On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Kansas City, MO Mayor Quinton Lucas (D) stated that migration is one issue causing a rise in homelessness and “we all thought after 2020 and 2021 and COVID, you would see numbers go back down, the world would get back to normal. You are not seeing that with homelessness.”
Lucas said, “I think you’re seeing a few different approaches: First, some mayors, like Mike Johnston in Denver and others are using these truly creative ideas to get everyone off the streets. And so, there’s a true, how do we build more housing, how do we once and for all get more support for HUD? That’s a key part of our initiative and saying that, frankly, we need funding. There are two other parts, though, of the homelessness discussion: One is the migration issue, which, at its core for mayors, as distinct from our federal partners, is truly a housing issue. We have people coming on our streets, even my city of Kansas City has seen an increase in populations from Venezuela and Haiti, something that is new for us. And then the third part of it really relates to drug addiction, substance abuse, and many of the mental health issues that people are facing. Without addressing all three, we’ll continue to see the incredible numbers of rising homelessness that we’ve caught around the country. And one thing that I think surprised a lot of people, we all thought after 2020 and 2021 and COVID, you would see numbers go back down, the world would get back to normal. You are not seeing that with homelessness. You’re really not seeing that with a lot of downtowns in our country, and that’s something all mayors are facing.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett