Judge Milton Mack

But I think there's a growing recognition.

Well, you're not going to change that dynamic, but what you can do is make sure that you align yourself with the stakeholders that matter to each chamber.

In Michigan, the House cares about the Chamber of Commerce.

The Senate is more worried about other people, like hospitals and so forth.

And so, again, both on your side because you can, you know, I spoke to the chamber and I said, this is in your interest to fix this problem because you're suffering from this problem just as much as anybody else.

And you get all these stakeholders to understand what their stake is and what they're missing out on and what damage they incur because the problem is not being solved.

I mean, in Michigan, the...

One of the sponsors of the bill in the House was really the most conservative member of the House, which is now my political leaning.

On the Senate side, we had a fairly liberal Democrat who's a sponsor of one of my bills.

So that does mean there'll be a little battle going on in the House and Senate over who gets credit for the bills.

That's always a tricky thing.

But I think you build the coalition, and that's what can break down the barrier.

Well, when I testified in front of the House and the Senate, I pointed out that of the 9,000 people who had been petitioning in Wayne County, 76 had at least 10 petitions over a five-year period.

They're the highest users.

In one year, these 76 people, we spent $3.3 million on hospitalization and $1.6 million on incarceration.

$5 million, and for that, we got nothing.

Well, we do know from the data that a good AOT program will reduce homelessness.

So that's been proven in, well, Genesee County, Michigan, New York has that data, and I think Ohio has that data as well.

So we know that if you have that kind of program, you can reduce homelessness.

That's definitely encouraging.