity. I would like your thoughts for a minute. I don't need to push it too far, but isn't that really what this is all about? Allowing individuals the ability to gain equity in their home? For them to have that value rather than simply paying rent through a federal program?
▶ 0:55:57Mr. Turner: Wouldn't it be much better to have the private sector loaning the money and an individual actually getting equity in that home?
▶ 0:56:05Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator rounds. It was good to visit with you. For most americans, their home is the largest investment that they have. That is how they begin to build generational wealth. That is what it was like for me and my family growing up and even now. Yes, I believe having equity in a home should be available to that homeowner, because that is how most families begin to grow wealth and achieve the american dream.
▶ 0:56:32Sen. Rounds: I think that is one reason why president trump was elected. To bring down that cost of interest on an home so that more people can get into that. I think that is an important part. Once you get the equity in the home, now you have other opportunities. It is a lot easier if that individual has the opportunity in the first place. I think it is a step in the right direction.
▶ 0:57:01Sen. Rounds: At the same time, we have areas, such as on native american reservations in south dakota, where a challenge is tribal trust land. We have 50% of our population is native american, and for them -- 15% of our population is native american, and for them to have a home in a rural area, we have to have access to people who understand how you pay mortgage on a home which is located on tribal trust. I would ask for your commitment to working with us to make that a simple as possible in those rural areas.
▶ 0:57:29Mr. Turner: Absolutely. I appreciate your care for your constituents, in particular those on tribal lands. I do commit to working with you and also visiting so that we can visit those leaders at the tribal lands and see how we can make it the most efficient and affordable for them and their families.
▶ 0:57:47Sen. Rounds: Thank you. I will hold you to that. I think if you really want to take poverty out of some of the rural areas, start with providing an opportunity for homeownership on reservations and it would make a huge difference.
▶ 0:58:03Sen. Rounds: We were in our office, we talked about a number of things, but one of the items we talked about was, trying to cut the red tape and making federal programs work more effectively and efficiently. As a former state legislator, you undoubtably understand the challenges and costs associated with excessive federal overreach.
▶ 0:58:28Sen. Rounds: At a time when there is growing demand for additional housing units, no question about that, federal regulations like environmental review, build america by america, and new energy standards are slowing the construction process and increasing costs nationwide including on tribal lands. Breaking down some of this bureaucracy should be part of the discussion as we try to incentivize housing development.
▶ 0:58:48Sen. Rounds: My question is, under your leadership will the department make it a priority to review and adjust program regulations to match the level of risk taste on the type of activity, the location, or the -- based on the type of activity come the location, or federal funds involved?
▶ 0:59:11Mr. Turner: The goal is to look at all of the programs at hud and take account and inventory and ask, is this helping the mission of hud or not? Is it helping build more affordable housing or not? Is it combating the homelessness crisis or not? Yes, sir. I make that commitment.
▶ 0:59:22Sen. Rounds: During our meeting, we discussed the challenges with the hud section 202 program in south dakota. I think that this will eventually be a problem nationwide. The need for greater flexibility to adapt to changes in housing markets, service industries particularly in rural communities where we may have to make modifications to existing 202 programs.
▶ 0:59:48Sen. Rounds: I would ask for your commitment to work with us to be able to resolve some of these issues which are front and center today?
▶ 0:59:53Mr. Turner: Yes, sir.
▶ 0:59:55Sen. Rounds: Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 0:59:59Chair Scott: Mr. warner.
▶ 1:00:02Sen. Warner: Thank you for our meeting. What senator warren said, in a bipartisan way, we put about $5 trillion out under both president trump and biden under covid. One area we did nothing for was housing. I think there needs to be additional resources here if we are going to spur this issue, and I appreciate the conversation we had.I want to hit two or three items that I hope we can work together on.
▶ 1:00:31Sen. Warner: As members of the committee know, I have been a big advocate for community development financial institutions that serve the underserved community. It was an area where I worked closely with the first trump administration with my friend mike crapo and the other side. $12 billion for cdfi's, bipartisan, 12 members.
▶ 1:00:57Sen. Warner: I appreciate when we had to meeting you talked about a cdfi in dallas that worked to acquire a building working with a church , a school building. Can you speak for a moment or two about the value of cdfi's and how we can expand the role that they play?
▶ 1:01:15Mr. Turner: It was great to visit with you and learn more about cdfi's, how you are doing, your vision on that, and we do see the value in that. I will say I look forward to working with you further in your home state and other areas around the country to see how we can utilize these cdfi's to help when it comes to housing and investments in our local communities.
▶ 1:01:43Sen. Warner: One of your earlier answers, we know homeownership is the path to wealth creation, while we have a 10-1 racial wealth gap black to white because failure to have homeownership fully representative across all communities. A program that I worked on that has interest from both sides of the aisle is called the lift program that would target first-generation, first-time homebuyers. Which, by definition, is 2/3 folks of color.
▶ 1:02:13Sen. Warner: That would say if qualify for 30 year mortgage, what we would give you is make those payments come you get a 20 year mortgage and double the amount of equity you obtain in the first 10 years that is that wealth creation notion. Again, we talked briefly about it. I would like to get you on the record here this is something how we can increase homeownership for disadvantaged communities. Usually, the market. I would love to hear you say some nice things about that.
▶ 1:02:42Mr. Turner: This program that we talked about briefly in your office, I looked to further going into that and learning more about it. We do have a housing crisis in our country. I heard one leader say, all ideas need to come to the table and we will pick the best one that impacts the people we serve.
▶ 1:03:02Sen. Warner: I have two more that I want to get in. One is another topic that we talked about in my office. This is a challenge for every state in the country. Virginia may be more on the cutting edge as states look at the challenges, upside and downside come of bringing data centers to their community. Generate a lot of revenue, also got some challenges.
▶ 1:03:27Sen. Warner: Outside of richmond, a four hundred thousand person community, crosses the economic strata. This community has taken the tax revenue from the data centers and dedicated it to a housing trust fund where the housing trust fund helps acquire the land. If you build affordable housing there, you don't have to pay your sewer permit fees, regulatory fees.
▶ 1:03:53Sen. Warner: This may be one tool in the tool kit that takes something that is otherwise a bit controversial -- it still has controversy, but it might generate towards the public-private initiative. I invited you to my office and I will invite you to henrico county to look at this program should you be confirmed.
▶ 1:04:11Mr. Turner: Yes, sir. I look forward to coming.
▶ 1:04:15Sen. Warner: Last one. My points in in less than five minutes. I am down to 44 seconds and will get done in time. Opportunity zones. I think they had a lot of potential. I was one of his wingman on this. I think they need to be renewed but they need to be updated as well.
▶ 1:04:39Sen. Warner: I think that opportunity zones, particularly in terms of affordable housing, ought to be an area where we can put more focus as well as small business development. In the last 15 seconds, we've talked about opportunity zones, but I hope that you will work with the chairman and many of us on how we can work on that program towards this housing shortage?
▶ 1:04:58Mr. Turner: Yes, sir. I look forward to that.
▶ 1:05:01Chair Scott: Everyone should follow your lead. Senator tillis.
▶ 1:05:09Sen. Tillis: I have my phone.
▶ 1:05:12Chair Scott: That was good music, by the way.
▶ 1:05:16Sen. Tillis: That was a text from my wife, by the way. 1994, you got two interceptions against the cardinals, is that right?
▶ 1:05:24Mr. Turner: I think that was a good game.
▶ 1:05:28Sen. Tillis: You better be ready to intercept a lot of bad ideas in your new role. One bad idea is to throw money after something without trying to figure out how to fix the plumbing in hud. Thank you for the time that you spend in the office. I will support your confirmation, because in 30 to 40 minutes that we spend in my office, more than I can do in the remaining four minutes and 20 seconds, but I have said this to anyone who has come before this committee in your role.
▶ 1:05:58Sen. Tillis: The trailer park that I grew up in in nashville still stands. Those people are hurting. They don't have affordable housing. One reason they don't is because government tries to keep on regulating themselves out of any path to ownership. We keep on talking about throwing more money at it, and we repeatedly discount the money we are providing because we are rewarding state and local governments that are high tax and low value.
▶ 1:06:28Sen. Tillis: Can I get your commitment to do right by those people who are struggling to make ends meet and what an affordable home, and do the hard work, to do a portfolio program inventory in hud to find the ones that are working, continue them, stop the ones that aren't, and start ones that give more people more opportunities to afford a home, like those people living in that trailer park today?
▶ 1:06:51Mr. Turner: Yes, sir. I commit.
▶ 1:06:54Sen. Tillis: Western north carolina. It was, without question, it experienced something that has never been experienced in one storm. People talk about asheville. There are almost two dozen ashevilles. An area that covers a landmass roughly the size of massachusetts.
▶ 1:07:15Sen. Tillis: We have disaster recovery funds that have been allocated, and quite honestly, governor cooper has now transitioned from office, but his administration was abysmal at remitting funds and getting it out the door. I've complained about this for about as long as he was in office for nearly three different major storms that have come into north carolina. We are about to hit the same speedbump in western north carolina and we cannot afford to.
▶ 1:07:41Sen. Tillis: Can I get your commitment to come to north carolina so that you can see firsthand what we need to do to make sure that we help those people?
▶ 1:07:46Mr. Turner: Yes, senator. I commit to coming.
▶ 1:07:50Sen. Tillis: With the time that we have spent, you made a reference -- some people on this committee, you made a comment that is important. We need to flood the zone and get more capital in if we are going to address the affordable housing problem. Do you think that private investment and private equity investment is a bad thing to get capital into the market to fix this problem?
▶ 1:08:15Mr. Turner: No, senator. I believe the more capital the better. There are companies out there that are investing in the market, and obviously they have to be qualified and have a great track record. We don't want the wrong people investing.
▶ 1:08:28Sen. Tillis: Do you agree there should be transparency? We should know what they're doing and make sure that being part of the portfolio is producing more value for the people who need affordable housing?
▶ 1:08:38Mr. Turner: Yes, sir. I think transparency and accountability are key.
▶ 1:08:43Sen. Tillis: And the remaining time, tell me why you believe your life experience best qualifies you for this role.
▶ 1:08:50Mr. Turner: Because, as I said in my opening statement, senator, these are not just things that I've heard about. These are things that my family and I have experienced through the years. I had an uncle who was found homeless. He was a veteran.
▶ 1:09:07Mr. Turner: When they found him, my family and I were able to come around him, love him, take him in, give him the wraparound services he needed here not only was he homeless, he was beaten and battered with a life debilitating disease that ultimately took his life. He is with the lord now, but the latter days of his life are the best days of his life. He was homeless, but we were able to provide what he needed.
▶ 1:09:31Mr. Turner: I've had other members of my family that have been on government assistance, including my wife who grew up on government assistance and did very well. God graced her to go to college, graduate masters, and be married to me.
▶ 1:09:49Sen. Tillis: You said that in your opening statement and we talked about in the meeting. It bears repeating. Having a life like him and you, I am convinced that we can get good things done. Thank you for being here.
▶ 1:09:58Chair Scott: I will say, between senator warner and senator tillis giving time back is a blessing. Senator van hollen.
▶ 1:10:08Sen. Van Hollen: Thank you, Mr. chairman and Mr. turner, it is good to see you. It was good to sit down with yesterday and I appreciate the opportunity. Let me say that to me it shows excellent judgment that a man from texas would come to play or what was then the washington redskins. Now, the washington commanders.
▶ 1:10:31Sen. Van Hollen: I will point out to my colleagues, and I know that senator cornyn had to leave, but in the last game that we played, the commanders against the cowboys, the commanders won and they are in the playoffs. All of us in maryland are hoping for a ravens-commanders super bowl. Ok? Let me address some of the issues that we discussed yesterday.
▶ 1:10:59Sen. Van Hollen: I mentioned in our meeting that senator todd young and I have introduced the bipartisan legislation entitled the family stability and opportunity vouchers act, which would create housing vouchers targeted on families with young kids and enable them to move to areas of higher opportunity. There is a lot of research that shows that that helps break the cycle of poverty and create more generational wealth in income.
▶ 1:11:30Sen. Van Hollen: The legislation that we have introduced is based upon a pilot program that we launched, legislation that was signed by president trump last time he was in the oval office. The early signs from the pilot program have been so encouraging we introduced a full piece of legislation. I would really like to move forward on that, just ask if you are confirmed if you will work with us to advance that legislation?
▶ 1:11:55Mr. Turner: Yes, sir. It was great to visit with you. Yes, I do look forward to working with you.
▶ 1:12:02Sen. Van Hollen: Let me address another area that we talked about, which is the cost of housing. All of us recognize that we have an affordable housing crisis in the united states of america. You agree?
▶ 1:12:16Mr. Turner: Yes, sir.
▶ 1:12:19Sen. Van Hollen: Obviously, some of the inputs to housing are the materials. We talked about how you have multifamily housing business. When I asked, what are the primary drivers of increased cost, the first thing you said was the cost of building the home and materials?
▶ 1:12:40Mr. Turner: Yes, sir.
▶ 1:12:40Sen. Van Hollen: I want to talk about those inputs. Obviously, lumber is a huge cost for housing. The previous trump administration increased tariffs on lumber. The current biden administration kept them on and raised them a little further. I think they are now about 15%. Would you agree that it would make housing more unaffordable if we further increased tariffs on lumber?
▶ 1:13:08Mr. Turner: That is the president's job, and I know he will do everything he can to bring costs down.
▶ 1:13:16Sen. Van Hollen: This is math. I'm asking. There are lots of factors, but do you agree that if you increase the tariffs on lumber, a major input to the cost of housing, that increases the cost of housing?
▶ 1:13:28Mr. Turner: There are a lot of increases to the cost of housing. I don't want to get into the tariffs conversation, because obviously that is not my job. That is the president and your job as congress.what I want to do is combat anything that raises the cost of housing, be it the cost of construction, be it fees, be it regulatory burdens. That is what I have focused on, senator, to bring those things down.
▶ 1:13:57Sen. Van Hollen: I appreciate that. If you are confirmed, you will be secretary of housing and affordable housing will be part of your portfolio. A major part of it. Obviously, you will be at cabinet meetings if confirmed. I hope you will pass on to the president as he considers these things the impact that will have. I support targeted tariffs to protect strategic U.S. industries. That is a very important thing.
▶ 1:14:26Sen. Van Hollen: But, a broad-based set of tariffs across all sorts of goods that we are importing obviously drives up costs to americans, just like you drives it up for housing. There is another area of housing that includes gypsum. By the way, we produce some gypsum in the united states, but we import a lot, including through the port of baltimore. That is another area.
▶ 1:14:53Sen. Van Hollen: If president trump is talking about increasing tariffs across the board for americans by 10% to -- won't tariffs on just some and other things also raise the cost of housing?
▶ 1:15:06Mr. Turner: Senator, I commit to having these conversations if confirmed by this committee, with the president, because housing as secretary of hud would be my responsibility. I look forward to more conversations on how we can bring costs down, so we can build, build, build affordable housing. I commit that to you, sir.
▶ 1:15:27Sen. Van Hollen: I appreciate that. This is a simple mathematical proposition if we are serious about affordable housing. We cannot have across-the-board tariffs. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:15:39Chair Scott: Senator hagerty, you are next, sir. Thank you.
▶ 1:15:50Sen. Hagerty: Let me get this on here. Again, welcome. Glad to see you here. First, I would like to talk with you a bit about what is happening with our nation's housing and get a perspective on that. I think it is well documented that we have a serious supply shortage of housing, about 4 million homes short, as I understand it.
▶ 1:16:15Sen. Hagerty: At the same time, the current administration has championed these defective subsidies like tax credits, down payment assistance and lending policies, which obviously would stimulate demand at the same time that they pursued various regulatory restrictions on supply. We all know what happens when you constrain supply and stimulate demand. Prices go out.
▶ 1:16:39Sen. Hagerty: We see massive inflation not only in the cost of homes, but in rent, and I think that has been a big driver of the inflation we suffered. I want to understand how you are thinking about the affordability of housing and supply of housing in the context of the supply and demand.
▶ 1:16:56Mr. Turner: Thank you. Great to see you again. Obviously, we do have an affordability crisis. Regulatory reform from the federal government and the state government is much needed. We want to make it more flexible and easier for developers to build affordable workforce attainable housing across the country.
▶ 1:17:20Mr. Turner: If confirmed by this committee, one thing I want to do which is top priority is look at all the regulatory burdens on the federal side, and also to work with localities and states to see how we can ease those burdens so developers can build and supply goes up and -- right now, we are not meeting that demand.
▶ 1:17:42Sen. Hagerty: I will come back to the stateside in a minute. On the federal side, if you think about federal interventions that have taken place, think the intention has been to stimulate affordable housing. Did that have the desired effect, in your mind?
▶ 1:17:58Mr. Turner: Right now, it seems we have a crisis in our country. We have had record funding from hud as pertains to this affordable housing, and yet we have waiting lists. I think we need to take a deep dive, a fresh look at the programs, and work with local governments to see how we can ease this burden, because we have families that are hurting, that need affordable housing.
▶ 1:18:26Sen. Hagerty: Think we all share the same concern and I look forward to working with you at the federal level. To go to the state and local level, I would like to share one of my experiences. Before I went into the previous trump administration as ambassador of japan, I served as commerce secretary for the city and ran development. I administered community develop and block grants.
▶ 1:18:55Sen. Hagerty: This is an example of an opportunity I see at hud, because I went through a major streamlining process when the city had a budget deficit. I went through my department and did a streamlining process that eliminated a large number of positions in the department. That yielded much more efficient operations and tennessee began to thrive after we went through that reorganization. One aspect of that was the streamlining of the division that administered the grants.
▶ 1:19:26Sen. Hagerty: We were later forced by hud to reinstate those positions. Rather than look at tennessee and say this is an opportunity to congratulate greater efficiency and streamlining as a best observed practice across other states, something's wrong at hud, whether it is regulatory or just the government's demeanor, that does not aim at these sorts of opportunities. You have had experience at the state legislative level and the white house level.
▶ 1:19:56Sen. Hagerty: Let me hear your thoughts about how we might get at greater efficiency here. I know we would all like to work with you in this committee to support that.
▶ 1:20:03Mr. Turner: Efficiency is key. Efficiency, transparency, accountability. If confirmed by you and your colleagues on the committee, I do commit to going into hud and taking an assessment of all the processes, all the programs, to see what is working, what is not working, and streamlining those things so we can be more efficient.
▶ 1:20:27Mr. Turner: Our number one job is to serve the american people that are the most vulnerable low income and moderate income people in our country, as pertains to housing, homelessness. Disaster recovery. Efficiency is the key so we can better do that. I commit to doing that.
▶ 1:20:46Chair Scott: On behalf of the chairman, senator smith.
▶ 1:20:54Sen. Smith: Thank Mr. chair and ranking member. It is great to be back on the committee. Welcome, Mr. turner, to the committee. Yesterday, you and I had an opportunity to talk about some of the issues I want to race again with you here today in the committee, particularly what we can do to lower housing costs for americans. I wonder if you could talk a bit about what you see. What are your top one or two things you are going to get after when you get into hud to help lower costs for housing for americans?
▶ 1:21:22Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator smith. It is good to see again. As we have said before with your colleagues, regulatory reform is a big deal. To bring down the cost by getting the fiscal house in order, being interest rates down, inflation down, reading the cost of materials down is something that will help developers and builders across our country to bring affordability down and build more houses. Those things will have immediate impact.
▶ 1:21:49Mr. Turner: I look forward to working toward that.
▶ 1:21:55Sen. Smith: Mr. turner, I appreciate that, and I'm looking for detail and some specifics about how you would get after this and how you want to accomplish this. I think hud is a big and complicated agency. I'm interested in hearing your plan. Let's dive in on something specific that I know many of my colleagues have done a lot of thinking about, which is what we need to do to increase housing supply. I think you and I agree that the united states needs to add many more homes across the whole spectrum. We need to increase the supply.
▶ 1:22:26Sen. Smith: That is good to help lower rent. As elizabeth says, it is basically supply and demand. Based on your work as a developer, can you describe some of the local regulations you see hindering the development and construction of housing?
▶ 1:22:39Mr. Turner: Yes, ma'am. Permitting fees, inspection fees, zoning difficulties on a local level. Every locality is unique in their needs. These are some of the things that we see as developers and builders that are hindering us building affordable and workforce housing.
▶ 1:23:05Mr. Turner: Regulatory reforms in multi family alone -- when you look at the regulations, it is almost 40% with the cost to build multifamily, and I think it is 20% or 25% of single-family. For instance, there is a new regulation for hvac refrigerators from the epa.
▶ 1:23:26Sen. Scott: -- Sen. smith: I heard you referring to local zoning laws and how local zoning laws for example require parking minimums and height restrictions and setback rules, and minimum lot size requirements can be an issue.
▶ 1:23:43Sen. Scott: Do you think the federal government has a role in encouraging states and local governments to reduce some of these unnecessary regulations in areas that can make it harder to build construction, multifamily or single family housing?
▶ 1:24:00Mr. Turner: The localities know their areas better than the federal government. Every locality has unique needs and it comes to density and height restrictions. I do encourage localities to look at zoning laws to make it easier and more flexible to build, as we know we have on affordable crisis across the country. Localities obviously are in the lead of that. We can encourage them to look at those zoning laws.
▶ 1:24:29Mr. Turner: We could encourage that, but I don't believe that we need to force or mandate it. But yes, encourage them to look at what they have.
▶ 1:24:42Sen. -- Sen. Smith: We talked about incentives to make these reforms, to make it easier for a place like the one you worked for to get after some of those zoning restrictions. This is near and dear to my heart because my hometown of minneapolis has done excellent work here, and it has helped by reforming zoning laws. It has helped to boost the supply of housing.
▶ 1:25:10Sen. -- Sen. Smith: Just a couple of minutes that I have left, I want to get at other thing. Many of us here care a lot about the tragedy of veteran homelessness. I know this is an issue of importance to you as well. I want to ask you about a bill I worked on, the housing for all veterans act, which would essentially guarantee that if you are eligible for a housing voucher as a veteran, you should not be forced to wait in line. You should be able to move right ahead and have that voucher, and be able to get into housing.
▶ 1:25:41Sen. -- Sen. Smith: This is a highly successful program. We just don't have enough vouchers for all the veterans that need it. Would you commit to working with me on this piece of legislation which would do a lot to end veteran homelessness?
▶ 1:25:55Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator smith. I commit to working you with you to help our veterans, to help all homelessness in the country. Iq for bringing it up. Thank you for your passion I saw in the meeting and here. Look forward to working with you on this issue so we can help our veterans.
▶ 1:26:13Sen. Smith: Thank you. Ranking member?
▶ 1:26:17Sen. Scott: -- >> on behalf of of the chairman, senator britt.
▶ 1:26:23Sen. Britt: I look forward to the opportunity to work with the both on our shared goals to get answers for the american people. Mr. turner, thank you for your willingness to serve at the highest level. To your family, welcome. I know you all have. To be so proud. This is a special date not only for all of you, but for americans who want the american dream, and believe your leadership will help lead them back to that.
▶ 1:26:53Sen. Britt: There has obviously been a lot of talk about football this morning. I assume on behalf of my family, I need to say go pats. We would like to say obviously your time in the nfl, having seen what that takes firsthand, with my husband in that job, it is a grind. You know how to set goals. You know how to push through adversity. You know how to literally grind it out.
▶ 1:27:23Sen. Britt: You also know, as the chairman said, to never give up, and that everything is possible. You know what it means to be part of a team, which is exactly what we need. We can't keep doing the same thing or highlighting what is supposed to be. It has got to be who is the best to put on the field to achieve the goal, and I look forward to seeing you do that at hud.
▶ 1:27:47Sen. Britt: I have enjoyed our conversation in my office, learning about your experience in housing, learning more about what you did in the last administration, bringing opportunity zones to life. I thank you for your commitment to visit the state of alabama. We look forward to having you. We certainly are proud of your past trips there and the work you have done alongside so many tremendous alabamians.
▶ 1:28:10Sen. Britt: We all know we are facing a serious problem when it comes to affordable housing in this country, whether it is inflation, high construction costs, interest rates -- you name it. Low inventory. We have got a lot of things to tackle in order to be able to fix this. And unfortunately, over the last four years of the biden harris administration, these things have not gotten better. They have gotten worse.
▶ 1:28:38Sen. Britt: You are going to inherit a tremendous problem, but one that is critically important for people to be able to have the peace of the american dream, and for so many to be able to have hope. I am thrilled about the trump administration coming in, you being at the helm, getting focused back on solutions, and getting real results, rather than prioritizing over burdensome regulations or mandates or price controls that ultimately only add fuel to the
▶ 1:29:11Sen. Britt: File. Mr. turner, I was encouraged to hear you say earlier that two of your top priorities are data and streamlining programs. Streamlining them for efficiency. We want them to work better and faster for the american people. I share these goals. When you look at what has been highlighted today, and when you look over the last year, homelessness jumping 18% in the last 12 months, 33% since 2020 -- it is unacceptable.
▶ 1:29:42Sen. Britt: We look at the new cost of a home has no reason 30% since 2020, and before percent is directly at tribbett it to regulation. That is on acceptable. It is clear that burdensome regulation is part of this. I want to talk about your intention to measure current hud programs.
▶ 1:30:09Sen. Britt: Tell me what approach you are going to take and what is working for the american people, what is not.
▶ 1:30:17Mr. Turner: Great to see you, and please tell your husband I said hello. Number 1 -- I have used this word before. Inventory is taking an assessment. It is key. You have to know what is working and what is not working. My father used to work at a grocery store called safeway in dallas and the used to take all the stuff off the shelves late at night and early in the morning. I said, what are you doing? We are taking inventory to see what is causing us to gain and what is causing us to lose.
▶ 1:30:48Mr. Turner: I keep that same principle in my life, my business, condition ministry, and hud as one of the first priorities will take what is working for the american people and what is not. Is it building more affordable housing or is it not. Is it meeting the needs of americans that we serve, or is it not? I think when we go from there, we come back to the committee, and say, this is what we have found. This is what works and this is what is not working.
▶ 1:31:17Mr. Turner: His is what efficient -- this is what is efficient. I think those principles will do very well, going forward.
▶ 1:31:29Sen. Britt: Thank you to your commitment to making sure we get this right. >> on behalf of the chairman, senator reed.
▶ 1:31:34Sen. Reed: Welcome, Mr. turner. Welcome your family, too. No one serves alone. We are supported by wonderful people.
▶ 1:31:48Sen. Reed: We have a severe supply problem in the housing market, and that is why I am a little bit surprised that in the president-elect's last budget he wanted to zero out programs where the sole purpose is to construct housing. What do we get from eliminating that, if our need is to invest more in construction?
▶ 1:32:15Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator reed. So good to see you, and thank you for your time yesterday. As I have said before to your colleagues, it is our goal to look at the housing trust fund and all the programs at hud, to see how they are helping us to better do the job and carry out the mission at hud as a whole.
▶ 1:32:37Sen. Reed: Thank you very much. Let me also talk about an old program, the family self-sufficiency program, when I'm working with senator britt to try to expand. As we talked about, this is a very good program. It allows families to put money aside to eventually move on to buy their own homes. You have helped us expand fss in the position as secretary?
▶ 1:33:06Mr. Turner: If confirmed by the committee, any program that is helping people on the road to self-sufficiency and climb the economic ladder, and to thrive economically, I'm willing to look at, to work with you and this committee on. And thank you for your passion for that and your diligence in that. My goal is to help people to get off of government assistance and to be self sustainable and achieve the american dream.
▶ 1:33:35Sen. Reed: Let me follow on a point that senator tina smith made. We have problems with veterans health, and we have to do much more. Remarkably, we have more problems with veterans health. 2007 through funny 23, veterans homelessness droed 50%. That is because of not just hud. It is also v.a.
▶ 1:34:07Sen. Reed: It is also building. So can you look at that model that has been successful, and see how you can incorporate more of that to affect other populations aside from veterans?
▶ 1:34:20Mr. Turner: We said earlier when you bring ideas to the table and you have data driven, results driven programs, I'm willing to look at all of those and see how we can better serve not only are veterans, but the entire mission of hud. I look forward to working with you and your team, and members on that.
▶ 1:34:39Sen. Reed: We had a good chance to talk in the office about streamlining regulations. That is a responsibility primarily of state and localities, but hud I think can play a critical role, and I hope you will follow-up aggressively. Thank you very much. I don't know if you can say anything, but are you thinking go commanders?
▶ 1:35:06Mr. Turner: Anything commanders/redskins. I'm for it.
▶ 1:35:10Sen. Reed: We can agree on that.
▶ 1:35:12Mr. Turner: And thank you for the great quote you gave me in the office. It's not about the best ideas or who asks the best questions. I will remember that.
▶ 1:35:23Sen. Reed: The other one is "be kind and no surprises."
▶ 1:35:27Mr. Turner: Thank you very much. >> on behalf of the chairman, Mr. will banks, and welcome to the committee. >> thank you for agreeing to serve your country in a big way. Excited to work with you. Each year, hud's distributes tens of billions of dollars to assistance of families in poverty through the housing voucher program and section eight. Unfortunately, these programs punish people for working and for getting married.
▶ 1:35:56Mr. Turner: I wonder, what can you do about that when you are in charge? What can we do to change those rules?
▶ 1:36:01Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator banks. It was good to work with you as well. These programs, when you do get married, you do get a better job , when wages do rise, your disadvantaged. Were penalized for it. -- you are penalized for it.
▶ 1:36:22Mr. Turner: The goal is to get people into self sustainability and on track to achieve the american dream -- thriving and not just surviving, not a lifetime of subsidies, but to get off subsidies and be able to take care of your family. We are going to commit to taking a deep dive and looking into these penalties and how it disadvantages people that are on assistance, so thank you for bringing that to the forefront. I look forward to further discussion on that. Sen.
▶ 1:36:50Mr. Turner: Banks the so-called fair housing rule requires state and local governments that receive community development block grants to submit detailed reports to hud on how they will advance equity, so-called equity, across all of their activities. You think hud should be holding grant applicants hostage to a di agenda? -- a dei agenda?
▶ 1:37:12Mr. Turner: I don't think we should be holding grant applicants responsible to anything that is devastating to individuals and families. I believe that we give grant assistance. Obviously, there is accountability. There is transparency. But to hold anyone hostage because of a politicization of an agency or a process, I think is wrong across the board. Several banks you look -- Sen.
▶ 1:37:43Banks: You would perhaps apply that rule differently. The obama administration declared that it is unlawful discrimination for realtors and landlords to discuss a neighborhood's crime rate with prospective renters and buyers. It seems ridiculous to me. I don't know if you agree, to try to hide crime from a renter or homebuyer when they sign a release or buy a home. Do you plan to interpret that role -- rule?
▶ 1:38:13Mr. Turner: If I am buying a home, I want to know about the crime rate. I want to know if my family will be safe. I think transparency is key. You make the decision, but to hide crime, to hide anything from a potential buyer or potential renter is wrong. Yes, I look forward to learning more. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. What don't believe -- that is wrong. We will look into that. We have to be fully transparent to all renters and all buyers.
▶ 1:38:46Sen. Banks: Totally agree. The federal government has been relying on religious organizations for years to deliver services through grants. But under the current far left rules at hud, a faith-based soup kitchen or homeless shelter would jeopardize its eligibility for federal grants if an employee offered to pray before a meal. Would you remove those types of barriers that are preventing faith-based organizations from helping people?
▶ 1:39:12Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator. As a christian myself and as a believer, I like to pray before my meals. I like to pray for people. I like to pray as a group, pray individually. I think that is something we need to embrace, people of all faiths in our country. Any barriers that keep people from faith and exercising that -- we need to take a deep look at that, because you know this is our country, and we have religious freedom.
▶ 1:39:42Mr. Turner: We need to uphold that the best we can.
▶ 1:39:45Sen. Banks: The biden administration has a regulation that forces extreme climate standards on any property hud finances. The standards will drive up construction cost by as much as 35 -- $30,000, and apply even if hud only contributes a tiny amount of the funding. I wonder what your point of view is, and anything we can do to fix that.
▶ 1:40:08Mr. Turner: I want to look further into that. Anything that is burdensome to build affordable housing, we need to take a strong look at that, whether it be a climate bill -- we have a crisis. As I said before, I'm focused on how we build affordable housing in our country. Whatever is keeping us from doing that and an appropriate, legal manner, we need to look at those across the board, because we have people on the streets, and we need to help them.
▶ 1:40:42Sen. Banks: Thank you. My time is expired.
▶ 1:40:47Sen. Kim: I am glad to be part of this. Mr. turner, I have appreciated the conversation you and I had before, and I'm glad we will have the chance to be able to chat again. After our last conversation, I went back to some constituents in new jersey and asked them what are the top issues. What are the issues they want to raise? Not just for this hearing but with large -- it is housing. High costs. I guess I just want to ask a little bit more. I look at your testimony here.
▶ 1:41:18Sen. Kim: As a country, we are not building enough housing. We need millions more homes of all kinds. I think everyone agrees with that. But I would like a little more specificity from you. In particular, I heard from a young man who says -- graduated college. He does not think he will ever be able to afford a house. The level of pessimism amongst youth right now is so high. I guess I just want to have something tangible to bring back to him. What would you say to that young man?
▶ 1:41:49Sen. Kim: What specifics can you bring? The statements we all agree upon -- I would like to have a sense of something more granular.
▶ 1:41:57Mr. Turner: I heard that from my own son. He is 24. How are we going to be able to afford a house? Kids we mentor have the same sentiment. As I said before -- it was great to meet with you. We have to get our fiscal house in this country in order, bringing down inflation, bringing down interest rates. That will bring down the cost to build affordable housing.
▶ 1:42:24Mr. Turner: Working with you, this committee, and congress, we can look at how we get our fiscal house in order. The d regulation -- we have talked about that at the role and the local state level. It will help us to build more affordable housing. And those things, when we do that and prices do come down and housing is built, those in the younger generation will begin to have hope again.
▶ 1:42:51Mr. Turner: Right now, there is a lot of hopelessness in the younger generation about how they will afford a home. It is my goal because it is personal to me.
▶ 1:43:04Sen. Kim: You said we need more homes of all times -- all kinds, single-family, apartments. How do we encourage the building of entry-level homes? We see in new jersey a lot of development of look shuri condos, large homes. It is hard sometimes with the market to figure out how they are going to be able to pull it off. I wonder what are your thoughts there. Are there incentives to be able to build housing, as a place in the toolbox?
▶ 1:43:36Mr. Turner: I think opportunity zones will play a great role. We saw multifamily, duplex, single-family homes built. I think the expansion and continuation of that initial program will give us a great advantage to meet that.
▶ 1:44:02Sen. Kim: We saw an over emphasis on commercial buildings. There was a challenge to direct that toward affordable housing. That is something I think we should look at as we go forward. Another thing I wanted to raise here -- the community development block grant for disaster recovery -- this is something where you and I had a conversation about different disasters we have struggled with in new jersey. It often gets bogged down and can be a very slow process.
▶ 1:44:32Sen. Kim: I wanted to just ask -- is that something you have looked at in terms of whether or not you would support permit authorization?
▶ 1:44:42Mr. Turner: That is something I began to study. Every time a natural disaster happens in our country, I don't know why hud has to reinvent the wheel. Debt to tory authority would be very helpful to get these resources and funds out the door to serve the people.
▶ 1:45:00Sen. Kim: That is something when it came to their response in critter rico after hurricane maria -- huge delays and a lot of structural delays where the intent of congress was not followed through. The last thing I will say -- I hope we can be the generation that finally reads our homes of lead in all forms, once and for all -- lead paint. A lot we can do when it comes to this work. Is that something we could try to set out as a joint goal?
▶ 1:45:31Mr. Turner: Absolutely.
▶ 1:45:33Sen. Kim: Thank you. I yelled back.
▶ 1:45:37Chair Scott: Senator kennedy? Yes, it is. I was merely seeing if you were paying attention. Good job, youngster. [laughter] >> first, thanks to my colleague, senator kennedy. Esther scott, thank you for your willingness to serve this country.
▶ 1:46:06Chair Scott: Your background is incredibly impressive. I think we add you to a long line of incredibly qualified nominees from president trump and I hope we get all of you confirmed quickly and efficiently, so you can get to work, and there is a lot of work to be done. As a newbie here in washington, D.C., this place actually fascinates me. It is really unbelievable. Five years ago, if you made $60,000 in this country, you could afford a home.
▶ 1:46:36Chair Scott: Today, it is more than twice that. You had supply and demand for dummies. You open up page one. You add 12 million illegals into a country in that period of time that require housing, perhaps housing prices will go up. And yet there is incredible denial about that fact. How do you think illegal migration, which has been completely insane over the last four years, has played into housing affordability?
▶ 1:47:06Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator moreno, and congratulations to you. It is great to spend time with you. In the hud report that came out on september 27, it noted that illegal migration, illegal immigration, has caused a lot of the homelessness in our country. When you have 12 million to 20 million people come across illegally to our country, it is going to be a great burden on housing, on homelessness, on health in our country.
▶ 1:47:36Mr. Turner: As the report said, it is a huge burden. That is something that I think we as a country, as congress, as the white house, have to work to eliminate, so we can take care of the american people.
▶ 1:47:53Sen. Moreno: 12 million people have come over the border. They have unleashed fiscal stimulus, trillions of dollars of fiscal to me list that led to higher interest rates. Then, you look at the regulations that lead to higher housing costs. And yet we convene to figure out how to lower housing costs. It is pretty remarkable to watch as someone who is from the outside. Is there anything else you have seen that you would like to do, that our priorities to lower the cost of housing?
▶ 1:48:23Sen. Moreno: Like senator kim said, this is the issue I hear over and over again, whether it is the twentysomething that wants to not live in the parent basement, or the parent that does not want to have the twentysomething living in their basement -- they both agree. But the reality is it is really expensive to own a home in this country, very differently than when president trump was back in the white house. Is there anything we could be doing in that regard?
▶ 1:48:53Mr. Turner: We have talked about radio tory reform, bringing down the cost of construction, the expansion of opportunity zones, and engaging in the private sector and bring the private sector in. People that do this on a daily basis, government can be a great partner. To bring the private sector in to help with these solutions -- that is something I want to do if confirmed by this committee, is listen.
▶ 1:49:21Mr. Turner: Listen to those in the localities, those in the private sector, that have been successful in building workforce housing. That is a great advantage for us.
▶ 1:49:36Sen. Moreno: We need a lot of help in cleveland. We have affordable housing, quote unquote, hud subsidized housing. It was just in a homeland security meeting talking about illegal migration and on the other side they believe the solution is to provide better housing on our border. There are housing projects in cleveland that if we put illegals in those projects, we would be sanctioned by the um for human rights violations.
▶ 1:50:07Sen. Moreno: I would like you to see those firsthand. These are conditions that no human, let alone an american citizen, should ever be allowed to live in, and yet it has gone on. As you know, a lot of people make a lot of money as a result of those kinds of conditions. I would love to have you come to cleveland to see that firsthand. I yield the rest of my time to my colleague from louisiana.
▶ 1:50:34Sen. Scott: Thank you. Senator cortez masto.
▶ 1:50:40Sen. Cortez Masto: Actually, I will take a pass because I am running between three committee hearings.
▶ 1:50:45Chair Scott: Senator gallego? Sen. gallego as you know, arizona is at the forecast of housing -- forehand of housing scarcity, whether it is apartments, housing, new or old. It is not just rural areas. I am always looking for a comprehensive solution, as well as dealing with rising homelessness, which is attached to this.
▶ 1:51:11Chair Scott: We talked about a couple of areas in my office, and I want to reiterate, especially for our families that cannot afford housing. Last year, we introduced the housing vouchers transparency act to increase demand for choice options in our fastest growing cities. What that means is there are some areas in this country that are not using their housing vouchers because of either bad administrate of process or the fact that you are losing population.
▶ 1:51:38Chair Scott: Places like arizona, texas, and florida have a demand for these housing vouchers. As I said before, hud has the right to reallocate those vouchers when they are not being used. I want a commitment that we could look at that. That would help put a lot of people off the streets and into housing. If they are not being used anywhere else, they should be effectively used somewhere.
▶ 1:52:05Mr. Turner: Yes sir, senator, and it was great to visit with you and hear your passion for your state and constuents. I do commit to working with you and looking further into that.
▶ 1:52:21Sen. Gallego: One of the things we see around the country is we have families in different situations but we have mixed status families. If you are an illegal immigrant, you should not be receiving subsidized housing. Illegal imminent summing together should not receive subsidized housing. But I'm concerned about mixed status family, and that happens a lot in our world. We have someone who is illegally here and has a child that is un-american.
▶ 1:52:52Sen. Gallego: Under hud secretary carson, there was some rulemaking that would put those types of families on the streets. When we already have a housing shortage -- in terms of mixed status families, a lot of times the secondary parent may want to become a legal citizen. We want to make sure you understand and do not rush to kick people out of their homes, because you are likely kicking out a couple of americans in the process.
▶ 1:53:22Sen. Gallego: Overall, I agree we should not be using federal dollars or tax dollars to house illegal immigrants. But when it comes to making some of our american families get less, we have to be careful about how we execute that. I want to make sure we work through that in the process.
▶ 1:53:42Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator.
▶ 1:53:46Sen. Gallego: If you understand the mixed status family situation, american kid, american parent, undocumented -- would you say that is something that would be a reason to evacuate families from federal housing?
▶ 1:54:04Mr. Turner: If confirmed by this committee as secretary of hud, we have to take care of american citizens and american families. It is not only the right thing to do. It is not just what we are called to do. It is the law. Even right now, we are not serving the amount of american families that we have been called to serve. As the secretary, if confirmed by you and this committee, my job would be to uphold the laws on the books.
▶ 1:54:33Mr. Turner: I know oftentimes we have to make hard decisions, because we do not like to tear up families. But we have an obligation to serve the american people and uphold the laws.
▶ 1:54:44Sen. Gallego: And these are american people. They are just in a situation where they are married to someone who is undocumented. I want to make sure you understand there is a nuance and all we are going to do is create more americans who are going to be homeless if we rush to evictions. I would like to talk in regards to the native american housing block grants.
▶ 1:55:08Sen. Gallego: The president in his previous administration had tried to demand some cuts to that, grants to tribes and housing entities, to support housing through development. Arizona has federally recognized tribes. It is a massive portion of our population. But they actually have a housing crisis. Whenever there are cuts that are made, it is going to significantly impact these communities. A lot of these communities do not have access to other private funds.
▶ 1:55:40Sen. Gallego: I really wanted to note -- do you support the present proposals to cut funding for hud assistant housing for native americans, going forward? In the past, we cannot do much there.
▶ 1:55:51Mr. Turner: Rim I have to look into that program and that proposal. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Native american tribes have the same difficulty in affordable housing, because of the tribal trust and other factors. Opportunity zones are a great vehicle to build affordable housing, including of our tribes.
▶ 1:56:16Mr. Turner: I am committed to seeing how we can continue to build more affordable housing for our tribes and across the country, and I look forward to working with you on that particular issue. As far as the proposal, I have to take a deeper dive into that.
▶ 1:56:31Chair Scott: Thank you. Senator kennedy?
▶ 1:56:37Sen. Kennedy: Thank, Mr. chairman. Mr. turner, you have a very impressive resume. Thank you, sir. -- Mr. turner: thank you, sir.
▶ 1:56:54Sen. Kennedy: I have enjoyed your testimony today. You will find that we in washington -- we never make the same mistake twice. We make it three or four times. We make sure we get it right. I have been here eight years.
▶ 1:57:14Sen. Kennedy: I have watched us, on a bipartisan basis, spend tens and tens and tens, and tens of billions of dollars on affordable housing. And the result is that 10 years ago, the average age of a first time home buyer in america was. To do, it is 38. We are going backwards here.
▶ 1:57:49Sen. Kennedy: A house that cost, four years ago, three hud or $4000 -- three years ago, $304,000, it costs $400,000 today. Washington thinks we can command the tides of the housing market, and we can't. State and local government have a lot more influence than we do. Much more.
▶ 1:58:20Sen. Kennedy: And I have watched us to give state and local government billions, and they gladly take the money, and nothing changes, because a lot of folks -- their home is their biggest investment. And they don't want affordable housing nearby. At some of them don't want any new housing nearby, because of the pressure it puts on infrastructure.
▶ 1:58:46Sen. Kennedy: If we are serious about increasing housing starts -- and I doubt this will happen, because I don't think we in washington have the guts to do it. But we would turn to every state and say, look, we expect you to increase housing starts every year by 3%.
▶ 1:59:15Sen. Kennedy: Could be 2%, could before percent. How you do it is your business. If you don't do it, we are going to cut by 1.5% all of the federal money that we give you, across the board. If you exceed the 3%, we will give you an extra 1.5%.
▶ 1:59:46Sen. Kennedy: Canada is in the process of looking at this. Now, you will see many in state and local governments have an epiphany, and they will get started looking at the zoning standards, looking at the set-asides and the setbacks, and have an honest conversation with the people. What do you think?
▶ 2:00:14Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator kennedy. I appreciate our time together. Thank you for your thoughtfulness and your ingenuity in thought. You know, incentives do a lot. I know playing in the nfl, you always wanted to get incentives in your contract.
▶ 2:00:34Sen. Kennedy: Sodas a stick. A stick does a lot.
▶ 2:00:35Mr. Turner: The incentive so we had back in the day are a lot less than incentives I see these players getting now, but anyway, I think returning that control back and encouraging innovativeness and encouraging that accountability back to the states -- I think it is a great idea. I want to hear more about that with you.
▶ 2:00:54Mr. Turner: But I do believe when we incentivize building, when we incentivize certain aspects when it comes to affordability, competition always brings out the best. I look forward to hearing more and working with you on that.
▶ 2:01:09Sen. Kennedy: Let me just give you an observation. You undoubtedly know this. One of the headwinds you are going to face now is the cost of insurance. I'm not talking just about flood. That is bad enough.
▶ 2:01:32Sen. Kennedy: I'm talking about -- under our chairman's leadership, working on a bill not just dealing with flood, but dealing with all casualties. We are going to have to face it. It is coming. We have all seen what is happening in california, but it is not just california. It is appalachia, florida, louisiana. We are going to have to address this. Am not talking about government subsidies.
▶ 2:02:03Sen. Kennedy: I'm talking about setting up some sort of a national program that invites as many people as possible to join, so you can spread the risk. Strict underwriting so that the premiums are not subsidized. I hate to see the federal government getting into the insurance business. But I used -- I used the extra time that bernie gave me. I am way over.
▶ 2:02:34Chair Scott: I will get you next time. Senator cortez masto.
▶ 2:02:42Sen. Cortez Masto: Good to see you again. Good luck with your family.
▶ 2:02:47Mr. Turner: Thank you.
▶ 2:02:51Sen. Cortez Masto: I know some of this conversation, you already had with my colleagues, but I want to rehash some of it around affordable housing. It is an issue across the state of nevada. We are a little bit unique in the sense that over 80% of our land is owned by the federal government. We need to identify the land where housing can be built. Not only the department of interior, but that is where hud comes in.
▶ 2:03:21Sen. Cortez Masto: I will be looking at you to work with us to work with us on those issues. I appreciate my colleague senator kim's comments about federal funding and if he wants to transfer federal government to -- funding to places where there has been good use of it -- you can send it to nevada. War needs to be done, but federal financing is a key part of financing a formal housing in nevada. That me give you an example. We have the patriot place apartments in las vegas.
▶ 2:03:51Sen. Cortez Masto: It is home to 50 formerly homeless veterans. These homes were built next to hall -- hud's home investment program. We have similar housing being built for veterans who are seniors, along with our working-class, our men and women who are working in our key industries in nevada. Unfortunately, for us, we have done all this great work.
▶ 2:04:22Sen. Cortez Masto: We need to continue it. But in the last trump administration, trump wanted to delay, cut, and eliminate hud programs that build affordable housing. My question to you is, would you support that position, even though we know the benefits for people in need?
▶ 2:04:41Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator cortez masto. It was great to visit with you about your beloved state of nevada. As we said before with your other colleagues here, my goal is to look at all the programs within hud and see what is successful and what is not successful.
▶ 2:05:01Mr. Turner: I will commit to having those conversations, if I am allowed, in due time, with the president and his team, and you in congress, to say these programs are really working and are ringing results as comes to link affordable housing. As a leader, it is my job to have those conversations and to see these programs are successful at meeting the needs and the mission of hud. I will work with you, if you will.
▶ 2:05:30Mr. Turner: I look further into the program to see how we can work our veterans and the homelessness need in the housing affordability need in your state.
▶ 2:05:40Sen. Cortez Masto: Do you have a position on housing vouchers in general?
▶ 2:05:44Mr. Turner: No. I've been learning about housing vouchers and we need to make them less cumbersome. And more efficiency in the process, and make it easier for landowners and landlords to work with us, instead of putting a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and burden on them. I continue to look at that to see how we can ease and streamline that program.
▶ 2:06:11Sen. Cortez Masto: I pre-shake that. You would not know this, and under the previous trump administration, and wanted to try to cut the number of vouchers. That does not benefit us. I'm hopeful, as you are looking at efficient use of these dollars and vouchers, this is part of it, and you will talk to the administration about it as well. This came up I think in our conversation about disaster relief.
▶ 2:06:38Sen. Cortez Masto: Starting in 2018, president trump's department of housing and urban development withheld for two years congressionally approved disaster recovery mitigation funds. Now he is suggesting doing the same things for california. In 20 to anyone, the inspector general found that hud intentionally delayed sending puerto rico funds from the disaster recovery and mitigation fund.
▶ 2:07:08Sen. Cortez Masto: My question to you is, if you are confirmed, will you promise not to stop or delay the disbursement of congressionally approved disaster recovery funds?
▶ 2:07:20Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator. We all know the devastation going on in california and how it is devastating to families and communities. Senator tillis was talking about in north carolina how funds have not gotten out of the door. What I do commit to is, when we look at this fund, if confirmed by the committee, how do we get the resources out of the door to the families, and communities that are in need, so they can rebuild? That is very important.
▶ 2:07:51Mr. Turner: That would be a top priority for me when it comes to disaster recovery funds that have been appropriated by congress.
▶ 2:08:03Chair Scott: Are you prepared or should we come back to you? >> I am, thank you. Congratulations to you and to the ranking member. I look forward to working with you nice people. Thank you for your willingness to serve this nation has hud secretary. I want to welcome -- warmly welcome your family, and appreciate the sacrifice you all make to serve our nation in this way.
▶ 2:08:33Chair Scott: And I want to thank you for meeting with me in my office recently. My first question is about indian country. I know for a lot of states, tribal issues are really hard to attack. They are culturally challenging for those of us who are non-indians.
▶ 2:09:04Chair Scott: I'm of the opinion that they are important to fixing the housing crisis in indian country. They are made for tribes to attract capital, but leave tribal members in control. In indian country, it is very important that tribal neighbors be in control. Last congress, we had a hearing in the housing subcommittee that I was involved with senator smith on, about cfi's.
▶ 2:09:34Chair Scott: We heard from our witnesses that it is important that these institutions have flexibility in products that can offer developers and homebuyers things like balloon loans and interest only loans when offered to borrowers that understand the risks and can make monthly payments more affordable.
▶ 2:10:01Chair Scott: Cfi's need permission from the cd five fund at treasury to offer these products and keep their status. Would you work with treasury? I'm happy to go hand in hand with you to treasury to ensure the flexibility tribes and native cdf eyes can offer, so we can have solutions to the housing crisis in indian couny.
▶ 2:10:26Mr. Turner: Yes, ma'am. Senator, it was great to visit you. I will commit to working with you. I believe also senator warner was talking about cdf eyes in his state. I look forward to working with you and treasury, to meet the needs of tribal nations. >> thank you. I want to call your attention to a bill I am sponsoring with senator fetterman. He used to be on this committee and is no longer.
▶ 2:10:54Mr. Turner: Today, we are introducing the whole home repair act, and it will create a program that supports low income homeowners and small landlords trying to cut through red tape and apply for grants to repair dilapidated and unsafe housing. The focus of a lot of the hearings that senator smith, when she chaired the housing subcommittee, and I worked on were rural housing needs.
▶ 2:11:27Mr. Turner: And I assume you have seen that in your home state as well.
▶ 2:11:30Mr. Turner: You know, we do have a big need in rural areas around the country, and I am from texas, so we do have a lot of rural areas. Often time, when people think about home affordability and they think about poverty stricken areas, it is urban. But our rural neighbors and rural friends will have the same if not more need when it comes to home affordability.
▶ 2:11:59Mr. Turner: I look forward to looking more at how we can serve our families and communities in rural areas around the country. >> will you help senator fetterman and I by providing technical assistance in this matter as it moves forward?
▶ 2:12:14Mr. Turner: Yes, ma'am. I look forward to working with you both.
▶ 2:12:18Sen. Lummis: Thank you, Mr. turner. There is a program called housing first, and it has been the law of the land for two decades now, and yet homelessness is a bigger problem than ever. Clearly, housing first is not work for everyone. Do you have some ideas that you can bring to us about how to tackle the homelessness question?
▶ 2:12:42Mr. Turner: Homelessness is something that is near and dear to me. I gave a testimony about one of my family members who was found homeless, and we were able to get him help. But housing is one part of it. I like to look at the person as holistic as I can. You talk about housing, health care, fitness, education.
▶ 2:13:04Mr. Turner: I think that wraparound services are vital and key when it comes to eradicating and attacking homelessness, and also involved in the local organizations that are doing this on a day-to-day basis, like what I was involved in back at home, who every day are meeting the needs of our homeless neighbors. And not only from a housing standpoint, but from a mental health standpoint, from an education and health care standpoint. I look forward to doing this if confirmed by the committee.
▶ 2:13:34Sen. Lummis: Boots on the ground, Mr. chairman. Thank you so much. My home state of wyoming does not have any professional football teams, but we do have our university of wyoming quarterback josh allen, quarterbacking the buffalo bills. So obviously, I am a bills fan. I'm looking forward to his progress this month. Thank you, Mr. turner.
▶ 2:13:57Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator.
▶ 2:14:00Chair Scott: Senator blunt rochester?
▶ 2:14:05Sen. Braun: Rochester -- senator
▶ 2:14:09Blunt Rochester: Mr. turner, I appreciate the opportunity to work with you earlier this week, and look forward to getting more clarity on some of your positions and plans. I want to start with housing supply. An issue you have heard over and over again in this committee, because we hear it over and over again in our states, whether it is the rural areas, like -- or in delaware, we have coastal areas.
▶ 2:14:39Blunt Rochester: Whether it is our nurses or our teachers, or on housed neighbors -- unhoused neighbors tried to find housing, or young people tried to get their first home. This is a crisis that is touching all of us. You have publicly publicly indiu recognize the growing need for high quality affordable housing in our country.
▶ 2:14:59Blunt Rochester: The good news is, as you've heard, there is a lot of common ground here in terms of understanding we have the challenge. Bipartisan consensus that reducing barriers at the local level will increase the supply of affordable housing, namely addressing zoning, land use issues, and cutting red tape. This is something I've worked on in the house for my bipartisan housing supply and affordability act, to my housing supply and innovation frameworks act.
▶ 2:15:31Blunt Rochester: These policies have been endorsed by groups across the spectrum, from up for growth to the national low income housing coalition. In our meeting, you agreed the federal government should share best practices in reducing barriers to localities. Do you support legislation that would develop frameworks and best practices on zoning and land-use properties to be used for municipalities?
▶ 2:16:00Mr. Turner: Thank you for your thoughtfulness and service to our country. As a former legislator, I'm always open to looking at the best possible legislation to meet the needs that we have, not only an hour it states, but our country. As that legislation comes out, I definitely commit to looking and exploring that with you and your team to see if it would best benefit the mission of hud.
▶ 2:16:24Sen. Blunt Rochester: You also told us that you believe that a happy, healthy, active citizenry all starts with housing. I completely agree. You said, but there are number of critical programs that will make our citizens safe, healthy, and affordable housing,, but the trump administration the first administration, made massive cuts to many of these.
▶ 2:16:53Sen. Blunt Rochester: Will you maintain funding for the housing choice voucher program, which ensures millions of families had safe, healthy, affordable housing?
▶ 2:17:00Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator. What I've said before to you and your colleagues, I commit to looking at all of the programs that we have at hud.
▶ 2:17:10Sen. Blunt Rochester: That is a yes?
▶ 2:17:12Mr. Turner: I look forward to looking at it, yes, ma'am, and maximizing the budget we have to make those programs.
▶ 2:17:26Sen. Blunt Rochester: I think I shared with you in our meeting that I served as the secretary of labor in the state of delaware. I said if I had another middle name it would be lisa blunt jobs rochester. I ask your position on work requirements tied to people having housing opportunities in programs like section eight. Could you share your position?
▶ 2:17:47Mr. Turner: I heard a great quote. It says, our social safety net programs --
▶ 2:17:53Sen. Blunt Rochester: In the interest of time, do you support work requirements for housing programs?
▶ 2:17:59Mr. Turner: Yes, ma'am. I was getting to that.
▶ 2:18:04Sen. Blunt Rochester: I only have a little bit of time.
▶ 2:18:05Mr. Turner: It is good for people to work. A great precedent --
▶ 2:18:09Sen. Blunt Rochester: Do you support work requirements tied to housing opportunities?
▶ 2:18:15Mr. Turner: Yes, ma'am. I think it is good. I think we should encourage people to work.
▶ 2:18:20Sen. Blunt Rochester: I just needed to get an answer. I agree with senator kennedy about the challenge of extreme weather we are seeing and it is making it harder for people to even secure a mortgage in the most vulnerable areas. What role do you think the hud should play in addressing the insurance crisis?
▶ 2:18:43Mr. Turner: When senator kennedy brought that up, it came to my attention that this is getting ready to be a huge issue. I look forward to working with you and your team and experts in insurance, like our chairman, to see what we can do when these insurance crises come up to learn as much as I can.
▶ 2:19:00Sen. Blunt Rochester: I look forward to working with you on that and further discussion on the work requirements piece. The one thing we don't want to see is money shifted that kicks people off and then is used for other things. We want to make sure that those who are most vulnerable -- because it just exacerbates the problem. We don't want to exacerbate the problem. I will and with, go, eagles.
▶ 2:19:21Chair Scott: You had to get that in. I will concede that this is an nfc east conversation we are having. Wonderful. Simple -- senator m
▶ 2:19:46Ccormick: I'm excited to welcome you to pennsylvania. Maybe you can come to philadelphia and pittsburgh on your way to cleveland to see senator moreno. In philadelphia pittsburgh we have been hit hard. These metro areas rank near the bottom nationally in new housing unit construction. As such, not surprisingly the rent is up significantly. Home prices are up and interest rates more than doubled. We have a real problem in our two biggest metropolitan areas.
▶ 2:20:17Ccormick: You and I talked about how to make housing more affordable, and we both agreed that regulations at the federal, state, local level have significantly increased the time that it takes for builders to get the approvals they need to get new projects built.
▶ 2:20:34Ccormick: If confirmed, how do you imagine that you will be able to help fix change, evolve the regulatory agenda, to break down some of these federal barriers in particular and make it easier to build houses and get more supply in those areas?
▶ 2:20:48Mr. Turner: Thank you, senator mccormick, it was great to meet with you. Bringing in the localities, bringing in the private sector, listening to what the burdens are, listening to what the barriers are, and being a good partner in seeing how we can decrease regulation, because on my mind and in my heart, and here today we have a crisis in our country.
▶ 2:21:18Mr. Turner: Whatever we must do together, from a federal standpoint, from a state standpoint, from a local standpoint, I'm willing to bring the best ideas to the table to build affordable housing for our country.
▶ 2:21:32Sen. Mccormick: The crisis is across all of our populations, particularly problematic with our veterans, as you and I discussed. As a veteran in a commonwealth state with the fourth-largest veteran population, it is shameful that we have so many veterans that have both honorably served our country and are homeless. Hud supportive housing programs in partnership with the v.a.
▶ 2:21:59Sen. Mccormick: Is a great initiative, but in essence, not enough veterans are getting the housing benefits that they need or are even eligible for. The question for you is, how can hud improve its collaboration with the v.a.? I mean the nominee -- I met with the nominee for the v.a. Secretary yesterday, to ensure that the 700 20,000 veterans in pennsylvania have access to this program?
▶ 2:22:29Mr. Turner: Mr. turner: I too had a great conversation with the nominee coming into the v.a.. We have committed to each other to working together to meet the need of our nation's veterans, from hud and from the v.a. If confirmed by the committee, and if he is confirmed by the committee, we have committed to that being a top priority, that the two agencies work together to meet the needs of our veterans.
▶ 2:22:54Mr. Turner: I have veterans in my family, so this is something that is very important to me as well that we take care of our patriots.
▶ 2:23:01Sen. Mccormick: I understand that before I arrived you answered several questions on opportunity zones, but because it was such a signature part of the first trump administration and because they were so effective, what lessons did you learn? What are the kinds of things that you are going to be focused on in opportunity zones? In particular, new learnings, new things from the first trump administration?
▶ 2:23:26Mr. Turner: I think we can capitalize and improve on the successes we had. But also, this time getting the rules out quicker so we know exactly what we are working with to give us an opportunity to build more affordable housing. I think it will be a great vehicle for us to meet the need of the affordable housing crisis we have in our country. Also, to increase operating businesses.
▶ 2:23:56Mr. Turner: We saw in opportunity zones when we created more operating businesses, more jobs were created, families were blessed, salaries went up. Also, workforce training inside of opportunity zones I think will be a key, key, vital part of opportunity zones going forward.
▶ 2:24:14Chair Scott: Next will be senator also brooks. >> thank you to chair scott and senator warren for the privilege of serving on this committee.
▶ 2:24:31Chair Scott: The banking committee has jurisdiction over many important for mellon marylanders -- important issues for marylanders. I look forward to addressing the economic challenges facing our nation. Mr. turner, congratulations to you and your family on your nomination come and thank you for your willingness to serve as our secretary of housing and urban development.
▶ 2:25:01Chair Scott: I would request a simple yes or no to the following questions. Your role will be important as we seek to bring down prices and expand economic opportunity for every american. I want to highlight two important programs that we recognize that opportunity is tied to housing affordability for people of all income levels.
▶ 2:25:24Chair Scott: First, two programs you've heard about, the hud programs in particular, community development block grant and the home investment partnerships program. In 2020 four, maryland received 52 million dollars through funding as well as a $2 million through the home investment partnership program in 2020 four.
▶ 2:25:45Chair Scott: The home investment partnership program in particular is the department's flagship program and the only federal block grant that is dedicated exclusively to the production of affordable housing for low income households. As you know, the housing shortage has been one of the most persistent contributors to inflation. Like the rest of the country, maryland faces an affordability crisis and is short nearly 40,000 housing units.
▶ 2:26:14Chair Scott: The previous trump administration repeatedly proposed cuts to hud's budget. Will you oppose funding cuts to cdbg and housing programs?
▶ 2:26:25Mr. Turner: I'm sorry we didn't get the opportunity to meet, but I'm happy to meet you today. What I will commit to is looking at these programs and to maximize the budget. As you know, congress holds the purse strings to the budget. My job if confirmed is to maximize that budget to meet the needs of our country, to serve those who have been called to serve. I do commit to that.
▶ 2:26:52Sen. Alsobrooks: You will have an opportunity if confirmed as secretary to oppose cuts to these important programs. Would you oppose cuts to these two important programs?
▶ 2:27:04Mr. Turner: What I will do is, I will work with the president, with congress, with this team to make sure that the budget we do have meets the needs of those we are commissioned to serve.
▶ 2:27:17Sen. Alsobrooks: The affordable housing crisis affects americans of all demographics, in red states and blue states. Will you commit to working with and consulting congress on a bipartisan basis?
▶ 2:27:30Mr. Turner: Yes. I believe working with congress and being transparent with congress is very important. Yes, I commit to working with you all if confirmed by the committee.
▶ 2:27:41Sen. Alsobrooks: The former hud secretary ben carson who you called a mentor has called for placing political appointees rather than career, experienced officials in many a political senior hud leadership roles. You agree with this approach?
▶ 2:27:57Mr. Turner: What I do agree with is, being a leader you have to look at your team holistically. If confirmed by this committee, I plan on looking at the team, at hud, to see who and what we have and making sure that we have the best team in place to carry out the mission of hud. I have been on a lot of teams in my life. I have also been cut from teams. I understand what that means.
▶ 2:28:22Sen. Alsobrooks: I'm sorry, you don't want me, in other words, on your football team if I don't have experience based on my political affiliation? The question is, will you prioritize political affiliation over experience?
▶ 2:28:37Mr. Turner: What I will do is get the best qualified people for the job.
▶ 2:28:41Sen. Alsobrooks: The federal workforce question. Maryland is home to more than 130 5000 federal workers who work hard every day -- 135,000 federal workers who work hard every day. The department of government efficiency led by elon musk and vivek ramaswamy has --
▶ 2:29:15Mr. Turner: What I support his encouraging people to do the job that they have been called to do, but also, I don't want to encourage people to do something I'm not willing to do. I will take the lead on that. Having the best people at the right time to do the job is my call.
▶ 2:29:21Chair Scott: Thank you, ma'am. Senator ricketts.
▶ 2:29:25Sen. Ricketts: Thank, Mr. chairman. Congratulations on your role, and ringing member warren thank you. I look forward to working with both of you on this important committee to address the issues with regard to our economic national security, the well-being of our economy and financial security of americans and looking forward to how we can cut the federal red tape around our federal housing programs and make them effective and efficient. Mr.
▶ 2:29:54Sen. Ricketts: Turner, thank you for your past service to our country. I'm interested -- and your interest in continuing to serve this country. Thank you to your family for being willing to sacrifice along with you as you do this. As you are aware, we've talked about a lot. Affordable housing is a critical national issue right now. Each state's particular housing needs are going to be different. Different between nebraska and new york.
▶ 2:30:21Sen. Ricketts: In my home state of nebraska, a lot of our shortage has to do with available housing not just affordable housing. It is across the economic spectrum. It is both urban and rural. You mentioned the rural part, and I appreciate that. Nebraskans have been hard at work to make sure that all americans can achieve the american dream.
▶ 2:30:44Sen. Ricketts: When I was governor, one thing we did was we passed the rural workforce housing fund, we subsidized $7 million, communities, nonprofits, developers can apply for grants. One of the most effective ways we saw this is they would turn into low-interest loans to be able to help the developers and cities working together to create single-family homes, multifamily homes.
▶ 2:31:09Sen. Ricketts: Once that was accomplished would pay the money back and it would be used for another project. In fact, that was so successful, three years later we added $10 million to the program. We also had a similar type of program for the middle income housing fund that was more focused on urban areas. We also, I gave priority to opportunity zones. We talked a lot about that.
▶ 2:31:37Sen. Ricketts: We put state funds and dedicated the state affordable housing trust fund to expand opportunity zones. I also signed into law expanded low income housing tax credits to be able to incentivize private developers to build affordable housing. All of these things in nebraska to address some of these issues. I point those out because every state is going to be different.
▶ 2:32:03Sen. Ricketts: Can you address, how do you plan on working with states, local governments to leverage what the federal programs are, federal resources, but how can you work with nebraska and how might that be different from other states to develop affordable housing, and how can you make sure that the states retain as much a tonya me as possible to be able to address these needs? -- as much autonomy as possible to be able to address these needs?
▶ 2:32:33Mr. Turner: That's simple. Going to the people, going to the states and listening to see what has been successful in nebraska, and taking note to say, if this has been successful , being supportive of that and getting the federal government out of the way and allowing you in your state and other states around the country to do those things that have brought them great success as it pertains to affordable housing.
▶ 2:32:58Sen. Ricketts: I wasn't here for a lot of the previous testimony, so I apologize if I'm repeating a question, but you led president trumps white house revitalization council and worked with the opportunity zones. You mentioned a couple of times. Is this a policy that you want to carry forward with you as hud secretary if confirmed. Are there changes to the program that you would make based on your previous experience?
▶ 2:33:31Mr. Turner: It is absolutely a policy we want to carry forward because the impact was tremendous. Every policy and piece of legislation, every program has been successful, there are things that you can tweak. We talked about watching film earlier. We have the first round of opportunities, we have a lot of film on it and improvements we can make. Take the successes of it and doing better. Hopefully we can get the rules out quicker, increase operating businesses, but also use it as a platform to build more affordable housing and create jobs in our country.
▶ 2:33:59Sen. Ricketts: So, how do you propose to incentivize states like nebraska to be able to work with you on your priorities and get them willing to put in state funds in tandem with the federal policies?
▶ 2:34:15Mr. Turner: When you ask people to work with you you have to show some success. You have to show that you are transparent, that you are willing to do what it takes to be efficient. I think what people see your successes and what you are putting forward, they are more apt to work with you. To go to states like nebraska and lay out a plan of what we want to do from a hud standpoint and work with you and other states I think will create a great partnership going forward to meet the mission of hud.
▶ 2:34:41Sen. Ricketts: One of the things that we talked about was come americans experiencing homelessness and helping them find a safe and stable home. That is obviously the heart of hud's mission to be able to do that. There has been a bipartisan priority. Hud's 20 24 point in time count identified 771,480 people experiencing homelessness, an 18 point percent increase in the highest number ever reported.
▶ 2:35:10Sen. Ricketts: I'm running out of time, but high level, how would you use your office and platform to be able to reduce homelessness?
▶ 2:35:16Mr. Turner: Thank you. I'm very familiar with that report to take inventory of the homelessness in our country and programs we provide at hug, what is working and what is not, and -- at hud, what is working and what is not, and what is successful around the country and partner with them.
▶ 2:35:36Chair Scott: Senator warnock.
▶ 2:35:39Sen. Warnock: Congratulations chairman scott, and congratulations to you and ranking member warren on your selections to lead this important committee. I look forward to working with you on the important housing needs of georgians. Welcome back. Welcome not only to you but to your family. I enjoyed our conversation earlier this week.
▶ 2:36:06Sen. Warnock: I often tell people that I'm a product of good public policy. I worked hard, but I wouldn't be sitting where I am sitting without some help, some ladders, good public policy. I grew up in public housing and I understand the security and dignity that housing provides children and families.
▶ 2:36:30Sen. Warnock: Do you believe that homeownership provides dignity, security, and access to generational wealth?
▶ 2:36:37Mr. Turner: I do.
▶ 2:36:38Sen. Warnock: I agree. Unfortunately, during the first trump administration, president-elect trump repeatedly proposed to slash hud's budget, including cuts and the full elimination of key programs that help people afford rent and realize the dream of homeownership, which you and I agree is so important. If enacted, these cuts would raise housing costs for millions of american families.
▶ 2:37:10Sen. Warnock: The last time congress stepped in year after year to save many of these programs. This year, I'm not so sure we would be able to do it. If confirmed, will you commit to being a voice in the administration against severe cuts to hud's budget at a challenging time? Including programs that help people afford rent and homeownership?
▶ 2:37:34Mr. Turner: What I do commit to -- you know, you and your colleagues in congress, you hold the purse strings. Obviously, the president presents his budget, appropriations presents the budget come you vote on it, the president signs it into law. My goal is to obviously maximize that budget to meet the needs of the american people and carry forth the program of hud. I do commit that to you.
▶ 2:38:03Sen. Warnock: Will you be a voice to hold the line to protect programs that provide the dignity of homeownership and make rent affordable for working-class people?
▶ 2:38:15Mr. Turner: I do commit to having those conversations with the president and congress as it pertains to being an ambassador invoice for hud and to maximize the budget that we are given to make sure that those programs are efficient and meet the needs of the american people. I do commit that to you.
▶ 2:38:33Sen. Warnock: I know that you can be a voice. You are a preacher. Everyone is talking about football player.
▶ 2:38:42Mr. Turner: And we only have two minutes, so your second point.
▶ 2:38:48Sen. Warnock: Vocations of speech. The racial homeownership cap has been widened over the last few years. Yesterday, we celebrated Dr. king's actual birthday. Monday is a holiday. Folks often talk about those two key civil-rights bills.
▶ 2:39:09Sen. Warnock: The civil rights law's in 1964, voting rights law in 19 625, and we don't talk enough about fair housing. That was a victory of Dr. king's that was signed into law a few days after his assassination. That is a result of his work. The first trump administration sought to weaken and resend landmark fair housing laws, laws pushed through by Dr. king.
▶ 2:39:37Sen. Warnock: If confirmed, you would be responsible for enforcing these fair housing laws. If confirmed, will you commit to the vigorous enforcement of the nations's fair housing laws?
▶ 2:39:47Mr. Turner: Yes.
▶ 2:39:48Sen. Warnock: Would you be a strong voice in the administration in favor of protecting existing fair housing laws from efforts to weaken them or roll them back?
▶ 2:39:56Mr. Turner: I do commit to upholding the fair housing laws. Yes, sir.
▶ 2:40:01Sen. Warnock: One of the overlooked drivers of racial wealth and equity in our housing system is the very well documented pattern of lenders and the appraisal market persistently assessing the value of black and brown homes lower than white homeowners. We discussed this in my office. My stuff sent you some background information and data on appraisal bias. This is real money hurting real people.
▶ 2:40:30Sen. Warnock: In part at my urging, the biden administration took steps to crack down on appraisal bias. If confirmed, will you commit to using hud's tools and authorities to crack down on appraisal bias, including providing consumers with the data to push back on suspected bias?
▶ 2:40:49Mr. Turner: Thank you for the information that you sent. I have begun to read, and I look forward to exploring that more with you. As I said, I commit to upholding the law as it is on the book against all illegal discrimination.
▶ 2:41:03Sen. Warnock: Including appraisal bias?
▶ 2:41:06Mr. Turner: We will continue to look into that and I look forward to working with you on that and becoming more well-studied.
▶ 2:41:14Sen. Warnock: Thank you. I hope you will continue hud's important work on this matter, even as we go into this weekend celebrating Dr. king's birthday.
▶ 2:41:23Mr. Turner: Thank you, sir.
▶ 2:41:26Chair Scott: That concludes the question and answer portion of today's hearing. Prior to adjourning, I have some final housekeeping announcements. Before I do that, thank you for being with us today, Mr. turner. Senators, we allow on questions for the record, you must submit them by noon tomorrow, january 17. That is 12:00 p.m. Tomorrow.
▶ 2:41:51Chair Scott: For our witness, please respond by sunday, january 19 at 5:00 p.m. To the written questions that you've received in order to facilitate this committee promptly processing this nomination. Your ability to adhere to that is really important.
▶ 2:42:08Mr. Turner: Yes, sir.
▶ 2:42:10Chair Scott: With that, this hearing is adjourned. [gavel falls]