I believe this housing issue has brought our community to a tipping point, ... We're compromising our health, safety and welfare.

The health care community has long been committed to improving patient safety, and significant progress has been made through new technology, research and education. But federal legislation is the crucial element needed to truly open communication and prevention.

We don't have anything in the safety net other than welfare, which is why there's nothing else to catch them on the way down, so they end up on the welfare rolls -- which is inappropriate.

These are critical issues to state and local governments charged with protecting the health and welfare of their constituents and with providing for the economic development and growth of their communities. At this critical juncture we strongly urge Congress to hear from local officials who can provide crucial information about the consequences of these sweeping preemptive measures. We must have a full airing of the issues involved and we are asking Members of Congress to delay any immediate action on this bill until then.

Basically, they call it health and welfare traffic and what they've been doing over, probably, the last seven days, is if they can get information, they will try and locate an individual. It helps to have phone numbers, last known locations and if they made it to a shelter.

The magnitude of this just stops you in your tracks. It's really brought the animal welfare community together. Normally, each agency tends to be a bit territorial. Not now.