I echo those sentiments.

I think wraparound services, case management, job training, access to health care, addressing concerns of veterans.

It's what I said in the beginning, preventative.

You know, it's kind of funny.

There's this line from the karate kid that always stays with me where Mr.

Miyagi advised Danielson the best way to defend against a punch is not be there when it's thrown.

The best way to address this new regulatory decision in terms of uh penalizing individuals uh who find themselves homeless is to try to create programs and assistance and job training and connect them to uh resources available so they're not there in the first place.

Look, let's be practical and let's be very honest.

We have uh two groups, many, many, many groups, but two that I've identified regarding the homeless.

You have the Thanksgiving group that uh always care about the homeless during Thanksgiving.

Where can we provide them food?

Where can we bring them in churches, not-for-profit organizations, mosques, uh, synagogues, all these groups, they want to bring food to the park, and you're going, look as a mayor, the municipality doesn't want to encourage this behavior because to a certain extent you're enabling, you're creating a place where individuals are gonna gather together, they have an expectation that money and food is gonna be brought there, and the same people who say we want to help the homeless are the same that are complaining.

Why aren't you doing anything about the people in the park?

They're leaving food around, some of them because they don't have access to bathrooms, are utilizing the bathrooms, and then as it grows and spreads, whether around schools or out in the public, people are frustrated.

This is the other group, they want something done.

They just want you to be practical, pragmatic, and go, can you help the homeless without creating a burden or affecting the quality of life of the residents that live there?

So here are some approaches that we've taken in Passake.

I will admit I'm one of those who I'm not the biggest fan of the homeless shelter model.

I don't like some of the restrictions in terms of curfews, you can't come in.

Uh certain issues with what you're bringing, sometimes they prohibit you from coming in if there's a violation.

We created a homeless resource center in the city of Passate.

Uh I decided to call it dignity house to remember that every life and every human being has dignity and we need to treat everyone the same.

It's a resource center.

We set up mailboxes in there for something very practical.

Some of them needed to connect with social security or benefits that otherwise we weren't thinking where would you receive this?

So any homeless person could come in, they can say, This is my mailbox at a different address, and you can get your correspondence there.

Maybe connect with a family member.

We have showers, you come in once a week.

We have a laundromat set there where you can come in and wash your clothes, but it is not a permanent shelter, especially because the truth is some homeless individuals don't want to go in the shelter, but they end up staying around the shelter.

I told you the city of Persica is 3.2 square miles over one square mile, it's parkland and open space.

So in those uh two point-something square miles, we have schools almost on every block.

So if you have a concentration of homeless, you're gonna have children and families going there.

So we wanted to create something practical because our ultimate goal is to help you get off the street, get you into housing because it's intended to be a safety net, not a permanent hammock for you to land on and stay there.

We want to get you back on your feet, so we never want to create something where you're encouraged to stay homeless.

We also created a unique approach to veteran housing to address veterans homeless by uh saving our VFW, like many of these uh community agencies that aren't receiving funding, people aren't associated, the memberships uh fees are going down.

We connected with a private public partnership.

We brought in Habitat for Humanity, and we restored the VFW by creating veteran housing on the top of it.

With uh funding, we were able to get some veterans that were dealing with housing insecurity or instability and get them permanent housing through affordable housing units that were developed by getting funding from the federal government using our CDBG going through HUD and partner.

We're hoping it's a model that gets recreated around the country.

With this, when it comes to homelessness, look, creating housing alone, that's not the solution, and there's no panacea approach to it because unless you deal with the underlying root cause, whether it's drug addiction, mental health concerns, or any other issue, you can put them in an apartment, they're gonna end up back on the street to begin with.

You can help with the first few months of rent, but what's gonna happen if they can't get a job?

What we need is to really invest in job training opportunity, wraparound services, mental health assistance.

We need to walk them step by step.

Yes, does that is that gonna exhaust some resources?

Is it gonna be difficult?

Are you gonna get some complaints?

But if you really want to resolve this, you have to be all in.

And you have to take an approach, you cannot just leave with your heart.

It has to be led with the heart and with the brain.

We have to be pragmatic.

Consider the residents that live in the community and not make these foolish statements or allow policies that would exacerbate already uh terrible conditions that exist in certain areas by saying let all the homeless just stay there, whether near the park, by the river or highway.

We need to be responsible and then to all the municipalities, and forgive me for the time, but all the municipalities must understand that we have to do our part because for too long, communities like ours have other communities pushing their homeless issues into our communities, creating policies or directing their police to take homeless individuals and say, push them over the border and leave them there.

If you're receiving funding, then invest it perhaps not in administrative fees or invest them in creating a location where you're gonna meet and talk about the homelessness, but actually reinforce the programs through human services, partner with different agencies and community organizations in order to maximize the programs that already exist and genuinely and truly sincerely address the issues of homelessness.