Patrick J. Kennedy: “It is a heartbreaking and entirely preventable story, I think.”

If this were any other issue we would move heaven and Earth to deal with it. In COVID we responded right away, everybody inoculation, everybody out there. The longest impact of COVID is going to be mental health, and yet, we don't treat it.

We ought to be encouraging people in this country to seek mental health. That should not be a disqualifying factor.

What we're trying to do is make the spirit of parity a practical reality.

When we have an emergency, FEMA comes in. They've got housing, job opportunities, support of this and that. We need a strategy that understands that housing is critical to address the homeless epidemic of people with severe mental illness…