John Fetterman Explains How Repairing Issues Like Leaky Roofs Can Help Fight The Housing Crisis

5 months ago

During a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) questioned witnesses on how home repairs can help preserve the US housing stock and address the housing crisis.

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Transcript

00:00 Mr. Volsky, strange as it might sound, but I've spent a lot of time in Wyoming, and I

00:07 know that a town about 4,000 size is meaningful and a big deal in Wyoming.

00:14 In fact, I was a mayor of a town of roughly that size as well, so I understand that.

00:21 So let me ask you a question.

00:22 Do you have leaky roofs in Wyoming?

00:26 Yes, I'd say there's leaky roofs across the state.

00:30 Do furnaces break down?

00:34 Unfortunately, the mechanics also break down in Wyoming, correct.

00:38 Oh, yeah.

00:39 Well, we need to confirm, Mr. Urgot, do roofs leak in Pennsylvania?

00:46 Senator, many roofs leak in Pennsylvania, yes.

00:49 And furnaces, do they break down?

00:52 Often, yeah.

00:53 And in my community, in western Pennsylvania, they do, and they do.

01:02 And this is the kind of a bill that it can address to those kinds of a thing.

01:07 And also, it's also that once a roof is breached, and now the home is allowed to deteriorate

01:18 and become unhabitable, and then that becomes abandoned, and that creates all kinds of other

01:26 costs as well.

01:27 And it's not very cheap to actually demolish them.

01:32 And that's a significant issue in my community as right now.

01:35 For every abandoned home, that becomes a 20,000 to 25,000 IOU to a demolish.

01:44 And that's one less home for someone to live in.

01:47 And this is the kind of bill that can address that with the kind of flexibilities of that.

01:52 Have any of you, when you are providing some kind of service, did you ever ask them, who

01:57 are you voting for or what are your political beliefs are?

02:01 No, no.

02:03 So it's really agnostic to politics or red or blue counties.

02:09 It's just something for all of us, for Americans, that they have these kinds of very common

02:15 issues, and it allows them that typically skew more elderly.

02:21 And they just want to remain in dignity and this kind of security of living in their home.

02:26 Is that accurate?

02:28 Seems pretty reasonable as well.

02:31 And also, when you often deal with the government, things can be less inefficient then.

02:37 But this is the kind of flexibility that allows those things to direct directly as well.

02:41 Is that accurate?

02:44 Flexibility can be helpful in that, right?

02:46 And it addressed these very specific kinds of a thing.

02:49 And it is undeniable that making someone's bathroom more comfortable or usable means

02:55 or bars and things, that's helpful.

02:59 But to that point earlier, it's like you can't live with a better bathroom if you can't heat

03:04 your house or it's leaking and it makes it there.

03:08 So this really is that.

03:10 And this also allows that if you are forced to leave your home, that cannot preserve any

03:16 kind of wealth or anything as well.

03:20 So this undermines a lot of different things as well.

03:25 And this was born in a senator from Pennsylvania in a very, very blue liberal.

03:34 And that was embraced by a very, very conservative members of my former chamber in Pennsylvania.

03:42 And now as politics become more and more, you know, divisive and everything, it's encouraging

03:50 to have something like this.

03:51 Hopefully we can come together and acknowledge that we want to serve everyone and allows

03:57 them to provide elderly to live in dignity and to preserve our housing stock and remind

04:09 everybody that as what my colleague from Montana pointed out, that we need kind of solutions

04:15 like that.

04:16 So I want to thank all of you on what your works do and how important that is.

04:21 All town where I live in right now, regardless of where in this nation, this is the kind

04:27 of bill that can address that and allow people to live in dignity and to preserve our housing

04:35 stock in a nation that is now faced with a significant housing crisis.

04:40 So I want to thank you for coming here and joining us today.

04:44 And I turn back to our chair one.

04:46 Thank you so much, Senator Fetterman.

04:48 And thanks for your work on this legislation.

John Fetterman Explains How Repairing Issues Like Leaky Roofs Can Help Fight The Housing Crisis

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