Welcome to today's business session.

Our first item is approval of minutes for business session of May 21, 2026.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

All in favor indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

The motion passes.

I want to first of all thank Councilwoman Melissa Patterson Hasley of the third district at large who brought us today a very special guest.

We are delighted to welcome back a long-term friend, uh former city councilman, former mayor of Kansas City, and someone who has served exceptionally well as the Congressman for the Missouri Fifth District, Emmanuel Cleaver Second, who is here to talk to us about his outstanding success on the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, bipartisan legislation that came through Washington, which that alone deserves accolades.

But this in fact, let's give them a round of applause real quick.

So we welcome you to take the floor, sir.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, and uh to the members uh of the uh city council, most of whom I uh known over the years.

Um the the 21st century road to housing uh was introduced in the House uh by myself uh and um uh the way the system works uh if if your party is not in power, uh if a bill is going to make it through the process, um the other party in power will have his or her name at the top of the bill.

Uh so um this bill was introduced uh by uh myself and Mike Flood, who uh represents the district right down the street in Omaha, Nebraska Republican, and I'm a Democrat, of course.

Uh and uh the Financial Services Chair, which is French uh French Hill from uh Arkansas, Little Rock, Arkansas, and of course Maxine Waters is now the ranking member uh on uh the Financial Services Committee.

Uh and also uh in the Senate, we had the uh Senate uh banking committee chair, Tim Scott, uh, and the ranking member uh Elizabeth Warren.

So we had uh a uh group that got a lot of attention just because of the members of that group uh working together.

And the bill uh includes uh actually 12 titles uh designed to lower housing costs, reduce regulatory barriers, and expand affordable home ownership.

Uh believe it or not, uh Congress approved the bill in the House 358 to 32.

Uh and in the Senate, it was 85, four, and five uh against.

While those numbers probably don't mean much to you, it is it was extraordinary in Washington to get a bipartisan bill across uh the line.

And so on uh July the 11th uh of this year, the 21st Century Road to Housing Act was uh enacted into law, and that's it's critically important for us for me to say enacted, because normally the way the system operates is that you uh when the House and the Senate passes uh something, uh we uh send it down, usually that it's driven down to the White House for the president's signature.

The president decided not to sign it.

Uh and uh he was then told by the chair uh of uh the overall committee, French Hill, that he did not have the votes for an override.

So the next best thing for him was to do nothing, and after 10 days it automatically became uh law.

Uh and it was not an easy road uh to housing.

Uh the process started uh with uh my staff and I having uh what we thought was just a dinner to note get to know each other uh with Mike Flood, and really the uh we had no uh prior uh contact of any substance until we uh sat down for for that uh dinner and started just talking about things that needed to be done.

I know you're gonna hear the way you and I can't.

That's a big case.

Whether you like it, not a big part of the work cross-party lines on key issues that are important nationwide, reducing housing costs and building more housing supply.

Rising housing costs are a big problem, and there are no silver bullets, but we have found a good place to start our collaboration with the Department of Housing and Urban Development's home partnership program and the community development block grant programs.

These two programs have not been reauthorized by Congress since the 1990s.

It's well past time for them to be updated and reformed to ensure they're meeting the housing and infrastructure challenges of the present day.

And that's where you come in.

We want to hear from you, municipalities, states, not for profits, other stakeholders that interact with the CDBG program and home.

We want to hear what you like about the programs, what you don't like about the programs, and if you have any ideas to make them work better.

For those that are interested, we're asking you to reach out to email either of us, monitor by both of us.

Please reach out to Floodcleaver at mail.house.gov with your thoughts and ideas to update these programs and make them work better.

And please share this message with others in our community that might be interested in providing some feedback.

Our deadline for submission is April 25th.

After all the feedback is submitted, we will invite a select number of commenters to Washington, D.C.

to discuss their ideas in person with both of us.

We look forward to working together and working with you to update these programs for the 21st century.

We had no idea that people from all over the United States would indeed come to Washington, and they packed uh into uh one of our hearing rooms, and we spent an end our entire day uh in conversation with uh housing advocacy groups uh from all over the country, including uh mayors, U.S.

conference of mayors.

And uh from that all-day meeting, we started looking at the home uh program.

Uh, and we thought that uh we might have a good bill and that they may allow us to at least get it on the floor for a debate in the in the committee, uh, but I can't tell you, I wish I could that we knew that this was going to be uh become a big deal.

It it did not uh occur to us uh that it would.

And having a bicameral bipartisan bill that went through an extent extensive process of debate in regular order and passed by overwhelming margins speaks to the broad support of the legislation.

It also speaks to the state of housing uh in places like Missouri's Fifth Congressional District.

Housing is the single largest expense for most American families, and many families in Kansas City are spending more than 30 percent or even 50 percent of their income on housing.

A person is considered to be in poverty if they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.

Many households around the country are paying significantly more than they were five years ago, and wage wage growth has not kept pace for many middle and low-income workers.

Prospective home buyers are finding it increasingly difficult to uh save for a down payment, and even those who do often struggle uh to find a home they can afford because of the shortage of housing within reach of middle and low-income households, making the average age of a first-time homebuyer in the United States 40 years old.

I bought my first home here in Kansas City when I was 26 years old.