capital, nations congress continues for additional work week. in washington, lots of meetings going on. the rnc.s meeting an independent federal review board is releasing a report concluding that the collection of americans home records is a legal. president obama allies changes but did not recommend ending it. we will likely hear more about the topic today at the white house briefing, which jay carney has at 12:45 and we will have

live for you on c-span. housing and urban development secretary shaun donovan will speak about community development. he is at the u.s. conference of 11:15 eastern.at we will take you live to the republican national committee cost meeting with the townhall. the rnc dubbing it a collection of their rising stars. tonight, a forum examining the findings of a report that aims to raise awareness of key issues facing women, known as "the shriver report." maria shriver, the lead organizer, talked about the conclusions. >> what united both of these teams and everybody who wrote for this report and who has been working what i call on the front lines of humanity is the belief that these women, given the chance, can not only lift themselves up by their entire families. putting women at the center of

the economy is not just good for women, it is good for men, for boys and girls, and it is good for the country. that is really the mission of this report, to change a lot of new faceotypes, put a to this issue, and talk about it in ways that people could understand and see themselves. what we have seen and heard with all the coverage on television and appreciation to beyoncé, who has pushed the report into spheres i did not even know existed, and so many other people, is what we have heard in all of the responses to nbc, and this is my story, this is my story. my story is not about the glass ceiling him and not about the c suite, it is about the foundation and how i shore it up. it is not a story against men but including men. fors a story that is good boys, girls, for women in particular, about the incredible

struggles that they face, to be breadwinners, caretakers, and caregivers. to be good mothers, daughters, citizens, workers. >> watch the entire event tonight at 9:00 eastern here on c-span. and on our companion network, 3, maryland governor martin o'malley's state of the state address. c-span today at noon on 3. americansnately, many -- some because of their poverty and some because of their color, and all too many goods of both. help replaceo

their despair with opportunity, and this administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in america. >> looking back at five date notable five decades of state of the union addresses, from lbj to george w. bush. part of american history tv this weekend on c-span3. that all leads up to barack obama's on a 14 state of the union address, live tuesday. a federal commission for improving the voting experience presented its recommendations yesterday. among their advice, updating aging voting machines, which for.states have budgeted

the presidential commission on election administration was set up by president obama last year. this is an hour and 15 minutes. with ae a couple ofith thanks. for putting this together for us. which we very much appreciate. toondly, to thank but also tell you who they were, the commissioners and our research director. the hacks., we are the other commissioners were made up of five election professionals and three members of the private sector and private industry. they, chris thomas is elections director of the state of michigan. texasrked for the secretary of state and ran elections in texas for 16 years. trey race in was the secretary

is now theyson director of the institute of politics at harvard. and tammy patrick is the federal compliance officer in maricopa county. -- a professor of par exelon's -- at stanford university. we also had three folks from the private sector with us -- joe echevarria, michelle coleman mayes, general counsel of the new york city public library, allstate general counsel and another -- a number of other fortune 500 companies for a number of years. and brian, who when he started on the commission was -- i will

get the title slightly wrong, but he ran theme parks for disney. because if you are going to mess around with lines, you ought to have a guy from disney there. his best line of the whole commission was after we were talking about long lines and polling places, he just kind of shakes his head and goes, "you mean, they don't even have a concession stand when you're done?" [laughter] so we sort of got to mix both professional expertise and a bit of humor in this. where we came at the commission from is bob and i have a somewhat checkered history for a lot of years in beating each other about the head and shoulders from opposite sides of various political wars. not least among them, recounts. and recounts were particularly instructed to me. and i think to bob in this process because when you go through a recount, you see that

the election system has some real flaws in beneath the veneer of what we think of elections as. so being able to fix those fundamental flaws where you don't have to come at it from a democratic or republican perspective is what animated this commission. the whole agenda of what's known as voting and voting rights is far broader than this commission is charged with doing. but in this sticking with our charge, i think we've been able to come up with a series of recommendations and best practices that is going to make the voting experience better for american voters on a bipartisan basis. both republicans and democrats agree that every legally qualified voter should be able to cast his and her ballot without undue obstacles. now, we get into disagreements on some other things. but on that core fundamental

principle, there's agreement. that's what animated us. bob mentioned the one size does not fit all which we take as a truism. the reality in looking at a report like this is that elections are administered by 8,000 separate jurisdictions around the country. and that's an overwhelming number of jurisdictions who put on elections with volunteers who by and large have not received a whole lot of training and expect uniformity in elections. and that's sort of a builtin -- a built-in contradiction in what we do and how we do our elections. a lot of the report's recommendations and best practices are aimed at that. so let me go through a few of the top lines and then turn it over to nate for some others.

one thing that we saw across the political spectrum, albeit from different reasons, is that people on the left and the right believe that there should be accurate voter registration lists. from the righthand point of view it's important because that makes sure that only legally qualified voters get to vote and go into polling places. from the left's point of view, it's important because it helps to find out who are potentially registered voters, who are not registered. if you don't, you have clean lists, lines at polling places are less likely to occur. so on both sides that's a goal. so there are a couple of specific recommendations to try and help realize that. one is that we urge the adoption in states that don't have it now of online registration. it is a system that provides increased accuracy because the voter is filling out the forms without having government clerks somewhere key punching in information. it's a much more efficient system. tammy can tell you how much the state of arizona has saved by

doing online registration and how its efficiencies it's much more accurate overall in terms of what the lists end up looking like. so that's a laudable goal and recommendation that we adopt. secondly, there are a couple of national programs out there in which some states are participating to help clean up their voter lists and compare the lists between states. so we do endorse the interstate voter crosscheck program as well as the electronic registration and information center. both of these groups allow the states to compare their lists so that of their own initiative they can prepare better, more accurate lists. we do look at military and overseas voting, particularly military members serving overseas. there have been improvements in that area in the last few years,

but certainly more seems to be done. there are a number of recommendations about what states can do primarily with their websites to make to reduce the barriers to voting for military and overseas voters, a lot of website improvements and reforms in gathering of best practices. on that score, there are also some simple fixes with the federal registration forms that will make things more uniform and clearer to the states. another subject in which the commission felt the need to shine a really bright spotlight is the state of voting technology in this country. the reality is virtually all the machines in the country were purchased in 2003 with hava money, as a result of the florida recount, i might add.

and those machines are about to wear out. simply put, their shelf life is about to expire. so there's not federal money, there's not $3billion federal appropriation on the horizon. and we heard again and again from state and local administrators that their jurisdictions have not started budgeting to fill that gap. so that is going to be a problem every bit as great as what we swore after florida was never going to happen again. it just is sort of an undiscussed subject now. so we hope that we can get that conversation going a bit. part of the voting technology crisis is that we did not meet a single state or local administrator who said, god, i love my voting machines, i only wish we could keep them forever. in fact, we did not run into a state or local administrator who liked his or her voting machines and thought they were good. the reality is there's a huge

gap and lack of development in new voting equipment, that voting equipment simply has not kept up with the technology we have come to rely on in our everyday lives. there are any number of reasons for that. but primary among them is that the standards and certifications process has completely broken down. they're using standards senate -- standards set in 2005 and 2007. that was before there were ipads. so there's a bit of a gap. it's currently housed in the e.a.c. there is not a bright prospect for the e.a.c. to be resurrected anytime soon. we disagree some about the truism of that statement and the methods for it. but in reality, it has become a political quagmire not likely to be fixed. whatever political solution there is to fix the e.a.c. or

get rid of the e.a.c., something's got to be done about the certification process and standards process in the e.a.c. those machines are going to wear out most likely before there's any solution to the more global question of the e.a.c. with that, i'd like to turn it over to nate for some other highlights in the report. >> as bob mentioned, one thing the executive order does is it doesn't just describe the problems but also describes some specific populations that are affected by impediments to vote or dixies in voting. -- or difficulties in voting. military and overseas voters, voters with disabilities, and limited and english proficiency voters. with respect to military voters, we looked at the websites of states, through research that was done by some outside groups to show the we wouldful state of

-- to show the woeful state of state websites in if getting information to military voters to assist them in voting. there was also a lot on military voting to the way the act and other pieces of legislation have not really been complied with. secondly, with respect to voters with disabilities, and with limiting english proficiency voters, the commission endorses having advisory groups for local jurisdictions in order to get them to get these groups in the process early to help them meet the needs of those communities. as well as audits of polling places to make sure that they're accessible and to really the commission's report puts a primer on making sure that each part of the voting process is accessible. i should say, based on the testimony we heard from voters with disabilities as well as meetings we had, we took the approach in the report of not

just sort of singling out, although there are some special recommendations for voters with disabilities and limited english proficiency, but the recommendations, whether you're talking about the lines recommendations or the other ones, the technology, we look at them but from the perspective of so the general population but also how it's going to affect specific populations. so take something like the recommendation that we have chairs at polling places so that voters if they're waiting online, don't have to stand up. but that also has a particular effect for voters with disabilities. so with regard to the specific populations. one other aspect, particular to voters with disabilities but has a greater effect nationwide, is the disappearance of schools as polling places. ben mentioned the looming crisis with respect to voting technology. there also is this looming crisis with the decline in the number of schools that are serving as polling places. and that is because of the wake of the sandy hook massacre. there are all kinds of school

boards that are closing themselves off from outsiders who are not, say, you know, students or teachers. and that has effects on elections. something that's happening sort of outside the electoral sphere, that's having an effect on elections. and schools are the most ubiquitous and accessible polling places out there. and if it you lose schools, you lose a huge number of polling places. and that's something that we try to draw our attention to. schools that are concerned about security issues, we encourage states and localities to adopt inservice days for teachers on those days so that there's not a sort of security/election tradeoff. finally, the commission endorses expanded opportunities to vote before election day, whether that is no excuse absentee voting or in person early voting. it was unanimous among those who testified whether a democrat or a republican, that channeling all of the election into one day just magnifies the potential for administrative disaster.

so while there are good ways and bad ways to do early voting as well as absentee votings, and there are cautions in the report about things that look what administrators have to pay attention to. it was clear regardless of party affiliation that the localities were endorsing early and absentee voting. let me just conclude by saying that there is more than the report. as bob mentioned, there are these online tools that we are publicizing. some of these are ones that will allow local officials to manage the resources and to combat the problem of lines. others, which were popularized by rock the vote, are online voter registration tools that are opensource and downloadable so that local and state officials can use them. there are 26 appendices online at supportthevoter.gov. one of them, appendix z, includes a survey of local

election officials that was performed and given to the commission of over 3,000 local election officials so that we could see what their concerns were. so i'm fond of saying this was more than a report. it's a project. it will have a life beyond this commission. and we look forward to going out into the field and advocating for it. >> i think it might be helpful overton?is spencer have our commissioners and this is obviously your forum, so we should do as you wish. but to have our commissioners have an opportunity to comment on what we just said and then open it up. does that work for you? >> sounds great. >> tammy, did you have any initial thoughts you'd like to offer? >> i guess just to say that this whole process has been such a privilege and an honor to serve with my colleagues on the commission. what was really critical to me was to make sure that the voice of the local administrator was

heard. and in the context of how elections are administered, what those administrative decisions are as an impact on our voting population. one of the things that we talked about throughout the course of the last six months, although it seems much longer and much shorter than six months, was that when you have a useable system that takes use ability into account at all levels, whether it's access or registration, the ability to obtain a ballot that you can understand, it really raises the tide and all boats rise with it. so it was really important for us to make sure that we include when you read this, some of it, if you're not familiar with election administration, is going to sound like we are so far down in the weeds. and we are. but then there are also bigpicture ideas in here as well. we're just very hopeful, as i believe has already been mentioned that some of these

recommendations can be put in place. they're already in place in some areas of the country. and so we know that they can be work when applied correctly. -- we know that they can work when applied correctly. >> i would echo what tammy has said. almost everything we have in here has been implemented somewhere. is in a good working order, and does have applicability to other jurisdictions around the country. i am one on the commission who does believe that there is a commonality between jurisdictions. election day, as reports indicate, we're down looking at a polling place, a precinct. and the voting machine, a good solid, accurate list, and everything that goes along with that. and this whole effort has been enhancing the experience of the voter. and really that's where it begins, at that level. obviously there's a lot behind it. i very strongly endorse the professionalization of election

administration. it is a profession even though politicians may be those that we answer to, it is a profession that needs to find its way into public administration in a more formal sense. that it's not just learning on the job but that there's actually much that can be brought from the academic community. so it's been a great experience. i've been around for a number of years. i've been director of elections since 1981 in michigan. it's amazing. you learn so much when you see what's going on around the country. at every hearing i learn something new. so it's a great field. there's lots there. >> thanks very much for having us today. i don't have too much to add really. i guess one comment i would make is that this is really this is not intended to be filed as a bill necessarily. it may result in legislation, but it's really intended for voters to read as well.

so there are a lot of great ideas in here. and we would hope you would ask your election officials and hold them accountable to some of the benchmarks that are in this report. i hope it is helpful. >> i guess i'll conclude by saying a lot of times we have seen media reports and hear elected official and politicians, and i used to be one and i run an institute that still deals with politics. and we fight a lot about how our elections should be run. and to me one of the most important takeaways is we had a commission of 10 people who voted vote differently, who hae different ideological views, is but have found common ground on a bunch of ideas that i guarantee you will make our voting system work a lot better if they're implemented across the country in local jurisdictions and in state jurisdictions. my biggest takeaway is that this report doesn't gather dust, that its recommend,s are adopted, -- that its recommendations are adopted, that those who read it,

those who care about elections, regular citizens, will ask their elected officials, ask their election administrators, to adopt these. and let's stop fighting partisan political games. and let's focus on making elections work better. and this is a good manual to help do just that. >> before we turn it over, i just want to conclude this segment by saying, because trey ended on the note about partisanship and being able to transcend it. the we looked at public administration as our guidance and the expectations of voters across the political spectrum as the light that we had to continue if we keep our eye on it. it's a standard that we needed to continually worry about. but as ben said at the outset, bin ginsburg and i, i don't know if we've ever voted the same way. before you sort of turned to the dark side, you may have -- before, as he puts it, he

matured. [laughter] what we are going to go off and fight each other more now. it is what we do. we are going to be fighting continuously. but i cannot thank them enough, acknowledge the agreement. but keeping in mind the sanders standards -- the standards that guided the report and had the extraordinary support of the commission, i think we were able to get something done. with that, we will open it up. venue for discussions, bringing together stakeholders, and we cannot thank them enough. so with that, we will open it up? >> we are going to open it up for questions and discussion.

>> we were talking about having recommendations that we hope the election officials will read and take to heart and implement and where necessary, some of these things may involve legislative change. i was wondering if there may be any outreach to county legislators for the implementation of some of these recommendations and what form that outreach would take. >> in general, everyone on the commission, we want to become evangelists for this project. so in general, we want to go talk to people. to ncsl. to an csl -- that is our goal going forward.

to go to the same group's that are decision-makers. we would love to be on the agenda to talk about that. on the respective states, we want to engage local legislative leaders. ,> and we have implementation we have to find interest on the federal level. we do recommend engaging with allstate legislators. like, for example, the availability of polling places in the roles that schools are playing. huge issue, very controversial in some respects, but he needs to be thought through and we will be happy to engage with the decision-makers. >> we will be visiting next month with the national association of secretaries of state and the national association state election directors when they have their washington meeting. i thought people used to have meetings, apparently now they s.ve convening's

>> you brought up the issue currently with the eac, and i was wondering whether you found any of the problems coming from the fact that their current not -- there currently are not any commissioners. -- you couldcan take the first shot. [laughter] >> we took the situation around the eac. certain support, for example the best practices. we found them extraordinarily helpful. we have read through them and we include them in our appendices and cite them in our report. so the eac has done some good work. areconflicts about which we not as a commission expected to his present opinion that have

left the eac without the current ability to function, we have to take it as a given when we look at something like the impending crisis. you can have the view that he wanted to be in the current form, strengthened or abandoned altogether, but you have to accept as a given that in the meantime while the issue gets played out, we are falling further and further behind the curve in attending to what we need in the way of voting technology to administer elections. so obviously the condition of the eac at any given point was -- is going to set issues up. it does not mean all of us share the same view. machine technology there is an issue that needs to be addressed. there needs to be significant

alternatives for machine certification purposes. >> i basically agree with that. it has become a problem and fixing the problem is beyond what we can do as a commission. the machines are going to run out of time to operate as machines before the eac gets fixed. you have to do something else to move the technology forward in the short run. >> yes. >> [inaudible] >> again, the business of telling congress what it should or should not do is thankfully outside our charge.

we hope they will read the reports. we will be glad to brief and then leave it there. >> there are eight thousand jurisdictions that actually administer elections. this is historically a state and local function. virtually everything we are talking about implementing here has to be done at the state and local level, i think. >> regarding that very point, do you think the recommendation that would help with the long lines, such as providing a polling place resource formula in florida should be taken at the local level or state level? the problem is there are 57 different counties. thank you so much for your recommendation. should they be appointed at the state level so there is a consistency and a bigger impact?

>> as a native floridian -- in miami. elections are in my blood. the way these formulas work, and there are three different ones. we are not putting our finger on one in particular, is that you have to assess how long it takes to vote. you have to have the number of machines and number of people you can put there. those variables -- it will depend on the state but will often be contingent upon the county. the formula they use, it really just depends on the type of voting tech knowledge he you are using. or -- technology you are using. for the state to mandate, it might be counterproductive because it is not sensitive to the differences within counties.

in other states, where they have more uniform architecture, those types of formulas will work out any more uniform way. one of the things as you play around with them online, you will see they do somewhat different things. i encourage you to look at the third one on the tools. this will predict for you how long lines will be if you only put two voting machines and three staff in a polling place and expect this many people to come throughout the day. it really does depend on a lot of the other aspects of the ecosystem. we put them out there for them to be improved. we have six months to do this. different states are going to take the open source software and try to improve upon it. that is our goal. florida we hope would do that as

well. >> we did have hearings in miami in june and not july -- and not january, unfortunately. we had the county officials in charge of voting in all of the counties that had the major lines. one of them had a really long us, i guessd to turn out exactly on the nose. if you can figure that out, how do you end up having lines at the polling places? it wasn't just at the polling places. the counties in florida, where there were long lines was a very small percentage, less than one percent of the actual polling places in the counties that have lines. about 100% of the reporters were -- but not 100% of the voters.

that is a question of having individual polling places where the resources were not allocated properly. or not having a big enough facility to handle things. if you are an election administrator, you will be closest to seeing how many registrations you have in the month before the election and figure out how to allocate resources. if you have 100 machines and say i will put 10 in each polling place, that is probably not a sound administrative decision because you will have a different number of voters at each of those 10 places. i am not sure that a state can manage that function. to do it right, then granularity of detail has to be folks on the ground in the location. >> if i were the secretary of state now, i would want to train

on these and expose the county clerks to all three of these. one of my former county clerk came to the cincinnati hearing and was ecstatic to have this tool. he said this is great, i will use this in my next election. kentucky is a state that is very decentralized. it would be hard to mandate, but not hard to train. the other part is for voters to know they are out there, readily accessible, and if they are not being used, to raise a stink. highlight some of the administrators that are not taking advantage of the resources out there. there is a bit of a voter and advocate responsibility as well. that is another part of this. something will be mandated as a result, but some will just be through advocacy. >> i think it will be crucial for states to take a real lead

to make sure this is imposed across the state. not necessarily imposing one tool over another. if we are going to shoot for a 30 minute standard, there is a lot of work that has to be done to get there. as someone pointed out earlier today -- it was always the other guy having a problem, not the person testifying. there is a sense that people except what they are doing as ok, and that is not always the case. there is a state role here, but bottom line, the local units are the ones that will have to apply it and use it. >> certain states like arizona and kansas to enact more stringent voter registration for

their state. i was wondering if that was an issue you have looked at and if you will draw conclusions on it. >> the current issues around arizona? we did not address that issue in the report. >> thank you for having us all here and noting the mvra is the least complied with voting rights statute. my states are also recommending the dmv seamlessly incorporate voter registration for these other elements. i wonder, why did you stop from also recognizing that public service agencies do an important job transacting with eligible

voters, also seamlessly transition information and also, the federal aca and other of the medicaid exchanges? >> i think there is reference to the public service agencies. my role was to make problems for dmv's. [laughter] >> you always said do your job. >> it is really simple, do your job. the same goes for the agency registration. there is reference in there -- we highlighted the dmv because it crosses so many populations within a state. just about every population is hit there in some form or another. this law needs to be implemented. there are organizations that actively seek implementation through enforcement and other nefarious means such as courts. there is nobody out there doing

that with regard to the dmv. you can look at the data, and it clearly shows most states are not doing their job in that regard. a number of applications well -- are well under 50% in most states. any state that is doing this as enacted would be well above 50%. that is something that hits every population. but in no way meant to diminish the public agency position. >> you mentioned specific populations that have ballot issues. military voters, limited english. i was wondering if you had found any racial or socioeconomic disparities in ballot access, and if you did, did you consider

any proposal to target those populations? >> the context in which we discussed enforcement of the particular statutes was a context in which we have very specific requirements for the protection of those populations of voters that need improved enforcement and compliance. beyond that, i think it is fair to say our view is -- for the populations you are talking about and others -- the implementation would be highly beneficial. i think everyone is aware in presidential election years you are going to find some of the break downs in jurisdictions where voters in the socioeconomic range you are referring to reside. and we believe they will pose a significant difference to access.

>> why did the commission not say anything about voter id laws? does that mean it is not recommended or did you find that to be not part of -- >> there are certain federal and state matters. they are not within our charge to address. that, and a few others like voting rights act enforcement and amendments, were not ones for which the commission expressed an opinion. >> thank you for doing the briefing and report. you say you want to be evangelists for this project, which is great. you also said you received , unanimously, the advice from election administrations that expanding early voting was a key way of expanding lines and

generally improving generally. there are efforts to reduce rather than expand early voting opportunities. i understand you do not want to get into political advocacy, but given what you have found in the report, can we count on you to pose and condemn those efforts? [laughter] >> the report does not get into the business of individual states in terms of what they may choose or not choose to do. early voting is something that is prevalent in the majority of states. 32 states plus the district of columbia have early absentee voting. 25 of those states have republican governors or secretaries, so there is bipartisan agreement in those

states. , plus the states district of columbia, have early, in person voting. there is no excuse for absentee voting. 21 states have republican governors or chief election officers. early voting is something that is taken flight in the country as a whole, but it is up to the individual states to decide the days and times and to allocate resources as they see fit. >> in the scope of the recommendation, it is also setting standards and expectations. they have an arrangement, and that is what they think for a n election day process. our position is the traditional model for the entire country to

vote in the presidential election, and there are a number of options they have to provide the additional opportunities to vote. i think voters expect them. i think there will be a significant accountability to provide them. i think that is what we're trying to push forward, the notion that whatever ends up happening there is significant fallout or that day. >> for jurisdictions that do shift through the earlier. -- through the earlier period. they do not reduce the services they are making available to voters to dramatically. you can reduce, but you do not want to do so in such a fashion that now you are great being a bottleneck on election day and maybe still have long lines during the early voting time. there is certainly cautionary

tales on how the early voting is done, how it affects your voting process on election day as well. >> one real specific question, whether there were any particular ideas you had not heard about a year ago that we should hear about today -- a nifty new thing the commission learned and you expect to move across the country. and the broader resolution in the fact that we maybe repeating some of the same problems. if yo2 election, in 2000 we would have had a very similar unsatisfying outcome. what do you think you are recommending here that in 2024 we will not be in a similar

position? what are we not getting to that you might be getting to? >> let's talk first about what we learned, what was nifty as you put it. the extent of the voting technology crisis is not something i appreciated as the front end of this crisis. this is all groups involved which is to say the vendors and others that the process is broken to certify new technology and there is a real risk of massive, simultaneous breakdown in jurisdictions. so many machines are aging and reaching the end of the natural life at the same time. that was something i did not

quite appreciate that the beginning. the second was the point i mentioned before and serious reduction in polling places as a result of that. both of the points are related to the early voting. if you are losing machines and polling places, you have to expand the amount of time people are going to vote so you can get them through the process before election day. this is an honest assessment, i hope you will agree, about the problems people have been paying attention to and the problems on the horizon. it is possible these problems will get worse, not better. an example of those situations where things might be getting worse. in thinking about the nifty points, looking at the technology and the changes that are possible, we had a whole day

of a hearing in cincinnati where we looked at the different type of voting machines -- voting machines possible, so the commission enforce those to facilitate -- endorsed to facilitate voting. so we are pushing in that direction and ways that maybe would not have expected. >> perfect. one of the things that is very exciting that experts in the field of usability, accessibility, computer experts have been working on is shifting where the ballet gets cast. it embeds your choices and selections. you go into a polling place.

you are able to scan the code and on the screen tells you what you have already select it. -- selected. you can either cast the balance by printing it out or taking it over to have it scanned in. this cuts the amount of time people are spending and a dash spending in the polling place. -- spending in the polling place. this type of technology can be used by military and overseas voters and used at home. across-the-board, would shift some of the voting but not the casting of the talent away away from theot polling place. it alleviates security issues because of voters verifying what is being done. there is still concerns about qr code usage. these are the things that need to be completely fleshed out.

there is a lot of excitement there. when you talk about the communities that are perhaps underserved, you do not want to shift everything to online. not everyone has online resources. when you look at the research the percentage of the population , that has some sort of smart device in their pocket is forever increasing. it is what the younger voters are demanding of us. i think we need to think about how we will be marking the ballot, casting the ballots and having it be counted in the next 10-20 years. i think that is very exciting. >> what i would say, i think about the opportunity we have, given the rise of technology. the fast processing speed, the cheapness of processors and data. also, the defense of some of the other commissions. after the 2000 election, most states did not have a single

wide voter registration database. out of the first commission came that. i found it flabbergasting. it was striking it did not exist. the ability with technology, onlineeed, to do the voter registration, to have an ipod and a polling place, there is a real opportunity of technology that did not exist. that is something that my top hope is that we can really accelerate that. there is momentum behind it and is truly bipartisan. that is something that could not have been done after the 2004 elections. >> something i had very little

appreciation for was helped to be tutored on was the lack of uniform data collection. you would think that would not be difficult to collect and i would have assumed you could just figure out in a uniform way . not true at all. one of the things we call for in the report is a much more uniform way to gather the data to be able to assess the problems and address it. >> the number of young people that vote lags behind. i am wondering if any of the recommendations you look that would try to deal with the question of how and where young people get their ideas. the other thing, i wanted to pick up on what was just said,

with the electronic database, did you look at the question of statewide portability as a way to limit the election day problems? >> on the first part of the question, i think the general modernization will go a long way to helping out voters. he argues part of the reason why you see much younger people turnout is that the data is so bad. they are registered to vote but are not really there, they are somewhere else. we also have a very mobile population anyway. they use technology. to the extent we can make up -- make that process work better, i think that will help. we may never get to the point of

equality, but i think that will go a long way. as the portability of data, other than the context -- that would be addressed to that. >> one reason people vote is the mobile population. -- is they are the most mobile population. we require you to register each time you move. they are moving every year or two. because we require re-registration each time you move, the barrier will affect some more than others. the more you can get the registration problem solved, if you can make it as easy as possible and merge it with other databases and make sure it is as fluid as possible, the more likely it is those populations will also register.

in respect to other things that lead to lower turnout that is beyond the scope of turnout. -- turnout, registration is a large part of it. >> we do have recommendations in here in regards to the recruitment of whole workers. jurisdictions that have had the ability to recruit 15 and 17-year-old, they are of the age of voters. i have done some research looking to see, are they more likely to register at the point they turn 18 and when they register, do they vote? not only that, but is the frequency of voting more than the counterparts who did not serve as the polls? it is all very positive results. once you get them engaged and understand what the process is, we found that they continue to be current and recurrent voters.

>> speaking of the younger voter, has it been discussed to have an electronic polling ability where if i am in virginia i can still boast in my -- still vote in my home state of michigan or their are too -- or are there too many cyber security concerns to have people beaming their votes over 800 miles on the internet? >> in a poll place where you take the qr code and swiped the driver's license and says michigan 12th district. >> i think we talked a little bit about voting centers him up -- but not to that extent. the next commission. >> just to follow-up on the early voting question, getting into details. is it fair to say the commission is encouraging states that did not provide any course of

absentee voting? >> we will not provide -- we are urging states to absolutely consider and adopt those. >> it may not be no excuse. it maybe in person. >> it could be male. >> we have mentioned a little bit about the locations they have expanded early voting options to not reduce polling places to dramatically on election day. we also include administrative procedures that do vote by mail. making sure they have the ability to track their ballot to using the united states postal code, in addition to the ability to go into a polling place and drop off a ballot. there are a variety of very commonsense approaches for the

voter to have power over watching where the ballot is in the system, and for local election administrators to make sure they know you are at the close of the deadline to pick up every single eligible ballot at the very last minute and take it back to your office. >> that point stands on its own. the more of the forms divided, the better. as ben said, they may arrive at different conclusions for how much or whether this gives the voters as many opportunity to vote on election day as possible. >> at any point did you identify a role that the federal election commission could play in advancing or addressing illegals you sent out, particularly on

the absence of the forum on the eac? >> we did not address the federal election commission with the care, caution, and respect required. i know there are former commissioners in the audience here. all of them were wonderful commissioners and did a great job. >> in the aftermath of the last presidential election, there were certain areas that may be underserved in areas of government and certain populations were impacted more than other populations. is that something you look into and if so, were you able to come down to reasons why certain areas have longer lines than others? >> i may not have fully answer

ed the last time around, but in looking at different reasons why you might have long lines, there is no question that issues of arying between jurisdictions can have an impact . in some cases, multiple factors contribute to the long line problems. we are confident if you take this particular recommendations, it will significantly collapse the different experiences that voters have. regardless of whether it is an urban location or rural location. people have an equalizing impact in achieving improvement across the class of voters. election administrators we talk to would agree with that. >> you have mentioned several times in your individual different outlooks and i was

wondering if individual commissioners you had felt limited and had come up with these unanimous bipartisan recommendations. i was wondering if you felt limited as individuals that maybe you would have had stronger recommendations to make or if you had to make recommendations that you did not agree on and if that felt limiting or by narrowing the focus you felt you could focus more with better ideas? >> i do not think the focus was narrow. i think there are millions of voters who would have an experience casting a vote would be different and better if these are adapted. i think these if the question you're asking is if i thought about all the voting rights

issues in the united states and i were entirely in charge of them you would be entertained. would i write a report? no, probably not. because we cannot agree on everything, does not mean looking at an issue in a particular way we have accomplished anything less. we still will be ringing about -- there are five lines long. set aside the provisional ballot that ended up being a huge issue and how that relates to inaccuracies. the whole host of issues we can talk about. machines that are not working. let's just take lines. that data suggest there are 10 million voters in the united states who waited in line.

five of them longer than half an hour. 5 million longer than an hour. we are trying to do something for those voters. we are trying to do something for disabled voters, military voters. we are trying to reduce disparity among jurisdictions so that you do not have some that are running smoothly and are wealthy and others that are crippled by resources and so forth. so i think we were all really committed to voters here, and i do not think it means that we cannot solve every problem in the elect world process, but the ones that we are defining as issues of federal administration that affect millions of voters, we were able to find common ground on. >> i would like to give the president credit for for giving us a lot of issues to address , but leaving out a couple that we probably would agree.

that was great direction by defining in such a way, we got a great report that is full of a lot of ideas and details that will make a big difference. >> i want to say one thing that's not to assume the most controversial are also the most consequential. these recommendations will affect millions, tens of millions of voters. you modernize the registration system, if you can crack the code, it will have downstream payoffs. obviously dealing with long lines, we have the data from the last election. getting more information about what is happening in the polling places could have future payoffs -- could have huge payoffs. an accurate picture

of the types of problems going forward, let alone the machine issues that are of real concern. if you weigh the importance of an issue not by how much airtime it is getting but how many voters it will be affecting, these are the issues that will have a serious impact. >> i apologize for not reading the report front to back to know the answer to this, but did you look at emergency planning, especially in the wake of the election in virginia? >> we looked at it carefully. in fact, what is already out there does a really good job of highlighting that issue. it is all contained in the appendix. the national association of secretaries of state has a particularly good program. we were impressed by what others had done before and did not need to add to that. >> one thing that is in the body

of the report is that they will start specifying what the contingency plans are so that in the event of a disaster, sometimes the ball will just drop and you will not have an answer. the same with having someone in charge to make the call to whether an election has to be rescheduled. there is a specific report that would point people to. >> first responders came from all over the country. giving the first responders flexibility getting them to vote absentee is a no excuse state. we all thought sandy would go to new jersey, whatever, they need help as well. >> that was really critical. many states already have in place where if the issue hits

their own state, they have a new -- they have it in place on what will happen in their state. in arizon, we send people to the east coast. there was a real moment where we talked about not only has to happen if the date of the election is impacted, but infrastructure is impacted. it is really critical everyone have a contingency plan in place and a plan for each, f, and g as e, f, and g as well. >> can you talk about recommendations for military. >> first, we have made great strides with the move asked. there are still challenges. one of them is that if you are a military voter in trying to figure out how to register and

vote, going to a state website will often not be unveiling to you. so we go through in detail what the states need to do in terms of improving websites to facilitate voting by military and overseas voters. second, if you talk to military and overseas voters, it is clear to them that different states are implementing this in different ways. the federal post card application, which is supposed to be a failsafe, are meaning different things in different states. so you have to get uniformity in that regard to make sure to soldiers are not having different roles applied to them. -- different rules applied to them. then, there are other aspects of the recommendation that have a

disproportionate value, something like online voter registration is obviously better for those further away from the polling place, etc. all of those are examples of the recommendations that we make with respect to military and overseas voters. one thing we have heard is the installation assistance officers -- installation putting assistance officers are uneven participation at the basis so , so that youes need to integrate this into the intake process for soldiers when they go to the bases so that they can register as seamlessly as possible. >> i was wondering if you could speak a little bit about the work you did looking at poll workers. the only thing i have heard is the recruitment of 16 and 17-year-olds. i was wondering watch research went into the aspect of that and specific jurisdiction.

>> we had a long list of recommendations in reference to the recruitment training, retention of poll workers and a lot of it to be -- to the election commission, which has quick start guide on these very issues. a few of these had to do with recruitment of not only 16 and 17-year-olds sponsorship of polling places. many times groups and organizations, whether it is a business or lions club will do this and will provide the poll workers for you, as well as recruiting within our own states and government. then when we get into the training, making sure -- across the country there are some jurisdictions where the first time you worked the polls he received training and never have to do it again. the other jurisdiction is you

have to be trained for every election with which you work. there is a frequency, the quality, the duration. we have tried to touch on all of those. it is all going to be available in the appendices as well for jurisdictions to look at and improve training and coupled with that, we recommend states take a look at the training being done by the localities in the jurisdiction of the state if they currently do not have anything to do with the training to make sure there is uniformity from one jurisdiction to the next. in a statewide recount, that is where any discrepancies will come to light. it is best to have uniform training practices being implemented. >> if you would like to comment in detail on the report, it will

-- will your website have a report where people can send in comments so people can follow up with their thoughts about it and experiences. it would seem to be a useful thing. >> there is a place on the website and you can e-mail anyone of us. there is a comments section that is still running. a good month to go or maybe longer. >> if your website will be a resource and you have these various tools, it seems the comment section should continue to comment as they try out the suggestions to see if they work in the real world. >> that is why the tools are hosted at the technology project website. let's be clear about what the tools are and what we think the future is. they need to be tailored to jurisdiction.

these are the first outlays of them. they are encouraging to send -- encouraging people to send identifying information and will you will see that on the website. >> was there any suggestion to what that would entail or more of a blanket good idea to ask and early voting? >> a good suggestion. understanding voters to not want to be limited to the 12 hours of the initial election day without specifying early voting should include two weekends. there are wide differences of opinion. as a part of the commission report, the main point is you cannot administer elections

appropriately by asking them to vote on that one day. you need to provide multiple opportunities for voting. there are obviously other forms that could be provided as well. that is the approach we talked about. >> one thing we're talked about is universal settings. a highlight is the issue with the postal service and the future of six-day week mail and what that means for voting. we really did not weigh in on what that means, other than it is a concern. some states are all vote by mail, some by mail and a level of absentee balloting. the rate of which books get lost -- the rate at which votes get lost is really really high. there are lots of concerns about the residual votes where the absentee ballots are higher. something people can think about

as we go through the challenge that will impact elections. >> you mentioned there is a lack of online resources for military and overseas voters. did you find a lack of online resources for the voting public as a whole, and what kind of recommendations do you have for what state websites can include on the website to make voting more acceptable process? >> we provide a some of that commentary and a field guide. it is included in the appendices about how to design and make manageable your local and state election websites. our usability expert who has developed these field guides. one is a state voter website. >> you mentioned states that have gone to all mail voting.

was there discussion among the commissioners and the testimony received in the report about the virtue of each state retaining as one option the voting day , the first tuesday after the first monday, retaining that one day for voting because of the civic virtues value of having that opportunity to exercise that one day. talked about not reducing the resources needed for that one day. some of us feel it is very important to have the one-day and that going to all mail is a mistake. i was wondering if you discussed that. >> we do not call it the aberration of election day.

i wanted to take that firm stand. i talked to ben out of it. the second thing is we do not critique. we raise all sorts of issues about the vulnerability from the postal system and what that says about potential problems, but we certainly do not critique all mail ballots in oregon or washington state. we are talking about administering election day properly. your comment was very much echoed by the secretary of state of new hampshire who came to a hearing. he said he had no intention of ever supporting early voting because he thought the people of new hampshire gained an enormous amount of all showing up at the same day to the polling place. he was quite strong about that.

that cuts against the grain of our recommendation. we will see what happens in new hampshire over time. our view is much of what we're talking about is not just specific to this administration but what voters are talking about. >> we did have one of our hearings in denver. colorado, just recently, passed a very interesting piece of legislation that does everything. they had so many voters are ready voting by mail. they have moved to the position where everyone can go to any ballot center within their county. they can vote another ballot there because it is all tied into the central office. do a day of votes because they are tied into the centralized database. very interesting and exciting what they are doing in colorado. it will be interesting to see how that plays out.

this has mushroomed up in other places around the country. it will be interesting to see what the new paradigm will do. >> thank you very much. we appreciate your coming. i also noticed and wanted to recognize john of the bipartisan policy center. thank you for coming out today. [applause] >> we will take you live to the conference of mayors. this one is with shaun donovan. he is the mayor of newton, massachusetts. we will talk about the administrative priorities in housing development. able to talk to a wide

audience this morning. we have a few items on our agenda this morning. i want to begin with secretary donovan and then we're going to hear from city community development director and then we will hear from the brookings institute. risenree speakers have tatian's and question and answer andave presentations question and answers. i am going to start with secretary donovan, and then we will move to our agenda. know hownote, you all funds are.dbg

i want to get this out before we start the meeting. we are pleased with the good 14 for cdbgal year funding. it is up for -- up to all of us to be aggressive in talking to members of congress and the senate about how important this program is. i want to mention two things that we're going to be asking committee members to participate in between now and the spring. this year is the 40th anniversary of cdbg funds. it is one of the most successful programs in history as far as funding and economic development at the local level, with mayors. we want to make sure we communicate with the country.

what we are going to be asking you to do is to commit to cdbgighting successful projects or outcomes in your community between now and may. are in our committee meeting in las vegas, we have a website where we are asking you to upload highlights from those events as well as the community partners that help make cdbg so successful. we want you to upload that on our webpage on the u.s. conference of mayors. notice with out a the particular details for follow-up. this will culminate with an event on capitol hill that we

will do in the spring. i am announcing that now. . want to get your commitments i will stop you before you walk out of the room and make sure that you join us for that. we have to protect this program. with that, as i said, the good .ews is that cdbg is funded the house appropriations committee had recommended funding for cdbg at $1.6 billion. we are pleased that that did not happen. all of this work that we have done in collaboration is important in the implementation of funds. in introducing secretary shaun donovan, he has been a fantastic partner to all of us.

his door is always open, he is very accessible. we areushing what pushing, outcome and innovation with the use of these funds. it has been a pleasure working with you, secretary. andow many of the mayors solving problems at the ground level, we are proud -- glad that you are here. i will introduce secretary shaun donovan. thank you for being here. very much appreciate it. [applause] >> thank you. it is great to be back with all of you. i want to start by thanking setti for his incredible leadership. we have spent a lot of time together. not just through his leadership of this committee, but also, i got a call from him saying i found this innovative thing, what you think about it -- he is not just talking the talk, he is walking the walk on doing things

that are innovative and new. i want to thank you, setti for your leadership. i am always impressed with what you are doing in your town, too. i see lots of familiar faces around the table. see some new faces. congratulations to all of you that are just stepping into your roles as new mayors or relatively new mayors. before i jump into the work that hud does, i want you to know a little bit about me. i come from where you all live. what i mean by that -- my job prior to working for the president was working for a mayor. i was the housing commissioner in new york city and one thing i understand tom a one of our

says there is no republican or democratic way to take out the trash. i understand that whatever we may do or not do in d.c., and there has been a lot of not-doing lately, you have to get your jobs done. i want to show you, i am wearing my new york city manhole cover cufflinks today. cufflinksy favorite because they remind me why i am here. worke sewer system doesn't in your town, if the trash doesn't get collected, if the , thingss not get plowed do not work. you are on the front lines for that. , for my wholeknow team at hud, many who come out

of local governments, we get when you are dealing with and the work that you need to do. i hope you have seen that over the last five years -- that we have made a lot of progress at hud. we have a ways to go as well. work with us and give me the good feedback, give me the bad feedback in terms of what is not working. i would really encourage you to regionalow your administrator for hud. we have 10 administrators around the country. we have a full team in place, just added three more in various places around the country. they are great resources for you. let's build that working relationship. having said that, let me deal with a number of things that i know are on your mind. i am going to start where setti started, to talk about our --.

cdbg and home are our --. i understand how critical they are. sometimes it doesn't get the same attention. we should all recognize that we work with 650 of you across the country. those are the participating jurisdictions. we have created 1.5 million affordable houses. 283,000 people have been able to get rental assistance. it is sot a time important that we keep hammering home. forever. we put into those programs, we leverage for dollars from somewhere else.

when we are talking about our fiscal deficits, that israel bang for the buck and an argument we should be making time and time again. these programs had been squeezed. if you think about home is down almost 50%. our about 25% from when fiscal crisis started. anad d so these programs have been squeezed as much as anything else. i think it is a big victory for all of us. i will tell you i have never seen better work than i saw this year. partnership between our agency and all of you to make the case for cdbg and home. , a lot of, setti credit and your fearless leaders

for marshaling the team and making the case this year. when you go from $1.6 billion in the house bill to $3 billion, that is a real victory. it is a real victory in the times we are dealing with. i think is important that we show that we are thinking in innovative and creative ways and are looking at commonsense reforms to these programs that will help us make the case even better. this past year and many of you were involved but the new folks may not have been involved. we started a dialogue that we called moving cdbg forward. we had 20 different listening sessions with all of you and other stakeholders to get your ideas about smart reforms, how

we can simplify the programs and make them work better and make sure we can make a argument we are using these dollars as effective as possible. unfortunately and you may be aware of this, we had a series on the home program that was very unfair but cost us because it is so easy for these programs. we could do 100 good things and the one thing that isn't working as well gets through the cracks. we have to show we are using these dollars wisely. you should expect to see in our 2015 budget a set of proposals around those ideas that came out of the listening session. i want to be clear. we are not saying we are done talking. we want that to be the beginning of the next stage in the conversation which is to say how

do we make home, cdbg as effective as we possibly can. we're down to numbers with some of our are dissipating jurisdictions where we are about 30, 40, $60,000. it is almost impossible to figure out how to run a program, just hiring staff can cost you more than you are getting. we have to find ways to think about partnering together and do other things that can make these as effective as possible. let's not only fight for the dollars but also fight to make these programs as effective as possible. the second thing i wanted to touch on is the fantastic work that we have all done together around homelessness. launchedthis president an initiative we called opening doors. this was the first time the

federal government h said we will have a strategic plan to actually end homelessness. we set very clear goals to end that homelessness by 2015 and family and children homeless is by the end of 2020. because we worked together, approaches like rapid rehousing that was small amounts of money, sometimes one months rent or security deposit. and it works. familiesose to 90% of are successfully house a year later. housing first is another strategy that has been effective that so many of you are implementing. we have worked hard to strengthen our partnership with veterans affairs and to make sure we are bringing together the housing resources with the health care and the other

supports that v.a. can provide. ultimately this shows in the results. we would traditionally see homelessness skyrocket, we have very difficult economic circumstances over the last few years for so many families. so many long-term unemployed. hundreds of thousands of veterans coming back from overseas. we have been able to push down family homelessness by 8% in the last three years and veteran homelessness by 24% in three years. really impressive work. i want to say there are a set of cities and towns that are doing spectacular work on this. i do not see ralph. i want to call mayor stanton in phoenix, mayor becker in salt

lake city. they may a challenge to get every single chronically homeless vet off the streets and both of them have done that. that is one step toward ending veterans homelessness completely. we are seeing where you make this a priority and focus on it and work with us to bring creative resources, you can do remarkable things. at a time when our trust deficit in government is just as bad as our fiscal deficit, to be able to say to an american that we have gotten our heroes off the streets is a very powerful way to say government works and we can do stuff together that really makes a difference in peoples lives. i want to make sure we are working together.

we will be coming back to you ask you to make commitments about what you can do to end veterans homelessness and other forms of homelessness where we have a focus and so stay tuned. we want you to step up and do more on this. i think it is important we recognize, and this comes from my work at the local level, that so often what you see in a federal partner feels like 18 different agencies with 100 different programs and a lot of times we are not so good to be able to deliver those things in a way that you understand how they come together and where 1+1 can equal three. not to mention the best factors that might help you, cutting red

tape where you need so we are not part of the problem. one of the things i have been focused on is how we create better partnerships across the federal agencies that come together at the neighborhood and city and regional level. we have to do a better job of that. i want to talk on three specific efforts. first, many of you and some of you grab me at the door to talk about it. you know about our choice neighborhood efforts. this is the successor to the hope six program. i was just in seattle looking at one of our first five choice neighborhoods. they are doing remarkable stuff bringing together job-training and a new light rail line. remarkable work. ago, theof weeks

president announced we are taking this to the next level with our promise zone effort. together a set of our signature community dilma initiatives, choice neighborhoods at hud, promise neighborhoods at the department of education. many of you may know the harlem children's zone. to take that model from the time the kids are in the cradle until they have a career and matching them up with the help they need not just at school but throughout the community. that is an effort that is part of it . make sure we are bringing public safety into this. we are going to put them on steroids. what does that mean? we have take the first five promise stones. we will take at least 15 more.

we're asking congress to give us tax credits for hiring and business development, building on the empowerment zone effort. we're going to give those communities advantages for more than 20 different other competitive programs. we are going to put in place a top-notch team from all of the key agencies on the ground in that community that is going to make sure they are getting the help that they need, the partnership. we will bring this to volunteers -- vista volunteers. that is key. there are a lot of different pieces to this. the president said this when he announced last week. we got too many communities of concentrated poverty where no matter how well a kid does in school, the single most

important determinant of that kid's life span is their zip code. and that is just wrong. we cannot let kids growing up in neighborhoods stifle their dreams. we have to make sure we are bringing all the resources we can to help do this. you may say 20 is not enough and i agree. we want to work with as broad a group as possible. that is why we are picking many of the finalists and doing more work with them. we will be doing promise neighborhoods in other neighborhoods than those 20. this is a effort that is representative and what we're trying to do overall. level, we have our strong city, strong community efforts. we named 10 cities originally.

just last week we announced an expansion to seven more cities. at the city level, we are going a bring -- we want to design very specific team that says if you're big issue is expanding your airport in helping the , ifhborhoods near there you have a serious problem with food and jobs, as it was in chester, pennsylvania, if it is redeveloping the downtown mall, whatever your key challenges are, we will bring all the right folks to sit in your office. they're going to have a bat phone. remember the bat phone?\ try to get those issues resolved. not everybody is going to be a

strong city strong community partner. we can take some of these best practices and change the way we work with you overall. what weoing to create call our national resource network. one thing i hear is, i got to know, what are the best partners doing on this particular issue? i want to know the best practices. this is a team of folks you can draw on that are the best practitioners around the country to come to your city and help you design what you are looking to do that is no data. it is technical assistance and the best practices. we are going to set it up and we have these folks on retainer. you say, i need help with this

issue. we will get a team there quickly to help you take that on. ournt to touch on partnership for sustainable communities at the regional level. we join together with the department of transportation, epa, the department of agriculture and we have funded 143 planning grants, some at the local and some of the regional level, that help you better enact transportation and housing. this means putting in a regional light rail system. there have been great examples. selling city is a great example city is a great example. we have reached half the american population with these grants. it is starting to not just better development and connecting infrastructure.

it is lowering costs for your citizens. transportation is getting to be more expensive than housing in many communities. the average american family spends 52% of every dollar they earn just on housing and transportation. if we can't make your neighborhoods more attractive and create other places to live, you know that is a huge part of economic impact of this right now. the knowledge workers are deciding where they want to live and companies and capital are following. if you can create a more livable city with light rail and walkable communities and exciting downtown things happening or satellite areas of the city, those are the kinds of things we are planning. us is how do we take your plans and put them in

reality? one of the great things we got done in the budget is a big new infusion of dollars into the department of transportation. so often that is the implementation my that you need. we will look at cdbg and a range of other resources to implement those plans. i could go on for a little bit longer on all the stuff we are doing. those are just a few highlights of things i am excited about. i want to make sure we have some time to hear from all of you and what else might be on your mind. let me close by saying thank you. where i started is that you all are where innovation is happening and where the rubber meets the road and i am incredibly impressed with the quality of the work that mayors are doing to make great neighborhoods, great places, and to drive our economic growth,

and we want to be a partner in doing all that, so thank you. [applause] we should open it up for questions. thank you, secretary. >> thank you. thank you for the work you do on this committee. i want to thank the secretary for coming here and doing what he is doing. secretary,ay, mr. your leadership has been incredible. we have seen a lot of changes in terms of accessibility in your office, is leslie at the regional level -- especially at the regional level. a different look and take on overhauling housing across the country, which is always a problem. communities receive

funds. ant is the one place where atomic committees received dollars for those who may not realize it directly from the federal government. go tos around -- dollars states and counties first. you know where the rubber meets the road. >> not that we do not love our governors. >> the money has a funny way of not exactly going at the same rate and in the same manner when he goes to two other jurisdictions. hazmet,as met money -- disaster relief money, sometimes even four in ptolemy communities do not find their way directly. for the last few years are brought up here and maybe there is a way to do it through a reservation at some point, but

to maybe draw some tighter guidelines so that in emergencies when it is probably most important this money flows right, we are not circumventing some things that would be helpful in terms of that money flowing exactly like it does in normal times. mayors know when an emergency occurs where the funds are needed. they are the innovators and the folks who we are and warm where legally it is still about sovereignty, states and the federal government. i would like to see that money flow better in those emergency situations. thank you. >> i have had unfortunately the duty to spend a lot of time on natural disasters. an argueseen -- you c

abstractly about the science. when you look in the eyes of a family who is just been hit by a i willne or two nato -ornado -- never forget the family that was that were searching for pictures of their mom scattered in the neighborhood. it is a terrible thing. folks are not asking abstract questions about climate change. i do think the point of where the money goes is very important. takene for the first time the cdbg disaster recovery money and we have ordered it directly to jurisdictions for the first time. maddox knows, we are

willing to listen and go back and make sure we do that. one of the challenges is capacity. want to make sure we have jurisdictions that are getting 100, 500 times cdbg money than they have gone before. some want to work -- in cases we are working with the state. a lot of cases we are making direct awards to cities and counties to make sure they are able to benefit directly from that. the problem you have on a lot of the fema dollars is that their rules are much stricter than cdbg. cdbg was already flexible. congress gave us more flexibility in recent rounds on the dr money. it would take changing the stafford act to make progress on

some of the fema dollars, and that is -- you know how likely it is to get something through congress these days. if you want to be surgical about that, if you have specific changes, i would be happy to work with the new secretary of dhs to focus on that. >> i appreciate that. cant we can do -- we follow-up if there is a group of mayors that are ages did in going to the second level. perhaps we can connect the appropriate staff or whatever agencies and see what our next steps might be. ok. >> let's do that. we will make sure we do that. if i could be the bad guy. we have to keep going. one more question. i apologize. >> thank you.

thank you for taking my question. kind of a simple question. i am from north chicago. we do have -- >> microphone, please. >> sorry about that. we have a v.a. hospital in our town. the homeless problem that exists, it does affect not only our town but our colleagues. i know you spoke on a program -- houseiing first. could you expand on that a little bit more. we have gotten a grant and one of the grants is to establish 20 new homes within our town and do some 40 new rehabs. we wanted to try to bring that program, or bring some program to up the homeless and the v.a.

>> i would just point out that here.a poppy is they lead the coordination that cuts across hud, all the different agencies that are involved in education. first may sound simple but it has been pretty revolutionary. what we used to say was you have a long-term and generally homeless man on the streets, single individuals, substance abuse problems and maybe mental health issues. the old approach was to say, we are going to put you in a treatment program. we'll try to get your medication you need. if you do well, the next step is to get into housing. what we figured out is we had it

exactly backwards. in fact, it is going to be incredibly difficult for folks oo kick their habits, be able t overcome whatever challenges they have if they are not housed first. to let more expensive someone live on the streets than to house them. when you think about the amount of time -- there is a great rticle called "million dollar vet that got to know the police well. he would get sober and find a job and things would fall apart. when he passed away on the streets, the state of nevada spent $1 million on this guy. and so what we have done is to change that.

let's move folks directly from the streets into housing as quickly as possible and structure around that housing the support that they need. what we find is they are much more likely to be successful in dealing with what other challenges they have, being able to get back to work, whatever it is, if we start with housing. there was some initial resistance to this. or theyare still drinking have substance abuse issues. you are going to put them in a house?" you're goingbors to locate them in their communities. what is amazing is that this approach works. it has become the standard approach now. is saving money and changing lives. it is something we can work with you on.

i was just in seattle. they are doing this all over the place and the committee reaction has been great. they really are dealing with the challenge of taking folks off the street and housing them in a way that is being successful. . is something the v. has been taken up. it has been very powerful in helping us. many folksea -- need help just getting into housing with a down payment --a security deposit or a months rent, even a utility bill. though strategies together have been very powerful. hud has very flexible resources that can be used to do both of these things. we have a great team that can help you figure out how to do it.

>> we're are so appreciative of the fact that you have taken your time to be here with us. just a few quick points to wrap up on this end. you clearly listen very closely to us when you do these listening sessions. i heard back the answers and she just you made all throughout your presentation. you walk the walk, as well. we appreciate the interagency work you are doing and getting away from the silos of government with transportation and other agencies. in makes it better for mayors when they can go to one place. you talk about creating a sustainable and livable city for all of us. thank you very much for being here. >> my pleasure. great to see you all again. [applause]

>> what i would like to do is move on to our next order of business. bob, globalaker is director. he leads partnerships for me to develop. asset building, neighborhood revitalization. to expand access to financial services with particular focus on developing innovative forms for scaling access to finance and savings. based in london, bob sits on a number of committees.