Political Quotes

“I brought to the floor a pen with which John F. Kennedy, on October 31, 1963, signed the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act of 1963. This was the last public bill signing of the Kennedy administration, and we set about emptying out our mental institutions. We said we were going to provide for the children, the young people and the older persons who left. We were going to provide community care. But we did not provide the wherewithal. We almost, for a while, forgot we had ever done it. It now seems to be lost with us entirely. We deal with the problem of the homeless as if it had no antecedent in our decisions. There were a million, almost a million persons in mental institutions when this bill was signed. There are about 100,000 today. There are 14 million women and children on welfare--14 million. When they end up on the streets, I hope somebody will remember that it was foretold.”