you're trying to help. therefore what it does to reduce the supply of new affordable housing as builders basically back away from the projects that are vulnerable to litigation from you. you're basically punishing the people that we are trying to help. let's take a look at your agency. in the 2014 fha annual report to congress regarding the financial status of mutual mortgage insurance fund it says "fha indicated that its single family endorsements for that year was 61% to whites, 17% to hispanics 10% for blacks." statistically, is that not disparate impact? statistically, is that not your agency discriminating? are you doing anything about that? first of all, is that disparate impact? >> i reject that premise. thank you, congressman for the question. it's clever but i think it's misguided and i think you know what i'm talking about. >> not the premise. let me ask you.

is that a disparate impact? >> that is not at all the way disparate impact has been used. as you know this is in litigation and i will say i believe in disparate impact analysis and that if we look at the legal rationale for that and how that plays out i have confidence in the way it's been used. >> let me just ask you. is a 40% disparate impact disparate impact? population of the black community is around 13.5% to 14%, you're lending or endorsing to only 10%? >> this issue would never come up in that context. you're taking it completely out of context. it would never come up in that context. that's not the context it's being litigated about either. >> no that's because you're litigating against lenders and the like, people in the housing industry. i'm asking about what you're doing. is what you're doing disparate impact? should we use disparate impact theory against you? if it's fair against them is it not fair against you? >> what we need to do is to preserve disparate impact analysis because it's important to determining where there is a

discriminatory impact and where other tools can be utilized to have a better impact. in fact -- >> so what is a disparate imsnakt what percentage off is a disparate impact? >> i reject that notion, congressman. >> there is no -- what -- >> these are issues that are a applied in very fact-specific cases and i reject the notion of a hypothetical that would never come up in the first place to try and analyze such a serious topic. >> so you cannot define for us what percentages are a disparate impact even though your agency brings those lawsuits. >> you know very well what the definition of what a disparate impact is changes in different scenarios in different industries and as that's applied to different cases. >> exactly. and isn't that the exact problem? >> i think that's part of the strength of the tool that it's not a one size fits all tool. it's a very sensitive tool that's analyzed in the context of individual cases. >> so what you're saying is if i'm a lender or a builder, a

home builder i don't know what your charge against me is going to be because as you just stated right now it changes from circumstance to circumstance? >> not at all. >> there is no clear definition of what disparate impact is? >> not at all. in fact, disparate impact law in the dis-pratt impact law in the burdenship of if it is litigated gives the defendant an opportunity to show that there's a legitimate business reason for why those statistics are the way they are and then when they demonstrate that, it forces the plaintiff to actually have to come back and show that, no, you should be doing it a different way that would be more effective and have not much of a disperate impact. the burden shifting that is involved there protects the defense. >> the defendant after he's hired attorneys and gone to court and put on a defense for something that you told this hearing you do not have a definition of what it means.

>> that is not true. there are plenty of lawsuits thrown out summarily, so i'm not sure what you're talking about. >> i would encourage you to look at the track report of disperate impact. >> regular order, mr. chairman. >> the time of the gentleman has expired. the chair now recognizes miss maloney, ranking member of the capital market subcommittee. >> thank you so much ranking member and chairman for this important hearing and thank you for -- and hud for all you do for affordable housing in america. two questions i'm always asked about is according to your own study, seniors with low incomes are the most likely to pay more

than they can afford for their housing than any other sector in our society. and this program is very important, not only to new york, but i'd say the whole country. and i'm concern that we don't have enough funding to meet the rising command, the new construction i understand has been frozen, has very little in it and according to the aarp, for every section 202 unit that becomes available there are well over ten seniors on a waiting list. so can you describe what hud is doing to meet the demand the rising demand for affordable housing for seniors under the section 202 program? >> thank you very much, representative. i do appreciate the chance to speak to this, particularly because as much fuss is made over the ideas of these millennials and young people and and, you know, cities chasing

this, we all know the fastest growing population of the segment are our baby boomers of people who are turning 65 who are elderly, and spread out. and are a focus of the 202 program. we are requesting an additional investment particularly for a demonstration project and this budget this demonstration project would allow us to show the linkage between our investment in housing for the elderly and a reduction in health care costs. ball we believe it's important to show that that that doesn't exist, and hopefully that will inform policy in the future because by spending a little bit for housing and supportive services on one end, you can save money in the health care system on the other. that is the hypothesis. more broadly, as i mentioned a few moments ago, 50% of the households that we serve are headed by someone who is elderly or who is disabled. and that goes across hud

assisted housing. so our service is by no means limited to 202, it's public housing, it's section 8, and it is part of the reason that we're requesting greater levels of funding. >> the other portion i'm interesting is, these are important tools for the department in local housing earn more income and achieve income mobility. can you talk about the importance of these programs and policies and how we can work with you and the administration to strengthen and expand them?

>> what we want, we want the folks that we serve we want -- and they're working age we want them to be able to have gainful employment and eventually not need a public stangz. i agree with folks on that point. and recently we promulgated a new rule on this to give communities stronger guidance on the use of section 3. and is about investing in economic opportunity for

low-income individuals and we look forward to working with you, the committee, and congress to ensure that we can make the most of section three. because the fact is frankly the track record is checkered for housing authorities out there in how much they have utilized section three and we want there to be consistency in the utilization of section three. >> my time has expired. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, thank you for being here. 20 years ago this month president clinton announced the national home ownership strategy, and he said, and i quote, i want to stay this one more time, our home ownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent. it will not require legislation and it will add -- will not add more federal programs to a growing federal bureaucracy.

i think we can all agree that that vision did not turn out that way. if you recall back in february with you and i had a conversation about the fact that you were about to lower your guarantee fee by 50 basis points. and the fact that you were still not meeting the federally mandated reserve ratio for the funded fha. i guess -- and i think back then the number was 0.41%. you know, the mandate is 2%. i wonder if you could tell us today, mr. secretary, what is the current status? >> yes. thank you very much for the question. we do not do that analysis. that analysis is done by a neutral third party. we expect to have that 2015 report in november of this year. >> mr. secretary, i want to make sure i understand it.

so you don't know -- until the end of the period how you're doing? i i mean mr. secretary you were the mayor of san antonio and i can imagine the director of finance, if you can ask him, you know, how are our sales tax receipts coming in line with our prompted budget, and he says i won't be able to tell you that in a year, would that be an appropriate answer? >> you all can change that. that's set by congress, not by me. change it. if you want to change it, go ahead and change it. >> internally i would think that you would have monitoring -- >> let's be clear about that. as mr. luke meyer said we do put out a quarterly report and so luke meyer, to his credit asks my staff to go and review the report with him, we would be glad to do that with you. to your question as to whether i have an update to that capital reserve ratio the answer is no because congress has an independent act tuary that does that. >> are the premium revenues that you projected to meet the

standard because i believe what you told me in february is by the end of 2015 is you would be at 2%. so you don't have any idea whether you're going to be at 2% by the end of the year? >> to correct the record, what i said is that we expected within two years that we would reach the 2% capital reserve. that's what i said. >> well i think the problem a lot of us is you're running an organization that has a $42 billion budget. has a trillion dollar plus contingent liability. and we don't have -- we don't have the ability to track progress other than on an an mull basis? >> that is not true at all. you asked specifically about -- >> let me ask you about the revenues. are the revenues on track to meet that goal?

>> the answer to that is that they are encouraging so far. let me give you a precise example. >> i don't want to know whether they're encouraging or not. what i want to know is are you on track to meet the 2% by the end of the year? >> they are encouraging right now. >> encouraging is not the -- >> i'll give you an example of why i say that okay? when you look at march of 2014 versus march of 2015, for instance, there were 8,000 more borrowers on fha insured loans. that's just a month to month comparison. we've seen, as the quarterly reports indicated, a significant uptake in refinancing. you have to understand this thing took effect january 26th. with the limited early data that we have, we believe that we are on track. however, we will not get an official number on this, the assessment, until around the thanksgiving time frame when that independent actuary gives

us the report. >> so i think the thing that is troubling, is -- and a lot of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about safety net. to me, a safety net is you know something that provides -- to keep you from failing or falling or hurting yourself. so the safety net that we have today is just made out of string. and i think you would agree that if i had a safety net, i'd rather have one made out of rope. when you have $1 trillion of the taxpayers on the hook and you only have 0.41% equity the taxpayers are at risk. >> yeah. that's apples and oranges. you're conflating two things. that's not -- i don't think that's the way it works. >> i'm sorry mr. secretary, how is that apples and oranges? >> the capital reserve ratio is not a simple ratio on how how much money we have to pay claims. we have more than enough to handle the claims the losses that we have in front of us.

the economic present value of your liability. >> regular order, mr. chairman. >> the chairman can see the clock. chair now recognizes the gentle lady from new york, ms. velasquez. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. secretary, this hearing could not come at a better time. the house unfortunately just passed fy-16 spending bill. which, if enacted -- if enacted, will severely underfund virtually every hud program and jeopardize the housing stability of vulnerable americans. the shortage of affordable rental housing is a huge problem in new york. under the new analysis released this week, brought the severity of the problem home. between 2002 and 2014 rent in

new york city rose by 32%. citywide. even after the effects of inflation were removed. my question mr. secretary what will happen to working families like new york city if we do not have public housing? in new york city, we have 615,000 people who live in public housing and second 8. these are hard working people. i understand that if we want to tackle the issue of poverty, it takes investment. that if we want to tackle the issue of homelessness among

veterans, it takes the role of the federal government. and by the way i am proud to report that in new york city the number of homeless veterans in new york drops by 40% last year and declined 75% since 2012. why? because of vouchers and homeless assistant grants and because the city is putting also resources. that's what it takes. and so we want to tackle the issue of poverty in our country. and then we ask about what is it hud can demonstrate to show effectiveness of the industry? it takes an understanding that for the last 20 years, this one issue that really is impacting

americans. they're working harder they're working two and three jobs but there is one thing and that is wage stagnation. while the 1% is doing extremely well, the rest 99% rr are working harder and getting less. so mr. secretary if the funding bill that passed the house if enacted, how will this address hud to address the affordable housing price? >> if the bill becomes law, it will seriously injury, seriously damage our ability to meet the needs out there. as it is, as i mentioned earlier, we only serve one in four people right now who qualified for hud services. and a couple of weeks ago chairman like meyer had at his subcommittee a group of people to discuss public-private partnerships.

which i think is a fruitful conversation to have. it is was very clear that said if hud doesn't do these things who is going to do them? there is no private market to serve people who are extremely low income. and those are the vast majority of people that we serve. so whether it's traditional public housing or section 8 vouchers or rental assistance, we need to make an investment. if we don't what it means is more people out of the street more veterans who don't have a home. those are the huge issues that are on the table. >> so mr. secretary i would like to ask you about section three. i've been working on section three for many, many years when secretary donovan was there i introduced legislation.

and i'm happy to see that some of the provisions that were contained in my legislation are being reflected in the rule that you are putting out. but my question is if there is a tool that could empower residents in public housing in section three without the proper oversight and we found the proper training and investment, it's not going to work. >> thank you for that. i wanted to ask about the short time versus long time for a

lifetime myth shah exists with people utilizing hud and housing through you. he threw out a statistic of 5.4 years with families for teens. i don't know if that's accurate or where he got that. are you familiar with that statistic at all? >> yeah. that sounds about right, in the five-year range. i think what he -- and i guess ranking member cleburn is not here right now, however. what he was referring to is recall for these folks that we serve that are elderly or disabled, our goal is not just to get them in and out. so they have a longer period of average stay. >> i think that's completely different. but earlier, at the beginning, the chairman was asking you specifically about -- and you couldn't answer, whether we are tracking people from one pha as they exit that, presumably within that five-year time frame

to what happens to them. where do they go next? do they go to another public housing authority? do they maybe move to another state? do -- what do they do? and you couldn't provide that matrix. >> well, no i said that we will get information that we have on that. do i believe right now that we're tracking that as well as we would like to? the answer to that is no. >> it seems if we could dial it down, you would be able to make sure that people who are utilizing that service shifts to what is more of my concern which is how do we make sure that we have an opportunity economy that eliminates pofrd and breaks that cycle, that may exist? i was a former license realtor. i started my career in that.

some of my proudest moments that i was involved in weren't with big sales. my first listing was with a two-family house that was very transitional. a hispanic family on top that shafrd a one-bedroom apartment. in fact, will you is and alea are still friends today. and helping them transition into buying their own place. one that i talked about in this committee before is someone else who still remains a friend, jill, whose husband had left the family and she moved from a trailer park into her first home and i was able to help explain to her kids why and how important that was. literally, sitting here 20 years later i'm getting emotional and choked up because that really is why you exist. you don't exist to just make sure that we're taking care of people temporarily.

you exist to make sure we are taking care of people long-term. and i don't mean getting into your system and staying in your system. what is the opportunity? i'm afraid as i'm looking at this report, it seems the solution typically is to then throw more money at it. it's not only about subsidizing the market i would hope with section 8 or other things. it's, you know how do we make sure that as my colleague was starting to go at how do we make sure that the people that are providing that, that are building it, have some assurance and have some understanding of what the ground rules are or what the guide posts are so they're not going to get sued and they're not going to have these questions as they linger over there. that to me is i think vital. the other -- quickly, i want to hit in this remaining minute. on pager 8 and 9 are you

tracking that and can you please provide the matrix on that, as well. is this just web based? is this physical presence people are having from hud? what -- >> yes. >> explain this because that's $100 million that you are putting into there. >> that can provide a whole lot of housing. >>. >> let me say that i agree with you on the premise that for folks who are working age -- and this is what the law requires, that if they're not working they would pursue an education or be in job training. we want folks to be on a path to self-sufficiency. jobs plus does track. we do have numbers and we would

be glad to provide them. >> amen to that. i know my time is expired. i hope that you will get much much better at that and provide that to the committee. >> time of the gentleman has expired. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas mr. hossa. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i ask unanimous consent that my opening statement and my questions be made a part of the record. i'm late for opening a meeting and i must leave. >> without objection, in that case, the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york mr. meeks for five minutes. >> thank you, ranking member mr. chairman. mr. second let me ask you wsh first, let me identify myself as a proud product of public housing.

i don't know how my parents would have done what they did without public housing. and then when you think about my friends, some now who are attorneys and, doctors and engineers, and pharmacists all products of public housing. but had it not been for that assistance so that they could move forward, i don't know whether any of us would be in positions that we're in. so i personally know the critical need and the important of public housing, giving families an opportunity to come together and to be successful in life. and i can't think of a greater investment that we as a country can makes on mistake especially when we're talking about and oftentimes when we're campaigning the average every day person and the poor person in making sure that they have a quality of life. there is nothing better than making sure that they have a decent roof over their head so a child can get an education in a

places that they can grow and become productive members of society. in new york i'm concerned because when i look at the budget that -- and the funding packages that the body is putting forward i can see that it fails to loss sequestration and folks, needed in the national housing month and it short changes several assistance programs with housing. i can see what's going on for a little while. our mayor recently released a new plan to revamp new york city's housing authority and to bring it back into a stable financial footing and to rebuild and expand and preserve public affordable housing. and the plan is dependent on

converting housing units to section 8. so as we move, you know, section 8 accounts for roughly two-thirds of your budget and as more public housing moves through section 8 through r.a.d., i'm wondering how does hud cope with such increased demands for communities across the country and how can cities like my city of new york plan for the future with the uncertainty around increased assistance to preserve federal housing stocks? >> you're correct that we need a certain level of confidence in that investment. r.a.d. is one way we have tried to stretch resources, that we engage with the private sector in this case so they can renovate those public housing units because the fact is we have a $26 billion backlog in

renovation needs in public housing. that is why we're requesting a couple of things in this budget, $50 million for that rearview mirror a.d. program. we're also requesting additional resources in terms of salary and expenses because the cap was lifted in fiscal year '15 to $185,000. we want to ensure that we can meet that demand. by the way, we already have applications for r.a.d. that are around 180,000. so it's a successful effort at getting interesting. public private sector collaboration. and on top of that what we see with r.a.d. is that we leverage for every $1 of public money we spend, we leverage of of $19 of private investment. we need to do it right.

>> as he move forward and we look, i'm worried about the underpinning of the public sector continuing what it needs to match the private sector. what happens to public housing? can you tell me -- >> i agree with you that if we're not careful, then the public sector won't even have the strength to engage the private sector so that we can fruitfully renovate or create new housing. that was the point that was made in the subcommittee hearing was that the private sector needs the public sector to do affordable housing. >> the time of the gentleman has expired. >> thank you for being here, mr.

castro. i want to make a note that homelessness doesn't just exist in urban america. for the last two years, we have held a homelessness and hunger summon in trying to bring in the stakeholders from across our rural community, trying to figure out how we can address this problem more effectively, trying to figure out where the bright spots are, what they do to more effectively tap into resources in the community, how they can more effective lyly tab into resources. i recalled note, though i do hear a lot about the rules and regulations, especially for small providers in our community

and it's -- listen if you're a one or two-person organization, it becomes incredibly difficult for them to navigate the rules and regulations. but i want to move beyond that. you're asking for more money. why do you need more public housing money? why do you need more section housing money when we've had improvements in the economy and in this space? >> well, the fact is, for instance, let's take our vouchers, we lost 67,000 vouchers. what we see out there is that we're able to serve one out of every four people who need it. >> but have we had an improvement in this space? those who are homeless. >> in homelessness, we have seen an improvement.

and why was that? >> but you're asking for that money. >> we dedicated more resources to it. hud vouchers, to the committee's credit, congress's credit and the president's leadership, the reason we have seen a reduction in veteran homelessness is because we invested in -- >> and i appreciate your comments on veterans and that's a nice number. but i -- >> then let's talk about folks who live in rural areas or tribal communities. >> let's talk about it as a whole, then. what success have you had of getting people not just into the system of public housing and section 8, but out of the system? and it goes back to the questions that the chairman asked, that you come and ask for more money but you can't sit here today and say, listen, you guys, there is what we're dining. we're bringing people in. they need help. we all want to help them. >> but that's fought true. i'll give you an example -- >> but here are the facts and the numbers of how we've moved people out of the space of public assistance and into

self-sufficiency. but if you don't track people, you don't know if the numbers that you give us are people who go from assistance to sustainability themselves or to another public housing authority. you can't actually give us the right numbers. and you're asking for more money. >> i gave an example earlier, a good -- >> i'm looking at numbers. >> a. example of what we've seen is through our jobs plus initiative that -- >> jobs plus is the 9% increase asked for by the president is that going to the programs that you say work like jobs plus? >> what we're asking is we're going -- >> across the board. >> we're going from $15 million to $100 million. that's what the request is. your question is -- mr. secretary, hold on a secretary. if you -- >> requesting jobs plus? of course not. >> so if you have programs that work jobs plus, i'm not arguing your stats on that. why aren't you saying, congress listen, let's talk about

programs that work that will take people off assistance and into the -- into sustainability. >> that is what i'm talking about. >> no, it's not. you're giving me a small section. is everybody -- the funding that asked for funding across the board, not to be driven into jobs plus not to programs that actually move people to sustainability. it gets back to your original point. i think you just success by how much money we spend. >> no, that is not true. the other day i was -- >> tell me the number -- hold on, there is my time. tell me the number with with regard to -- >> there was a group of -- >> hold on a second. >> order. regular order. >> mr. secretary, the time belongs to the gentleman from wisconsin. please add 10 seconds to the clock. >> if that's not how you judge your time or your success, tell me the percentage of people that go into section 8 housing and move out into self-sustainability. >> as i said earlier we would love to get you the information. >> you don't have the numbers on that.

>> what i do know is we have -- >> my time. if you were judging success by getting people off assistance and into self-sustainability, you would be here today telling us those numbers. this is not how you judge success in your agency. >> representative i just did tell you some of that. >> you didn't give me the numbers. >> i did. >> the time of the gentleman has expired. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. sherman. >> mr. secretaries i want to recognize with you that housing programs are successful in every one of our districts, that a housing program has to chiefly be vaeltd on whether or not it provides housing. getting people off the streets and into housing is a good thing. whether or not they then get into a well paying job is a little bit outside of your department. i look forward working with the

last gentleman to defeat fast track so we can get the high paying jobs that will lead not only to successful housing programs but success frl economic futures for those you benefit. but i think it's -- it's wrong for us to say we're going to cut back on section 8 until you give us perfect numbers and until you establish that providing housing means somebody gets a good paying job, too. >> well, what i said is that -- that one outcome is -- and it's an important outcome is that somebody has a proof over their head. that is what the department of housing is for. we are first and foremost about housing. however, to the second question, do i believe that we should make investments and we are making investments that seek to get folks to a stronger track so that they can achieve the american dream? of course i do.

and should we look at the outcomes of that? yes, we should. and i think we can work together on that. but to say that it doesn't count at all that somebody has a roof over their head that's just ridiculous. >> well said and i -- i now want to move to fha and a couple of technical areas. where fha has a rule or a policy that clashes with another federal rule. and hope that fha moves in the direction of the other federal rule. the first example of this is with properties subject to transfer fees. now, 99% of transfer fees are terrible. thank you at fha for working to prohibit them. fhfa, which of course oversees fan fannie and freddie. instead of prohibiting all of them, they've only prohibited the 99 that are bad. the 1% that are helpful are

those that benefit the property that are a key to the business plan of homeowners associations and fund homeowners associations by a reasonable amount when the property is transferred. so i wonder whether you would look at a technical tweak to the fha regulations and see whether the fhfa's very similar regulations, but a little bit more nuances might be better for both similar federal programs. >> thank you very much for that question. we want to continue to play that countercyclical role and on top of that, we are interested where it makes sense and possible that encourages neighborhood

stability and we are looking at matching fhfa on this issue that you brought up. so we would love to follow up with you and with your staff on that and give you an update on what we're up to. >> it's similar agencies trying to carry out the same policy and they ought to have identical or close to identical roles. in this one case, your sister agency has a more sophisticated role. federal statute generally requires that you have to stop paying mortgage insurance once you have a 78% situation. you've got a situation where borrowers have to keep paying each other forever except if they don't, they to refinance. if they have to pay forever i'd say maybe you're going to get the money. but if you're not going to get the money if you're going to refinance, it's a lot of

paperwork. and then it would be easier for borrowers the they're trying to compare fha insurance with private insurance. if you were offering the same products. when you take a look at that. we are always, of course looking at how we can be sensitive to the continues out there. as you know, this life of loan issue came to pass. during the last few years, there is a need to do everything that we can to ensure that we built up our ru serves and we want to do what is prudent. always willing to look at this issue. >> thank you. >> the time of the gentleman has expired. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from new york, mr. king. >> thank you, mr. secretary. >> i admit that i was not here for the opening statement. i want to thank you for baggy

here today. and generally, when i ask a question, it's not written out, but this one i am going to read as it's written because there's a lot of specifics involved. in regards to west chester county in new york which is not in my district, but it's adjacent to it and the implications of what's going on in west chester could well impact my district. i'd like to ask a question. if you're saying you can answer it today, type. if you have to get back to me in writing, i would agreely appreciate that. i understand that in 20309, hud reached an out of court settlement with west chester county settle ago 2006 civil lawsuit alleging the county failed to consider race to fair and affordable housing and finally its analysis of impediments document which is filed with hud when seeking cbdg block grants. it's my understanding from talking to the west chester county officials, i would say at this stage i don't see this as being a partisan issue since the original settlement was the democratic county executive is

now being implemented by republican county executives. i don't see this as being a partisan issue. before you from talking to the county executive, he believes that the county is ahead of schedule and implementation of the settlement terms. 469 of the 750 required public housing units have been financed. 424 have building permits. and so far, the county has spent $37 million and leveraged another $112 million from different sources and at least $6 million was great upon. so you have 37 and 112. yet the county believes hud is not recognizing this progress. in response to a hud request, the county included in its analysis of impediments the examination of all of its 853 local zoning districts from all of its exclusionary practices based on race ethnicity and found none. each time in consideration of more data as requested by hud. the most recent ai was more than

700 pages and each time the conclusion that has been supported by an independent authority. hud, however disagreed with the county in 2011 and began cutting off housing grants. two kwns. can you say why hud as summarily rejected each of the eight analysis of impediments submitted by west chester county in the past six years and all entitlements that they are quote, affirmatively inquiring fair housing and in order to meet these fair housings grantees must conduct these. what is the average length and how often are they rejected and what is used to determine whether or not ai is acceptable and as i said, this case as it goes forward could have implications in my district and other districts in the region. and, again, any testimony you can give today. >> yeah. i appreciate very much the

opportunity to address this briefly. i would love to get back to you and your staff with the specifics on west chester. let me begin by saying that, of course, we take the issue of fair housing very seriously under the fair housing of 1968. it requires that the secretary further fair housing. there has been a tremendous amount of work that hud staff has done to try and resolve these issues. what i have told my staff is that, of course, there is a time when we're punitive and this is one of those cases that developed and went into litigation. but we often sooem seek what i call mission driven flexibility to work with communities to meet the goals of the programs, but also to ensure that they can

undertake feasible actions to get into compliance. having said that, i would like to get back with you on the specifics and an update on where we're at with regard to west chester because i know my staff has been working hard on that. >> and, again i don't recognize in west chester. i do know the officials up there, they believe they are attempting to comply in good faith. they don't feel hud is anling that. i'm not getting in the middle of this, but i think it's important we set some parameters because i know there are other pending actions in the region which could have an impact in my region. local government ves to try to comply and again there is very expensive and, again, it can be complicate. so whenever you can get back to me on it i would truly appreciate it. >> the time of the gentleman has expired at the request of the secretary. the committee will stand in recess for five minutes.

>> this weekend c-span partnered with comcast to learn about life in key west, florida. >> they found this how will house for sale. they bought it for $8,000 in 1931 and pauline converted this hayloft into his first formal writing studio. here he fell in love with fishing, how fast he was producing the work. he knocked out the first rough draft of a farewell to arms in just two weeks when arriving in key west. he once had a line that if you want to write start with one true sentence. for a true writer, each book should be a new beginning for he tries again for something that is beyond the payment. he should always try to

something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. >> president truman regarded the big white house as the great white jail. he thought he was constantly under everyone's eye. so by coming to key west he could come with his closest staff, let down his hair. sometimes some of the staff would let their beards grow for a couple of days. they certainly at times used off color stories and they could visit back and forth without any strutny from the press. a case of hawaiian shirts to the president with the thought that if the president is wearing our shirt, we're going to sell a lot of shirts. so president truman wore those free shirts at first year and then organized what they called the loud shirt contest and that

was the official uniform of key west. >> watch all of our events from key west saturday at 5:00 p.m. eastern