New York City exports its homeless problem

This doesn’t surprise me, and it’s hardly confined to New York City;  but the sheer brazenness of the bureaucrats is mind-boggling.  “Let’s dump our problems on other cities, without bothering to tell them what’s on the way!”

New York City generously shares its homeless crisis with every corner of America.

From the tropical shores of Honolulu and Puerto Rico, to the badlands of Utah and backwaters of Louisiana, the Big Apple has sent local homeless families to 373 cities across the country with a full year of rent in their pockets as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Special One-Time Assistance Program.” Usually, the receiving city knows nothing about it.

. . .

Families who once lived in city shelters decamped to 32 states and Puerto Rico … The city also paid travel expenses, through a separate taxpayer-funded program called Project Reconnect, but would not divulge how much it spent. A Friday flight to Honolulu for four people would cost about $1,400. A bus ticket to Salt Lake City, Utah, for the same family would cost $800.

Add to the tab the cost of furnishings, which the city also did not disclose. One SOTA recipient said she received $1,000 for them.

. . .

Not only are officials in towns where the city’s homeless land up in arms, but hundreds of the homeless families are returning to the five boroughs — and some are even suing NYC over being abandoned in barely livable conditions.

There’s more at the link.

A nice, convenient, and relatively cheap way for New York City to get rid of some of its problem children . . . only to dump them, without so much as a “by your leave”, on another community that doesn’t know they’re coming, doesn’t want them, and probably can’t afford to deal with them.  One wonders how long it takes those homeless people to run through New York’s largesse, and turn to their new cities to demand similar support, financial and otherwise.  I suspect it’s a lot less than a year.

If NYC bureaucrats think they can get away with this, what else are they getting away with that we don’t (yet) know about?  And how many other cities are doing likewise?

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Peter

14 comments

  1. Better idea – How about we send Mayor Bill de Blasio to North Korea. They have much in common and so should get along splendidly.

  2. I live in Upstate NY and NYC has been 'dropping off' homeless people and families in our area all without notifying our county officials or social services. They utilize vehicles that are unmarked so until the moment a person steps off their bus, no one knows what or who they are.

    This forces my community to pay the taxes to support these people and they are not, nor would they ever be a resident of this area otherwise. Our crime rates are rising and as would be expected the costs of harboring these people is inflating our taxes and costs of living in many ways.

    This policy of dumping homeless on other communities outside of the city itself is an indication of the corruption and bias of the politics in both the city of New York and the state government towards areas outside of their 'community'.

    As we survey the nation it is quite apparent that the places with the highest concentrations of liberals are the hell holes that normally we would attribute to places like Calcutta. It is an enlightenment to observe the track record of failure as these feel-good libtards spread their touchy feelie nonsense.

  3. Didn't the Dems in Atlanta and Denver bus the homeless out during the Olympics and the 2008 dem convention??? I seem to remember a kerfuffle over those back in the day.

  4. This is nothing new. 35 years ago Minneapolis was offering a free bus ticket out of town. People would come to Minneapolis for the summer (better welfare benefits) then return home for the winter.

    The program was quickly shut down once activists discovered it. Can't stop people from moving to get better handouts.

  5. Y'all yankees have been doing this for years, giving bus tickets to your problems and sending them to us in the south. Where else do you think FloridaMan came from?

    Seriously.

    This has been going on since the early 70's. We here in the South know about it, it gets reported about once every 5 years, the North says it stops, but it doesn't.

    The Old is New again. Sadly.

  6. I once asked my supervisor if, instead of doing three shifts a week, I could do 2 shifts, and one night a week, get a greyhound-style bus, a few cases of 40-ouncers, and pick up our regulars on Skid Row and drive them to Phoenix, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Denver, Portland, and anywhere else I could get to in 20 hours, after getting them well-lubricated. I planned to have a document shredder for their papers and IDs while they slept.

    Best case, they wake up and realize they're not in Califrutopia, resolve to come back…and then pass a liquor store. Never coming back.

    Worst case, the cops notice a spate of guys all claiming to be from CA, but without any papers or ID, ship them back, but we get a vacay from them for a week or three before they figure it out.

    Middle case, they send us their bums in trade, and we create an ad hoc Homeless Exchange Program, but we at least get some new faces and cases.

    The response I got, literally, was "We don't think that would be ethical, but keep coming to us with these ideas…"

    NYFC evidently had a lower moral bar to cross before implementing it, and then some.

    Hopefully they get sued in federal court, and have to recompense the 32 states and territories they dumped their problem on.

    As a bonus, the precedent would have 49 states begging California for terms of settlement for y'alls toothless banjo-playing kinfolk landed here, before that trial started.

  7. Interestingly enough, I remember being told that mississippi in I believe the 60’s would ask potential recipients, especially blacks, if they had any family up north like Chicago or Detroit and would put them on a bus north so they could enjoy the better benefits in the northern states.

  8. Someone should start a clearing-house where benefits and restrictions in all states and territories can be calculated from each point of departure, and each "recipient" should be "launched" in the appropriate direction. Until the Feds step in with the Interstate Commerce Claws.

  9. So, living in a smallish town in rural Colorado, we will have a sudden spate of new homeless/junkies show up. They'll be trouble for a while before they finally realize they can't deal/panhandle/disappear as readily in a smaller town.
    And they'll move on.
    I asked some cops who talk to these individuals regularly. Turns out Denver and Colorado Springs gets tired of them and justs sticks them on a bus too…wherever.
    Yeah, that's not going to end well.

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