Denver Mayor Mike Johnston responded to a question about whether the area was very welcoming and welcoming to immigrants by saying that “it’s a compromise.” The meeting was recorded in February and aired on Thursday’s” Cities of Success.” We want to become a loving city” but doing that without governmental help “requires shared compromise, it requires bargain. Thus, we are both cutting both the amount of services we can offer to the immigrants who arrive and the number of people we can assist by cutting both of these costs.
According to Johnston, the number of immigrants entering the city was “much higher than what we thought.” I may say, what we’re really glad of is, like other issues, we’ve taken this on, we’ve figured out an innovative view, and we’ve figured out a way to fix it. Of the 40, 000 workers who have arrived in this area, as of tonight, I have a regular matter, we have around 40 to 45 workers full that are unsheltered now. That means 99.9 % of those 40, 000 have come through, gotten connected to service, cover, function, and made it properly. Thus, we figured out how to manage this device, how to pleasant people, get them connected to legitimate clinics, provide them cover- around resources. To do that well just requires resources, and therefore, our problem is, we can do it well with national support, we can do it well with more job license, we can do it nicely with a coordinated strategy for entry. Without any of those three, the work becomes tougher. But we’ve now doubled down, assuming there’s no federal help coming, and we’re going to figure it out on our own”.
CNBC host Carl Quintanilla then asked,” What do you say to Denverites who say, we were too generous, we gave away — we opened the door too wide”?
Johnston responded,” We think it’s a balance. We want to be a welcoming city where there is n’t a woman sleeping outside in a tent with a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old in ten-degree weather in a snowstorm. That’s one of our values. Additionally, we want to be able to offer all taxpayers high-quality public services. That’s also one of our values. And in this context, without any federal support, to do both of those things requires shared sacrifice, it requires compromise. So, we are both cutting both the amount of services we can offer to the immigrants who arrive and the number of people we can serve by cutting both of these costs.
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