WASHINGTON, D.C. – Hoy, los republicanos bloquearon el intento del senador estadounidense Bill Nelson (D-FL) para aprobar el proyecto de ley que él presentó. Este proyecto de ley, le exigiría a FEMA continuar brindándole asistencia de vivienda temporal, a cientos de familias desplazadas que aún no pueden regresar a sus hogares, tras el paso de los huracanes Irma y María.

La medida se produce sólo dos días antes que, según FEMA, se dejará de brindar asistencia para vivienda temporal aproximadamente a 1,700 familias desplazadas – incluyendo cientos de familias en Florida – el 30 de junio.

“Las personas están a punto de perder la única vivienda temporal que tienen”, dijo Nelson en el Senado. “Algunos de ellos han perdido todo debido a estas tormentas. Muchos de ellos, aún no pueden encontrar trabajo ni viviendas asequibles, como tampoco un depósito de seguridad. Muchos de ellos sólo tienen la ayuda que les brinda FEMA – pero sólo por dos días más”. 

La decisión de FEMA de terminar su programa de Asistencia de Vivienda Transitoria, (TSA por sus siglas en inglés) ha causado que muchas familias desplazadas tengan que luchar por encontrar lugares asequibles para vivir a partir del domingo, y algunos legisladores, incluido Nelson, continúan presionando a la agencia para extender el programa de vivienda para ayudar a aquellos que aún lo necesitan.  

Nelson, quien presentó un proyecto de ley el mes pasado para exigirle a FEMA que continúe brindándole asistencia de vivienda temporal a familias desplazadas hasta febrero del 2019, le pidió este jueves al senado, “permiso unánime” para aprobar la medida.

El proyecto de ley – conocido como el Disaster Housing Assistance Act (S.2880) ­­– le requeriría a FEMA y al Departamento de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano (HUD, por sus siglas en inglés) movilizar un programa de vivienda interagencial, conocido como el Disaster Housing Assistance Program (DHAP, por sus siglas en inglés), para continuar brindándole asistencia de vivienda a las víctimas de los huracanes Irma y María, hasta febrero de 2019.

El programa podría proveerle asistencia de vivienda a las familias elegibles, hasta por 18 meses después que se declare un desastre, lo cual significa que le podría brindar asistencia de vivienda a las víctimas de los huracanes Irma y María hasta febrero de 2019. Una vez movilizado, el DHAP le proporcionará subsidios mensuales para alquiler, a las familias elegibles que han sido desplazadas por las tormentas, para ayudarlas a pagar viviendas temporales después de un desastre.

Según las normas del Senado, un senador puede pedir “permiso unánime” para que un proyecto de ley sea aprobado inmediatamente por el Senado sin necesidad de votación.  Si ningún senador se opone a la solicitud, se pasa la factura. Pero si sólo un senador expresa una objeción a la medida, aquella es derogada.

Inmediatamente después que Nelson hizo su solicitud, el Senador Ron Johnson (R-WI) se opuso.

Una copia del proyecto de ley de Nelson está disponible aquí.

Una copia de la carta que Nelson le mandó a los líderes del Senado a principios de este mes, pidiéndoles que aprueben la medida antes de la fecha de vencimiento, está disponible aquí.

Aquí está un enlace al video del discurso de Nelson en el Senado: https://youtu.be/4WdAD9agr9c

A continuación está una trascripción rápida del discurso de Nelson al Senado:

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson

Remarks on the Senate floor

June 28, 2018

Sen. Nelson: Mr. President, I have some remarks to explain the two unanimous consent requests that I am making, and I understand, to accommodate the senator from Wisconsin's schedule, I will go ahead and make the unanimous consent request prior to my remarks. I would ask, Mr. President, that I be recognized upon the disposition of the unanimous consent request.

The presiding officer: Without objection.

Sen. Nelson: Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 2880, a bill to establish a pilot program for long-term rental assistance for families affected by major disasters and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

The presiding officer: Is there objection?

The presiding officer: The senator from Wisconsin.

Sen. Johnson: As chairman of the committee of jurisdiction, I reached out to the agency. According to the agency, FEMA has spent more than $430 million on the transitional program and provided rental assistance to families to help them find permanent housing solutions. 97% of those enrolled in the program have success political transition to the more permanent housing.

The remaining housing -- the remaining households in the transitional sheltering assistance program have either received rental or repair assistance from FEMA, have a habitable home with utilities on or are not eligible for additional assistance. Partners will continue to provide assistance through disaster case management to those who still require long-term solution. So again as chairman of the committee of jurisdiction -- the committee with oversight and jurisdiction over FEMA, I believe it is important to support FEMA's objection to this. And for those reasons I do object.

The presiding officer: Objection is heard. The senator from Florida.

Sen. Nelson: Mr. President, I have another unanimous consent request, but let me just say that the unanimous consent request that the senator from Wisconsin has just objected to, indeed FEMA does oppose this and that's the whole purpose of the U.C. Request because people are about to get shut out of the temporary housing that they have, having evacuated from Puerto Rico, evacuated to Florida, and that FEMA program runs out, according to FEMA, June 30.

But, in fact, the law is on the books that FEMA could activate that program, just like they did after Hurricane Katrina for the poor people in New Orleans that had to evacuate from their homes. In that case, most of them evacuated to a different state, a lot of them having gone to Houston, Texas.

And if the president hears emotion in this senator's voice, indeed it is there.

[…]

Sen. Nelson: There are a lot of people that are hurting in the aftermath of two hurricanes having hit Puerto Rico, with the island still in great distress, our fellow U.S. citizens on the island of Puerto Rico and, indeed, in great distress not only because of the slow assistance of FEMA, the lack of electricity, of which parts of Puerto Rico today going on ten months after the hurricane are without electricity; of the number of people fleeing the island and, therefore, the jobs are not available because the economy has been so crippled; and naturally a number of those people have fled to where they can have safety and shelter and put their children in school -- and, by the way, there are a number of schools in Puerto Rico that are closed; where they have a decent opportunity to get a job and not just tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have fled the island to the states.

And a good number of them are in my state of Florida. Now, there are in Florida 600 families that have been in temporary housing.

It's called T.S.A., it's called Temporary Shelter Assistance. About 100 of those families have moved on to other states. Another 100 of those families have returned to the island, but 400 of those families are still in our state, and a good number of those 400 families are still in temporary shelter assistance.

At least FEMA did not stop this assistance in March, and we got them to extend it to the end of May and then pointed out that a lot of these families in that temporary assistance had children in school and they needed to complete the academic year, and so the assistance was extended to two days from now, June 30. They have nowhere to go. Some of them have been able by working two jobs, both husband and wife, to be able to collect enough savings that they can afford an apartment.

The problem is, the apartment rentals want a security deposit that is three or four times the monthly rent. And so many of these families do not have that much money saved as a result of them being able to find work.

And so it seemed to me the humane thing to do is to activate the part of the law which this senator just asked for unanimous consent and of which it has been objected to by the Republican side, that the very same law still on the books that was activated after Hurricane Katrina hit new Orleans, that in fact that law with activated again for the purposes of Transitional Housing Assistance.

That bill has been filed by a number of us and of which the only way to get action since FEMA -- and we just heard the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee say that FEMA said they're not going to extend they don't support it.

Well, if it was good enough for the people fleeing New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina, why isn't it good enough for the people that are equally devastated now in Florida, having fled the deplorable conditions in their native island, our fellow U.S. Citizens of Puerto Rico? There are thousands of displaced families who are still unable to return to their homes in the wake of those hurricanes, and it includes hundreds of those families, and we estimate it to be about 400 families still just in the state of Florida.

And yet, despite that fact, FEMA is still saying that they are ending this transitional shelter assistance. This decision to stop providing assistance to these families has many of them very scared. They're scrambling to try to figure out what they're going to do to find an affordable place.

We've reached out to churches, we've reached out to other charitable organizations to try to help them to afford the deposit, even where they have the income now from one or both spouses working two jobs to be able to afford the apartments. And so what we've been trying to do with this legislation, now rejected by our Republican friends, is we've been trying to urge the agency to do the right thing, use existing law, activate it. You did it for New Orleans. Why not now for Puerto Rico?

The situation that many of these families find themselves in is a situation that no family should have to go through. I suspect that what we are going to see come Sunday, the news organizations in Florida will chronicle that some of them will be living in a car or going down to a homeless shelter. Some of them have lost everything because of these storms. Too many are still unable to find work or to find affordable housing and especially the security deposit.

For many of them, the only thing that they have is the help that FEMA is providing, but that's only good for two more days. As we have tried and the senator from Wisconsin at the direction of the Republican leader has said, they are not going to let this legislation come up. These folks are not looking for a handout.

They just need a little help getting back on their feet after the storms took everything from them. The fact that FEMA has put an arbitrary deadline on this aid rather than trying to work with the people, it defies logic.

FEMA's T.S.A. program is critical, and it has been critical to provide for them, and while I recognize that the T.S.A. program was a temporary fix, you just can't end the temporary fix when people are being thrown out on the streets. And that was the attempt to force FEMA to act by this request to pass the legislation that would force them to act, and that's why this senator has asked the unanimous consent request. The second unanimous consent request that this senator asked for was to activate a housing program of additional section 8 housing. Florida has used up its meager allocation, and this would have given additional Section 8 housing for those among the least of us.

I want to thank my cosponsors Blumenthal, Warren, Markey, Gillibrand, Harris, and Baldwin for their understanding of this situation and signing on as cosponsors with me, and, Mr. President, I yield the floor.