From the March 29, 2021, edition of Fox News' Fox News Primetime

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY (GUEST HOST): Cities across America now seeing a growing homeless problem. From military veterans to children, more and more people are on the streets. Meantime, the U.S. Is letting unaccompanied migrant children cross the border and live temporarily at Texas military bases. And now the Biden administration has reportedly awarded an $86 million contract for hotel rooms to house migrant family members. Joining me now, former HUD secretary and American Cornerstone Institute founder Dr. Ben Carson. Dr. Carson, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us today. 

BEN CARSON (FORMER HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY): Thank you, Rachel. It's nice to be with you. 

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Thank you. Well, you know, we know that there is a homeless problem. I'm here in New York. We see it everywhere. If there is an ability by the U.S. government to open up our bases or pay for hotel rooms, shouldn't they have first been offered to American homeless families, or in particular American veterans who are homeless? 

CARSON: Well, one would certainly think that. You would think that our priorities would be in that direction. But, for some strange reason, you know, we seem to be broken down into this camp of virtue-signalers who say, you know, “We are the most compassionate people and we solve everybody's issues." And that's not true. You know, the money that we use on people who are coming here illegally is very, very substantial amount of money, and it has a domino effect. If you took that same money and you worked to improve the situation where they came from, I think it wouldn't cost us any more money and it would be a better situation for them. In the meantime, we have a ton -- we have tens of thousands of people in this country who are homeless and who need our help.

And the fact of the matter is, you know, we have the housing first advocates, just put them in the shelter. I think it has to be housing first, second, and third. Put shelter over their head and then housing second is you diagnose the reason that they're there in the first place, and then housing third, you fix it. You have all these people with drug addictions, we need to work on that. We can't continue to let that grow. It will have a very devastating effect on our society.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Absolutely

CARSON: And the mentally ill people. Many of them are quite functional if they had the appropriate attention and care, medications and counseling.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Right.

CARSON: So that's real compassion, getting people out of those situations. Not just patting them on the head and saying, “There, there, you poor little thing, and I'm so wonderful." And, you know, it really is kind of sickening to watch it going on. And I think a lot of Americans actually realize what's going on. But, you know, they don't speak up. We're going to have to start speaking up. We are going to have to start really talking about what makes sense, going to meetings, talking to legislators, and making your voice known because America is of, for, and by the people. Unless we make our voices known, we are going to lose it. 

CAMPOS-DUFFY: I agree.