our form. so there is -- you know, they always say that fema is a very bureaucratic agency, so it has different levels of decisionmaking. but they're definitely -- the inconsistencies throughout have repeated themselves. and even though they recognize some things that should be fixed, because they have, when we try to fix it with them, it has come into a wall. like, that one which was a big wall for us. >> yes. >> hi. katie picket from co ddesta foundation. i was wondering if any of your advocacies and the barrios if you are going and speaking to

any of these families that are -- have become so big in their properties, are so large, that they could have formed informal sectors within the barrios. if you are speaking to them about their informal hookups to the electrical grids and the water grids, as well. and their need to formalize those things in order to provide more evidence that they have lived on these properties for so long and just because maybe they don't have those formal pieces of paper and receipts from prossa or from prepa. >> yeah. definitely that is a fraction of the problem. and with the organizations we work with our different kinds. different level organizations.

when i say we work with organizations that we provide funds for civil legal aid, right? and there are different kinds. and we were lucky to be able to provide funds to community-based organizations. so organizations that are more into the communities than could talk about that stuff with the communities. but you have to be careful. it is not that problem about informal connections to electricity and water was -- is the least of our problems. because i'm talking about hundreds of thousands of people that have formal electricity, that have formal water and still they were denied, because they didn't have a title. i mean, that is one part of the problem. but the problem went even further. like, i had people, for example, that we attended in communities that they have their -- how you call it, the declaration of errors. that -- because it's all in

spanish. and it doesn't say until the end of the page what the property was. another -- fema would deny. or because the description in the title was different from the address, but the thing is that the description in the title is very spanish. like when i say spanish from spain, like in the north. it belongs to someone. in the south, it belongs to somebody else. so it describes the lines. it doesn't give an address. and then you have the -- the electrical bill, and they don't match. that was -- and they say, oh, you have a proven tithe. but, you know, i have it here. so the amount of the denials was -- and i have people that are living in communities, like you say, that have informal electricity, informal water, and they got benefits, and they got the maximum benefit. so it was a problem more like the fema problem was more a

problem of inconsistency, of not understanding the law, and of having, like, this discoordination between the service providers within fema. so now we are working on -- we have got funds from hispanic federation. we've had, you know, very good groups like foundations, philanthropy, that have provided us funds for different legal service projects. so now we are working on one with hispanic federation, where we sit on a table with the groups that are doing the housing. and they're working with, you know -- working with communities on how to formalize, you know, their relationships and have a more organized community. and i'm hoping that that model -- because it is a bottom-up model, where we are working directly with communities trying to solve the legal issues and handle them, is going to be replicated now. that we are hopefully going to

get more resources to be able to work with the title. >> and if i can just kind of add on to that, as well. is that the -- like, in louisa, for example, people who have -- who have plots of land, you have families. you have, like, a sister and brother who live on this plot of land, and it's very hard to go in and assess and just draw a line where, like, your house -- where your land begins and your land might end in your sister's kitchen. and so it kind of turns into -- it becomes very difficult to actually just, like, go in and just say, okay, we're going to make some lines. >> yeah, the segregation many times is difficult. even because the land registry, you know, in port -- the thing with -- the law -- the property right in puerto rico is that it is not obligation to register it anywhere. so you have a formal registry that is only there to protect

the people that do mortgage and the people that do common property, condominiums and superficial rights. because the registry is to protect the bank. basically. and then you have another registry which is the cataster, which is for the treasury part, for taxes. sometimes you go to register something in the registry, and because it doesn't coincide, because you used the cataster information, but it doesn't coincide with the one in the registry, because it's different in different points, they say we cannot register that property. you have to do the segregation all over again. but that takes money, that takes time. research says that families do not have. >> we have one --

>> hi. i'd like to thank our last fireside chat panelists and all of the panelists who have joined us today. please join me in a round of applause. [ applause ] thank you very much for coming. please feel free to stick around and enjoy a bit of food and a drink. and enjoy the rest of the week. several panels this

afternoon with the new america foundation. you can watch it all again online at c-span.org. search property in the search box. and more live coverage coming up in about 20 minutes or so. secretary of state mike pompeo, senate minority leader chuck schumer and house minority leader kevin mccarthy among the speakers at the american/israel public affairs committee annual conference in washington. it's the apac meeting live this afternoon at 4:30 eastern on c-span3. tomorrow, general joseph did you know ford, chair of the joint chiefs of staff and acting defense secretary, patrick shanahan, testify about next year's pentagon budget. they'll answer questions from the house armed services committee. live tomorrow morning starting at 10:00 eastern here on c-span3. congress is back this week following their work period last week. tomorrow the house will vote on overriding the president's veto of the resolution terminating his border emergency declaration. the house passed it 245-182. that's short of the needed

two-thirds majority to override the veto. on thursday, they'll vote on a nonbinding resolution rejecting the president's ban on transgender americans serving in the military. the house is live on c-span. the senate on c-span 2. the senate back this afternoon working on a judicial nomination for the federal appeals court covering the western u.s. and coming up later in the week, federal disaster aid, they'll also vote on a resolution dealing with the green new deal. live senate coverage, again, on c-span 2. tonight, on "the communicators," from capitol hill, democratic senator edward markey of massachusetts and republican congressman greg walden of oregon. join us to talk about net neutrality, privacy, mergers and big tech companies. >> if you want us to preempt california, how strong is the privacy law? for all 50 states that you're willing to put on the books? and so that's the debate, which we're going to have in the congress this year.

and for my opinion, if it's not the strongest possible privacy protection, there is no point in preempting the states that want to give strong privacy protection to their citizens. >> if you think about the internet, it is like the super highway we drive down. but what really happens is eventually you need to take an off-ramp to get into the neighborhood where you want to go. the off-ramps are your search engines, your social media. you thisnk about facebook, googe and some of the other providers have enormous control over what we see, when we access it, how we access it. and so i think this is ripe for the public square for a debate. >> watch "the communicators" tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

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