Keeping the roof over low income heads

Chairman Barnett “Barney” Frank (D-N.J.) emphasized the importance of affordable housing preservation and protection of low income tenants to curb the rising number of homeless people in America at a hearing held before the House Financial Services Committee.

According to Representative Al Green (D-Tex.), a quarter of all homeless people are veterans. Green said that the Section 8 Rental Voucher Program which seeks to increase affordable housing choices for low income families by letting them choose privately owned rental housing did not meet the needs of the people. He said that authorities would suspend the housing waiting list such that people who urgently needed housing would not have empirical records of how long they had been without housing. Green said that one-for-one replacement was important especially in places like New Orleans and Louisiana.

Witness Shaun Donovan, commissioner of the City of New York Department of Housing Preservation and Development, said that America now faces the problem of housing availability. Donovan called for the commitment of the federal government. He also mentioned that around 35,000 housing units were nationally covered by Rental Assistance Payment (RAP) and Rent Supplement programs but when those contracts expire in the next ten years, that significant number of affordable housing units would be lost.

Sea the key to avoiding transportation congestion

U.S. Representative John L. Mica (R-Fla.), ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, hosted a forum on short sea shipping as a solution to freight congestion. According to a study by the Texas Transportation Institute of the Texas A&M University, the inland waterways system is a vital aspect of America’s freight transportation network with a value of about $70 billion which contributes to America’s economic strength.

Mica said that since energy costs are going up and environmental issues are taking center stage, it was important to try to find ways to expand transportation capacity. The forum agreed that the key was to remember that surface transportation involves not only road and rail but sea as well. Representatives of ports, industry and labor agreed that short sea shipping was a strategic key to taking traffic congestion off the roads.

The U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration also offered encouraging statistics regarding energy comparisons for the distance that one gallon of fuel can use to move one ton. The data shows that a truck can move 59 tons/miles per gallon while an inland barge can move 514 tons/miles per gallon.