Patrick J. Kennedy: “It is shocking. Literally as shocking as it is that we don't address mental health in our healthcare system is that we…”

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…

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.

Our family believes in democracy. We believe in the fact that my uncles, one of whom laid down his life in World War II fighting Hitler over Germany, got shot down.

We wouldn't expect any less if there were any other illness. And yet we settled for less than 20 percent of Americans getting any of that today in this country.