Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, II’s (D-MO) bipartisan housing bill, H.R. 5793, The Housing Choice Voucher Mobility Demonstration Act of 2018, passed on the House floor by a vote of 368-19. This bill will help low-income families, who rely on housing vouchers, move out of poverty and into neighborhoods with better opportunities.

Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, II

The bill authorizes a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) demonstration program to enable public housing agencies to form a regional consortia to help families who participate in the Housing Choice Voucher Program move to lower-poverty areas within the region. H.R. 5793 will allow public housing agencies to better coordinate and enable families to move from one neighborhood to another.

The bill draws on research from Harvard economists that indicates that children who move to higher opportunity neighborhoods increase their chances of success. The study found that children with these increase opportunities were 32 percent more likely to attend college and earned 31 percent more a year than their counterparts in lower income neighborhoods.

“This bill will give people hope and opportunity. Many people need only a chance and a little help. This bill offers them both and a pathway to escape the circle of poverty,” said Congressman Cleaver.

The Housing and Insurance Subcommittee Chairman, Sean Duffy (R-WI), joined Ranking Member Cleaver as co-author of H.R. 5793.

“I want to thank Chairman Duffy for working with me on this piece of legislation, as well as the Chair and Ranking Member of the Financial Services Committee. It shows you what we can do when we work together,” Congressman Cleaver continued.

This is the third bipartisan Housing bill which passed in the House of Representatives authored by Congressman Cleaver. Earlier this year, Congressmen Cleaver and Duffy successfully passed H.R. 4258, The Family Self Sufficiency Act. Last Congress, Congressman Cleaver and Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) secured passage of H.R. 3700, The Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act. H.R. 3700 was one of the largest sweeping reforms of our nation’s housing programs in the last two decades designed to improve and create additional efficiency in our housing programs for low-income families.

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