On Friday's broadcast of MSNBC's “Morning Joe,” Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas (D) said that immigration is one of the issues contributing to the increase in homelessness and that “in 2020 and 2021… , and everyone thought that once the coronavirus was over, those numbers would go back to normal.” , the world will return to normal. You don't see that in the case of homelessness. ”
“I think we're going to see a few different approaches. First, some mayors, like Mike Johnston in Denver, are using these really creative ideas to get everyone off the streets,” Lucas said. So, really, how do we build more housing, how do we make sure we get more support for HUD? This is a key part of our efforts. But there are two other parts of the homelessness debate. One is migration. For the mayor, this is a question that needs to be funded with federal partners. It's different, it's essentially a housing issue. People are coming to our city. Even in Kansas City, where I live, we're seeing an increase in population from Venezuela and Haiti, which is new to us. And that third part really has to do with drug addiction, drug abuse, and a lot of the mental health issues that people face. If we don't address all three, we're going to We're going to continue to see an incredible increase in homelessness across the country, and one of the things that has surprised a lot of people is 2020, 2021 and the coronavirus. We all thought that once the pandemic was over, the number of cases would go down and the world would go back to normal. You don't see that with homelessness. In many downtowns in this country, that's what we're seeing. You can't see that, and that's something every mayor faces.”
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