Emergency Housing Protections and Relief Act of 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARCIA of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank Madam Chair for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Emergency Housing Protections and Relief Act. This bill provides much-needed relief for renters and homeowners while more than 40 million people have filed for unemployment insurance and struggle to make ends meet.

My constituents need the help. My district is a working-class, largely immigrant district, and many people have not qualified for any relief so far.

Families just down the street in the barrio where I live and have lived for 50 years are being forced to choose between paying rent and putting food on the table or between making the mortgage payment or buying prescription medicine. Families are staring down the barrel at yet another first-of-the-month difficult decision: Will my family have a place to live?

Will we have food to eat?

Where will we go?

These are the very real questions that families are asking themselves.

Mr. Speaker, we must act with urgency to protect families. This Emergency Housing Protections and Relief Act is a lifeline for communities like mine. It prohibits landlords from evicting tenants for failure to pay rent; it provides $100 billion of assistance to renters and $75 billion to homeowners to keep everyone in their homes; and it strengthens the mortgage forbearance protections.

I know what a housing crisis looks like. During the last financial crisis, I saw my neighbors lose their homes. Without protections in place, economic recovery will be all but impossible. Congress must act now and pass H.R. 7301 to support our renters and homeowners.

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