REQUEST FOR SENATE SUPPORT FOR LOW-INCOME TENANTS

March 16, 2011 Dear Senator Tester, Thank you for voting against the House Tea Party Bill for Fiscal Year 2011 Appropriations and for the Senate Appropriations Committee bill last week. We’re expecting Senator Schumer to introduce a scaled down version of the comprehensive Preservation bill in the Senate, based on H.R. 4868, which the House Financial Services Committee reported out last July but never came up for a vote in the house and has yet to be introduced to the Senate. We support H.R. 4868 overall. Specifically, we would like the language beefed up in Section 304 of H. R. 4868 - Access to Information - more like what was in the earlier version of 4868. We would like for you Senator to support the No Cost Tenant Empowerment provisions in H.R. 4868, as well as supporting moving the bill overall to help save and preserve the National Housing Stock. The talking points I would to leave with you today are from last year, 2010, which gives a short summary of what we are supporting in the preservation bill. Another National tenant group that I belong to called the Resident’s Engagement Group which was put together in the late fall of 2009 at the request of HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan recently had a telephone conference call with Carrie Johnson, staff person for Representative Ellison from Minnesota, around this same issue of Access to Information. REG is requesting Representative Ellison strengthen the language in RHRA or as the bill was previously known by PETRA, before re-introducing this bill in the house. The RHRA language was based on the paragraph in H.R. 4868, but was watered down in the version Congressman Ellison filed last December. Since RHRA or PETRA isn’t being looked at by the Senate at this time to our knowledge. We would like to ask Senator Tester to join with Senator Schumer’s office in filing a scaled down version of the comprehensive Preservation Bill. Thank you for your time in this matter, Susan Floerchinger, Tenant Advocate Mouse In The Weeds 8276 Huffine Lane Bozeman, MT 59718 (406) 600-1653 http://www.snakewomanspeaks.blogspot.com snakewomanspeaks@gmail.com