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Public Housing Tenant Protection and Reinvestment Act of 2017

H.R. 3160 · 115th Congress · Jun 29, 2017 · Lineage

A BILL

To transform neighborhoods of extreme poverty by reforming the public housing demolition and disposition rules to require one-for-one replacement and tenant protections, and to provide public housing agencies with additional resources and flexibility to preserve public housing units, and for other purposes.

Section 1 Short title and table of contents

(a)
Short title— This Act may be cited as the “Public Housing Tenant Protection and Reinvestment Act of 2017”.
(b)
Table of contents— The table of contents for this Act is as follows:

Sec. 2 Findings and purposes

(a)
Findings— The Congress finds that—
(1)
public housing is a critical public asset that has served an important role on the continuum of affordable housing since the 1930s, and is integral to our Nation’s social safety net, providing housing for 1.2 million families;
(2)
the public housing program serves a population of “hard-to-house” people who face challenges that often make it impossible for them to obtain adequate and affordable housing in the private market;
(3)
public housing has been plagued by chronic underfunding, resulting in a backlog of capital needs of over $26 billion, a large amount of severely distressed public housing concentrated in neighborhoods of extreme poverty, and resident families facing deteriorating living conditions;
(4)
as a result of this disinvestment, the program has lost thousands of units due to demolition and disposition as well as due to previous revitalization programs’ failure to require one-for-one replacement, and many more units are at risk of being lost; and
(5)
a holistic approach is now needed to fully support the revitalization of public housing, including efforts to stop the loss of public housing units through full-funding, one-for-one replacement of units and robust tenant protections during the revitalization process, and the creation of the financial tools necessary to transform neighborhoods of extreme poverty into communities that will improve the quality of life of current and future residents.
(b)
Purposes— The purposes of this Act are—
(1)
to transform neighborhoods of extreme poverty by revitalizing severely distressed public housing while improving access to economic opportunities and investing and leveraging investments in supportive services, education programs, public assets, public transportation, and improved access to jobs;
(2)
to require the one-for-one replacement of public and assisted housing dwelling units that are demolished or disposed of;
(3)
to provide for increased tenant protections through the revitalization process;
(4)
to ensure that current residents benefit from transformation by preserving affordable housing in the neighborhood and, to the maximum extent possible, providing residents the choice to stay in their communities or move to affordable housing in another neighborhood of opportunity;
(5)
to protect public housing as a critical public asset;
(6)
to restore robust funding for the public housing program; and
(7)
to support public housing residents through job training to provide for increased earnings and positive life outcomes.