Where Everybody Knows You're Numb

Psych Lit · Guru

i wonder how many come back later?

Date: Tue Aug 4 8:49 AM, 2009

I still read this article as saying that the homeless are offered the opportunity of relocating with family members in other locations if the family members are willing to accept them. The article also states that the homeless are allowed to choose to remain in its homeless shelters. It is noted that none of the relocated families have returned to the city shelters. I am sorry, but from this article I do not see how New York is people dumping or forcing its homeless onto the backs of other states.

I did not see the article refer to the mentally ill homeless, although the Reagan adminstration did a heck of a job putting that population on the street. Nor did I see any reference to hurricane Katrina victims. I do believe that most every state is seeing an increase in its homeless population and it is being atttributed to the economy. No one wants the homeless in their backyard and the potential for crime it may bring. However, this is an excellent video of the "new" homeless; not your traditional drug addicts, the mentally ill, or the life time bums.

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/526/middle-class-homeless.html

I hope everyone is enjoying the wonderful sunny lunch break I am!

Lily

boxdog1031 · Veteran Member

Psych Lit wrote:

Lily wrote:

The two anonymous posts here are very disturbing in the sweeping generalizations made against New Yorkers, at least in my interpretation of what was written.
Perhaps there is some level of frustration with those playing the shell game with human lives. There is also another uncomfortable parallel topic buried within this and it has to do with the crime policies of the Bloomberg administration and the approach that administration takes in its relations with those who are less wealthy. In addition to putting some homeless folks on a bus they have stepped up the police stops in areas that are comprised of low income minority residents. we're talking cops arbitrarily walking up to you and asking you who you are, where you are going, and why and asking you to produce an ID. One recent report stated that of the nearly half a million stops in these areas only 6 percent resulted in arrest. from where im sitting that means 90 plus percent of those stopped were not found to be doing anything wrong. some new yorkers think that the real purpose of this focus on the minority populations is to get people to leave new york.
Bloomberg gets a lot of press for the reduction in crime in new york city but I have to wonder if its at the expense of other equally important principles, like the freedom to walk the streets without being asked for an id or asked to explain what youre doing. What im thinking is that rather than attending to the human need or trying to solve some of these social problems, new york is simply shifting the burden to other states and at the very least, i think thats something worthy of a closer look.
Back to the plane tickets for the homeless for a moment tho. i have to wonder why anyone would go to one of the most expensive cities in the world in terms of living expenses when they have no resources, no shelter lined up and no job in the picture. that has me scratching my head. also, i did wonder is if these folks ever came back. im thinking most people would choose family over the streets if it were an option and i have to wonder if it really is an option. yeah, ok, they call the family first but what safeguards are in place once they get there? is there anyone on the other end to verify that these people really were taken in or are they simply homeless elsewhere or do they drift back to new york?

Closing the borders of the state? This statement leads me to believe that the poster is a Florida native. No matter, it is still quite discriminatory in a country that allows free travel within its borders.

i think people begin to speak about closing borders when they feel that they are being asked to carry an unfair share of the burden and cost of those who are unable to care for themselves. people end up on the street for any number of reasons tho id expect that for many people on the streets there are a lot of other problems mixed in to the homeless equation such as addiction or mental illness. for those folks who are costly to treat and create a ripple effect of social difficulties the aspect new york practicing people dumping as bd said seems to be on target.

As a lesbian, I feel I have been discriminated against from time to time and therefore I am very sensitive to discrimination of others. I know numerous people who have migrated to Florida and were successful in obtaining housing and employment. In fact, none of them, to my knowledge is a welfare bum or couch surfer. Very harsh judgments in this topic.

sure, lots of people move all over the country in search of a variety of things to better their lives and most do so successfully. i do think that states where the climate allows people to stay outside and out of shelters tend to get a disproportionate number of the homeless population and that this disproportionate shift does create issues for the people who live in these places. im not a fan of discrimination either which is why i object to things like racial profiling in police procedure or the class-ism exhibited by sending the homeless elsewhere. what id like to see is the return of the safety net for people. especially those who have been pushed out of their homes in this economy. that seems to have disappeared in the clinton era. id also like to see some understanding that mental illness and substance abuse are medical issues that call for medical intervention and a rethinking of out society. what kind of society throws the weak and the sick out on the streets?

Todays paper: Hope it sheds some light. The number is staggering. "With the local unemployment rate teetering near 11 percent and an ever-growing homeless street population up 83 percent in Pinellas County since 2007 the issue of area panhandlers has been thrust into the public debate like never before."

So yes, it's very personal. Very smarmy and very costly for people dumping to become a way of doing business. This county could easily have turned it's own back on the 4k Katrina victims, it's not like we aren't a potential hurricane hot spot ourselves to concern us with. We didn't, but now, 4 years later? Enough is truly, enough.

Psych Lit · Guru

Lily wrote:

The two anonymous posts here are very disturbing in the sweeping generalizations made against New Yorkers, at least in my interpretation of what was written.
Perhaps there is some level of frustration with those playing the shell game with human lives. There is also another uncomfortable parallel topic buried within this and it has to do with the crime policies of the Bloomberg administration and the approach that administration takes in its relations with those who are less wealthy. In addition to putting some homeless folks on a bus they have stepped up the police stops in areas that are comprised of low income minority residents. we're talking cops arbitrarily walking up to you and asking you who you are, where you are going, and why and asking you to produce an ID. One recent report stated that of the nearly half a million stops in these areas only 6 percent resulted in arrest. from where im sitting that means 90 plus percent of those stopped were not found to be doing anything wrong. some new yorkers think that the real purpose of this focus on the minority populations is to get people to leave new york.
Bloomberg gets a lot of press for the reduction in crime in new york city but I have to wonder if its at the expense of other equally important principles, like the freedom to walk the streets without being asked for an id or asked to explain what youre doing. What im thinking is that rather than attending to the human need or trying to solve some of these social problems, new york is simply shifting the burden to other states and at the very least, i think thats something worthy of a closer look.
Back to the plane tickets for the homeless for a moment tho. i have to wonder why anyone would go to one of the most expensive cities in the world in terms of living expenses when they have no resources, no shelter lined up and no job in the picture. that has me scratching my head. also, i did wonder is if these folks ever came back. im thinking most people would choose family over the streets if it were an option and i have to wonder if it really is an option. yeah, ok, they call the family first but what safeguards are in place once they get there? is there anyone on the other end to verify that these people really were taken in or are they simply homeless elsewhere or do they drift back to new york?

Closing the borders of the state? This statement leads me to believe that the poster is a Florida native. No matter, it is still quite discriminatory in a country that allows free travel within its borders.

i think people begin to speak about closing borders when they feel that they are being asked to carry an unfair share of the burden and cost of those who are unable to care for themselves. people end up on the street for any number of reasons tho id expect that for many people on the streets there are a lot of other problems mixed in to the homeless equation such as addiction or mental illness. for those folks who are costly to treat and create a ripple effect of social difficulties the aspect new york practicing people dumping as bd said seems to be on target.

As a lesbian, I feel I have been discriminated against from time to time and therefore I am very sensitive to discrimination of others. I know numerous people who have migrated to Florida and were successful in obtaining housing and employment. In fact, none of them, to my knowledge is a welfare bum or couch surfer. Very harsh judgments in this topic.

sure, lots of people move all over the country in search of a variety of things to better their lives and most do so successfully. i do think that states where the climate allows people to stay outside and out of shelters tend to get a disproportionate number of the homeless population and that this disproportionate shift does create issues for the people who live in these places. im not a fan of discrimination either which is why i object to things like racial profiling in police procedure or the class-ism exhibited by sending the homeless elsewhere. what id like to see is the return of the safety net for people. especially those who have been pushed out of their homes in this economy. that seems to have disappeared in the clinton era. id also like to see some understanding that mental illness and substance abuse are medical issues that call for medical intervention and a rethinking of out society. what kind of society throws the weak and the sick out on the streets?

Date: Thu Jul 30 7:36 AM, 2009

boxdog1031 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Psych Lit wrote:

City Aids Homeless With One-Way Tickets Home
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, with Inez, returned to North Carolina after only a few days when relatives paid their back rent.

By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: July 28, 2009
They are flown to Paris ($6,332), Orlando ($858.40), Johannesburg ($2,550.70), or most frequently, San Juan ($484.20).
Skip to next paragraph
Multimedia
Graphic
Outward Bound
Enlarge This Image

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Hector Correa and Elisabeth Mojica were at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday to fly home to Puerto Rico, to stay with her father.

They are not executives on business trips or couples on honeymoons. Rather, all are families who have ended up homeless, and all the plane tickets are courtesy of the city of New York (one-way).
The Bloomberg administration, which has struggled with a seemingly intractable problem of homelessness for years, has paid for more than 550 families to leave the city since 2007, as a way of keeping them out of the expensive shelter system, which costs $36,000 a year per family. All it takes is for a relative elsewhere to agree to take the family in.
Many of them are longtime New Yorkers who have come upon hard times, arrive at the shelters doorstep and jump at the offer to move at no cost. Others are recent arrivals who are happy to return home after becoming discouraged by the citys noise, the mazelike subway, the difficult job market or the high cost of housing.
I didnt expect the city to be the way it is, said Hector Correa, who was in a homeless shelter last week and flew home to Puerto Rico on Tuesday. I was expecting something different, something better.
Mr. Correa and his companion, Elisabeth Mojica, and their two young sons, both also named Hector, arrived in New York in May to live with his mother. But after they failed to find jobs and the bills began to mount, his mother threatened to kick them out. Out of cash, they checked into the city intake center for homeless families in the Bronx.
The person I spoke to in the shelter informed me that if I have a person I could stay with in Puerto Rico, that I could get help to go, said Mr. Correa, who worked as a mechanic in Carolina, on the north shore of the island. They will stay with Ms. Mojicas father. I feel very happy because Im going to be able to get back to do the things that I know how to do, he said.
At the intake center, social workers ask families about their housing options in other places. If a family says that they have relatives who might be willing to take them in, and social workers confirm their report, the family could be on a plane, bus or train within hours, although the city will sometimes wait a few days to avoid the expense of last-minute fares. The Correas flew to San Juan for less than $1,000.
The city, which spends $500,000 a year on the program, employs a local travel agency, Austin Travel, to book one-way tickets for domestic trips. Department of Homeless Services employees do all the planning for international travel.
City officials said there were no limits on where a family can be sent, and families can reject the offer and stay in city shelters. So far, families have been sent to 24 states and 5 continents, most often to Puerto Rico, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
We want to divert as many families as we can that need assistance, said Vida Chavez-Downes, the director of the Resource Room, a city office with 11 social workers, two managers and an administrative assistant who help relocate families. We have paid for visas, weve gone down to the consulate, weve provided letters, weve paid for passports for people to go. Anyone who comes through our door.
One family with 10 children accepted an offer to go to Puerto Rico on a nonstop JetBlue flight. An adventurous but ultimately unlucky Michigan couple drove to the city in search of jobs and a new life. They got $400 in gas cards to drive back.
One set of parents agreed to move to France with their three children to be with the mothers family. The $6,332 travel cost included five plane tickets to Paris and five train tickets to the town of Granville, in the northwest.
In the past, the city contracted with the Salvation Army for a now-defunct program called Homeward Bound, but only for single adults and couples, not families with children. Both versions followed the example of Travelers Aid, a 150-year-old nonprofit organization that provides stranded and homeless people emergency aid so they could return to their homes, and which still exists today. Other cities have experimented with similar programs, but they are largely focused on adults without children.
The Hawaii Legislature recently rejected a plan to send homeless people on one-way flights to live with relatives on the mainland, because of the cost.
Once a family leaves New York, homeless services officials say they follow up with a phone call to make sure they arrive safely, then make a few more calls over the next two to three weeks. In rare cases, they will advance the family up to four months rent, a one-month security deposit, a furniture allowance and a brokers fee.
City officials said that none of the families that have been relocated have returned to city shelters.
The program fails to address the underlying problems that brought the families here in the first place, said Arnold S. Cohen, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for the Homeless, an advocacy group in New York.
The city is engaged in cosmetics, Mr. Cohen said. What were doing is passing the problem of homelessness to another city. Were taking people from a shelter bed here to the living room couch of another family. Essentially, this family is still homeless.
Sometimes the journey to and from New York is quick. Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, both 20, owed back rent on their apartment in Fayetteville, N.C., so they came to New York on Saturday with their 5-month-old, Inez. They planned to stay in shelters while they looked for jobs, and went straight to the intake center.
Then relatives of Mr. Little, who worked at a telephone center serving insurance customers, scraped up enough money to pay their back rent, and homeless services workers confirmed that his mother would be around to help. By Monday night, they were waiting outside Gate 73 at the Port Authority Bus Terminal to board their 7:15 p.m. Greyhound to Greensboro.
We were going to come here and then find work, you know, because theres always work in New York, Ms. Martin said, as Inez bounced on her knee.
Mr. Little said, Once we found out we could keep our apartment, there was no point in staying here, because I can go back to my job in North Carolina.
"Mr. Correa and his companion, Elisabeth Mojica, and their two young sons, both also named Hector, arrived in New York in May to live with his mother. But after they failed to find jobs and the bills began to mount, his mother threatened to kick them out. Out of cash, they checked into the city intake center for homeless families in the Bronx."

I've been saying for months I wish we could build that stupid fence. But at the Florida border, not Texas. There is NO need for more people to flock, either to or back to, Florida. My thought is if one doesn't already reside here or isn't traveling for commerce or tourism purposes, stay out. There are no jobs, en masse, no wind to harness for windmills, locals are more than able to fill any "shovel ready" jobs if they ever create projects to build. There is no need for new Mickeys or Goofys at Disney, a service industry that is being infiltrated by displaced clerical, middle management and recent college grads and a downturn in the need for such bar and restaurant positions. We certainly don't want to encourage the return of welfare ready families. The state is stressed, strapped and worn as thin as it can be. We have a high unemployment rate, dwindling state resources, limited public transportation and far too many people on the road with uninsured "clunkers" as it is. I say, leave? Stay gone. Here's the change you asked for, now "hope" for the best. On the softer side, I do think it's sad that the Correz family couldn't somehow manage to work it out WITH HIS MOTHER. Appears this able bodied mechanic couldn't find work in his trade ANYWHERE in NY? Seems odd that the NY mother would have the family move to her home only to displace them back into reality. Maybe, just maybe, they liked the couch when they got to the Empire State.

"I didn't expect New York to be like this"? That's the best he could come up with?
BD

Local Florida................. which does not have a New York mentality / mindset would gladly take them in exchange for New York to take it's roosted, entitlement warped, bloodsucking, system screwing natives back from us And, anyone who truely owns this state would say be sure and, fence out New York first. If anyone loves a couch and a lazy life filled with cold brew it is those we put up with here from New York that never appreciate the light of a Florida Day sober. The majority of New York here has manipulated the system illegally albeit disability and, welfare through child hording and, flat out forcing the New York way on us. Gator

Yikes, "local Florida" may want to brush up on it's writing skills (sic). Unless, of course, that's some sort of stream of conscious "local Florida" art form.

Hit a real nerve there BD? Don't like the mirror? And, better to mis spell than have to bottom feed and date trolls because, that is about all the opportunity there is when one is so incredibly bigoted and nasty and alike. Gator

Lily · Member

The two anonymous posts here are very disturbing in the sweeping generalizations made against New Yorkers, at least in my interpretation of what was written.

The article, as I read it, states that the homeless families are returned from whence they came or are sent to relatives that are willing to accept the families and help them get back on their feet. I feel this is a positive step for those families rather than having them reside in homeless shelters, which are notoriously unsafe, especially for children.

Closing the borders of the state? This statement leads me to believe that the poster is a Florida native. No matter, it is still quite discriminatory in a country that allows free travel within its borders.

As a lesbian, I feel I have been discriminated against from time to time and therefore I am very sensitive to discrimination of others. I know numerous people who have migrated to Florida and were successful in obtaining housing and employment. In fact, none of them, to my knowledge is a welfare bum or couch surfer. Very harsh judgments in this topic.

Lily

-- Edited by Lily on Wednesday 29th of July 2009 03:43:32 PM

Date: Wed Jul 29 3:34 PM, 2009

Psych Lit wrote:

City Aids Homeless With One-Way Tickets Home
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, with Inez, returned to North Carolina after only a few days when relatives paid their back rent.

By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: July 28, 2009
They are flown to Paris ($6,332), Orlando ($858.40), Johannesburg ($2,550.70), or most frequently, San Juan ($484.20).
Skip to next paragraph
Multimedia
Graphic
Outward Bound
Enlarge This Image

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Hector Correa and Elisabeth Mojica were at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday to fly home to Puerto Rico, to stay with her father.

They are not executives on business trips or couples on honeymoons. Rather, all are families who have ended up homeless, and all the plane tickets are courtesy of the city of New York (one-way).
The Bloomberg administration, which has struggled with a seemingly intractable problem of homelessness for years, has paid for more than 550 families to leave the city since 2007, as a way of keeping them out of the expensive shelter system, which costs $36,000 a year per family. All it takes is for a relative elsewhere to agree to take the family in.
Many of them are longtime New Yorkers who have come upon hard times, arrive at the shelters doorstep and jump at the offer to move at no cost. Others are recent arrivals who are happy to return home after becoming discouraged by the citys noise, the mazelike subway, the difficult job market or the high cost of housing.
I didnt expect the city to be the way it is, said Hector Correa, who was in a homeless shelter last week and flew home to Puerto Rico on Tuesday. I was expecting something different, something better.
Mr. Correa and his companion, Elisabeth Mojica, and their two young sons, both also named Hector, arrived in New York in May to live with his mother. But after they failed to find jobs and the bills began to mount, his mother threatened to kick them out. Out of cash, they checked into the city intake center for homeless families in the Bronx.
The person I spoke to in the shelter informed me that if I have a person I could stay with in Puerto Rico, that I could get help to go, said Mr. Correa, who worked as a mechanic in Carolina, on the north shore of the island. They will stay with Ms. Mojicas father. I feel very happy because Im going to be able to get back to do the things that I know how to do, he said.
At the intake center, social workers ask families about their housing options in other places. If a family says that they have relatives who might be willing to take them in, and social workers confirm their report, the family could be on a plane, bus or train within hours, although the city will sometimes wait a few days to avoid the expense of last-minute fares. The Correas flew to San Juan for less than $1,000.
The city, which spends $500,000 a year on the program, employs a local travel agency, Austin Travel, to book one-way tickets for domestic trips. Department of Homeless Services employees do all the planning for international travel.
City officials said there were no limits on where a family can be sent, and families can reject the offer and stay in city shelters. So far, families have been sent to 24 states and 5 continents, most often to Puerto Rico, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
We want to divert as many families as we can that need assistance, said Vida Chavez-Downes, the director of the Resource Room, a city office with 11 social workers, two managers and an administrative assistant who help relocate families. We have paid for visas, weve gone down to the consulate, weve provided letters, weve paid for passports for people to go. Anyone who comes through our door.
One family with 10 children accepted an offer to go to Puerto Rico on a nonstop JetBlue flight. An adventurous but ultimately unlucky Michigan couple drove to the city in search of jobs and a new life. They got $400 in gas cards to drive back.
One set of parents agreed to move to France with their three children to be with the mothers family. The $6,332 travel cost included five plane tickets to Paris and five train tickets to the town of Granville, in the northwest.
In the past, the city contracted with the Salvation Army for a now-defunct program called Homeward Bound, but only for single adults and couples, not families with children. Both versions followed the example of Travelers Aid, a 150-year-old nonprofit organization that provides stranded and homeless people emergency aid so they could return to their homes, and which still exists today. Other cities have experimented with similar programs, but they are largely focused on adults without children.
The Hawaii Legislature recently rejected a plan to send homeless people on one-way flights to live with relatives on the mainland, because of the cost.
Once a family leaves New York, homeless services officials say they follow up with a phone call to make sure they arrive safely, then make a few more calls over the next two to three weeks. In rare cases, they will advance the family up to four months rent, a one-month security deposit, a furniture allowance and a brokers fee.
City officials said that none of the families that have been relocated have returned to city shelters.
The program fails to address the underlying problems that brought the families here in the first place, said Arnold S. Cohen, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for the Homeless, an advocacy group in New York.
The city is engaged in cosmetics, Mr. Cohen said. What were doing is passing the problem of homelessness to another city. Were taking people from a shelter bed here to the living room couch of another family. Essentially, this family is still homeless.
Sometimes the journey to and from New York is quick. Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, both 20, owed back rent on their apartment in Fayetteville, N.C., so they came to New York on Saturday with their 5-month-old, Inez. They planned to stay in shelters while they looked for jobs, and went straight to the intake center.
Then relatives of Mr. Little, who worked at a telephone center serving insurance customers, scraped up enough money to pay their back rent, and homeless services workers confirmed that his mother would be around to help. By Monday night, they were waiting outside Gate 73 at the Port Authority Bus Terminal to board their 7:15 p.m. Greyhound to Greensboro.
We were going to come here and then find work, you know, because theres always work in New York, Ms. Martin said, as Inez bounced on her knee.
Mr. Little said, Once we found out we could keep our apartment, there was no point in staying here, because I can go back to my job in North Carolina.

According to the local evening news Atlanta and North Carolina are organizing "vacations" for their homeless to Florida. Lovely, people dumping. It's not legal in medicine, why should it be acceptable strategizing in homelessness?

BD

boxdog1031 · Veteran Member

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Psych Lit wrote:

City Aids Homeless With One-Way Tickets Home
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, with Inez, returned to North Carolina after only a few days when relatives paid their back rent.

By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: July 28, 2009
They are flown to Paris ($6,332), Orlando ($858.40), Johannesburg ($2,550.70), or most frequently, San Juan ($484.20).
Skip to next paragraph
Multimedia
Graphic
Outward Bound
Enlarge This Image

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Hector Correa and Elisabeth Mojica were at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday to fly home to Puerto Rico, to stay with her father.

They are not executives on business trips or couples on honeymoons. Rather, all are families who have ended up homeless, and all the plane tickets are courtesy of the city of New York (one-way).
The Bloomberg administration, which has struggled with a seemingly intractable problem of homelessness for years, has paid for more than 550 families to leave the city since 2007, as a way of keeping them out of the expensive shelter system, which costs $36,000 a year per family. All it takes is for a relative elsewhere to agree to take the family in.
Many of them are longtime New Yorkers who have come upon hard times, arrive at the shelters doorstep and jump at the offer to move at no cost. Others are recent arrivals who are happy to return home after becoming discouraged by the citys noise, the mazelike subway, the difficult job market or the high cost of housing.
I didnt expect the city to be the way it is, said Hector Correa, who was in a homeless shelter last week and flew home to Puerto Rico on Tuesday. I was expecting something different, something better.
Mr. Correa and his companion, Elisabeth Mojica, and their two young sons, both also named Hector, arrived in New York in May to live with his mother. But after they failed to find jobs and the bills began to mount, his mother threatened to kick them out. Out of cash, they checked into the city intake center for homeless families in the Bronx.
The person I spoke to in the shelter informed me that if I have a person I could stay with in Puerto Rico, that I could get help to go, said Mr. Correa, who worked as a mechanic in Carolina, on the north shore of the island. They will stay with Ms. Mojicas father. I feel very happy because Im going to be able to get back to do the things that I know how to do, he said.
At the intake center, social workers ask families about their housing options in other places. If a family says that they have relatives who might be willing to take them in, and social workers confirm their report, the family could be on a plane, bus or train within hours, although the city will sometimes wait a few days to avoid the expense of last-minute fares. The Correas flew to San Juan for less than $1,000.
The city, which spends $500,000 a year on the program, employs a local travel agency, Austin Travel, to book one-way tickets for domestic trips. Department of Homeless Services employees do all the planning for international travel.
City officials said there were no limits on where a family can be sent, and families can reject the offer and stay in city shelters. So far, families have been sent to 24 states and 5 continents, most often to Puerto Rico, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
We want to divert as many families as we can that need assistance, said Vida Chavez-Downes, the director of the Resource Room, a city office with 11 social workers, two managers and an administrative assistant who help relocate families. We have paid for visas, weve gone down to the consulate, weve provided letters, weve paid for passports for people to go. Anyone who comes through our door.
One family with 10 children accepted an offer to go to Puerto Rico on a nonstop JetBlue flight. An adventurous but ultimately unlucky Michigan couple drove to the city in search of jobs and a new life. They got $400 in gas cards to drive back.
One set of parents agreed to move to France with their three children to be with the mothers family. The $6,332 travel cost included five plane tickets to Paris and five train tickets to the town of Granville, in the northwest.
In the past, the city contracted with the Salvation Army for a now-defunct program called Homeward Bound, but only for single adults and couples, not families with children. Both versions followed the example of Travelers Aid, a 150-year-old nonprofit organization that provides stranded and homeless people emergency aid so they could return to their homes, and which still exists today. Other cities have experimented with similar programs, but they are largely focused on adults without children.
The Hawaii Legislature recently rejected a plan to send homeless people on one-way flights to live with relatives on the mainland, because of the cost.
Once a family leaves New York, homeless services officials say they follow up with a phone call to make sure they arrive safely, then make a few more calls over the next two to three weeks. In rare cases, they will advance the family up to four months rent, a one-month security deposit, a furniture allowance and a brokers fee.
City officials said that none of the families that have been relocated have returned to city shelters.
The program fails to address the underlying problems that brought the families here in the first place, said Arnold S. Cohen, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for the Homeless, an advocacy group in New York.
The city is engaged in cosmetics, Mr. Cohen said. What were doing is passing the problem of homelessness to another city. Were taking people from a shelter bed here to the living room couch of another family. Essentially, this family is still homeless.
Sometimes the journey to and from New York is quick. Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, both 20, owed back rent on their apartment in Fayetteville, N.C., so they came to New York on Saturday with their 5-month-old, Inez. They planned to stay in shelters while they looked for jobs, and went straight to the intake center.
Then relatives of Mr. Little, who worked at a telephone center serving insurance customers, scraped up enough money to pay their back rent, and homeless services workers confirmed that his mother would be around to help. By Monday night, they were waiting outside Gate 73 at the Port Authority Bus Terminal to board their 7:15 p.m. Greyhound to Greensboro.
We were going to come here and then find work, you know, because theres always work in New York, Ms. Martin said, as Inez bounced on her knee.
Mr. Little said, Once we found out we could keep our apartment, there was no point in staying here, because I can go back to my job in North Carolina.
"Mr. Correa and his companion, Elisabeth Mojica, and their two young sons, both also named Hector, arrived in New York in May to live with his mother. But after they failed to find jobs and the bills began to mount, his mother threatened to kick them out. Out of cash, they checked into the city intake center for homeless families in the Bronx."

I've been saying for months I wish we could build that stupid fence. But at the Florida border, not Texas. There is NO need for more people to flock, either to or back to, Florida. My thought is if one doesn't already reside here or isn't traveling for commerce or tourism purposes, stay out. There are no jobs, en masse, no wind to harness for windmills, locals are more than able to fill any "shovel ready" jobs if they ever create projects to build. There is no need for new Mickeys or Goofys at Disney, a service industry that is being infiltrated by displaced clerical, middle management and recent college grads and a downturn in the need for such bar and restaurant positions. We certainly don't want to encourage the return of welfare ready families. The state is stressed, strapped and worn as thin as it can be. We have a high unemployment rate, dwindling state resources, limited public transportation and far too many people on the road with uninsured "clunkers" as it is. I say, leave? Stay gone. Here's the change you asked for, now "hope" for the best. On the softer side, I do think it's sad that the Correz family couldn't somehow manage to work it out WITH HIS MOTHER. Appears this able bodied mechanic couldn't find work in his trade ANYWHERE in NY? Seems odd that the NY mother would have the family move to her home only to displace them back into reality. Maybe, just maybe, they liked the couch when they got to the Empire State.

"I didn't expect New York to be like this"? That's the best he could come up with?
BD

Local Florida................. which does not have a New York mentality / mindset would gladly take them in exchange for New York to take it's roosted, entitlement warped, bloodsucking, system screwing natives back from us And, anyone who truely owns this state would say be sure and, fence out New York first. If anyone loves a couch and a lazy life filled with cold brew it is those we put up with here from New York that never appreciate the light of a Florida Day sober. The majority of New York here has manipulated the system illegally albeit disability and, welfare through child hording and, flat out forcing the New York way on us. Gator

Yikes, "local Florida" may want to brush up on it's writing skills (sic). Unless, of course, that's some sort of stream of conscious "local Florida" art form.

Date: Wed Jul 29 5:53 AM, 2009

Anonymous wrote:

Psych Lit wrote:

City Aids Homeless With One-Way Tickets Home
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, with Inez, returned to North Carolina after only a few days when relatives paid their back rent.

By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: July 28, 2009
They are flown to Paris ($6,332), Orlando ($858.40), Johannesburg ($2,550.70), or most frequently, San Juan ($484.20).
Skip to next paragraph
Multimedia
Graphic
Outward Bound
Enlarge This Image

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Hector Correa and Elisabeth Mojica were at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday to fly home to Puerto Rico, to stay with her father.

They are not executives on business trips or couples on honeymoons. Rather, all are families who have ended up homeless, and all the plane tickets are courtesy of the city of New York (one-way).
The Bloomberg administration, which has struggled with a seemingly intractable problem of homelessness for years, has paid for more than 550 families to leave the city since 2007, as a way of keeping them out of the expensive shelter system, which costs $36,000 a year per family. All it takes is for a relative elsewhere to agree to take the family in.
Many of them are longtime New Yorkers who have come upon hard times, arrive at the shelters doorstep and jump at the offer to move at no cost. Others are recent arrivals who are happy to return home after becoming discouraged by the citys noise, the mazelike subway, the difficult job market or the high cost of housing.
I didnt expect the city to be the way it is, said Hector Correa, who was in a homeless shelter last week and flew home to Puerto Rico on Tuesday. I was expecting something different, something better.
Mr. Correa and his companion, Elisabeth Mojica, and their two young sons, both also named Hector, arrived in New York in May to live with his mother. But after they failed to find jobs and the bills began to mount, his mother threatened to kick them out. Out of cash, they checked into the city intake center for homeless families in the Bronx.
The person I spoke to in the shelter informed me that if I have a person I could stay with in Puerto Rico, that I could get help to go, said Mr. Correa, who worked as a mechanic in Carolina, on the north shore of the island. They will stay with Ms. Mojicas father. I feel very happy because Im going to be able to get back to do the things that I know how to do, he said.
At the intake center, social workers ask families about their housing options in other places. If a family says that they have relatives who might be willing to take them in, and social workers confirm their report, the family could be on a plane, bus or train within hours, although the city will sometimes wait a few days to avoid the expense of last-minute fares. The Correas flew to San Juan for less than $1,000.
The city, which spends $500,000 a year on the program, employs a local travel agency, Austin Travel, to book one-way tickets for domestic trips. Department of Homeless Services employees do all the planning for international travel.
City officials said there were no limits on where a family can be sent, and families can reject the offer and stay in city shelters. So far, families have been sent to 24 states and 5 continents, most often to Puerto Rico, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
We want to divert as many families as we can that need assistance, said Vida Chavez-Downes, the director of the Resource Room, a city office with 11 social workers, two managers and an administrative assistant who help relocate families. We have paid for visas, weve gone down to the consulate, weve provided letters, weve paid for passports for people to go. Anyone who comes through our door.
One family with 10 children accepted an offer to go to Puerto Rico on a nonstop JetBlue flight. An adventurous but ultimately unlucky Michigan couple drove to the city in search of jobs and a new life. They got $400 in gas cards to drive back.
One set of parents agreed to move to France with their three children to be with the mothers family. The $6,332 travel cost included five plane tickets to Paris and five train tickets to the town of Granville, in the northwest.
In the past, the city contracted with the Salvation Army for a now-defunct program called Homeward Bound, but only for single adults and couples, not families with children. Both versions followed the example of Travelers Aid, a 150-year-old nonprofit organization that provides stranded and homeless people emergency aid so they could return to their homes, and which still exists today. Other cities have experimented with similar programs, but they are largely focused on adults without children.
The Hawaii Legislature recently rejected a plan to send homeless people on one-way flights to live with relatives on the mainland, because of the cost.
Once a family leaves New York, homeless services officials say they follow up with a phone call to make sure they arrive safely, then make a few more calls over the next two to three weeks. In rare cases, they will advance the family up to four months rent, a one-month security deposit, a furniture allowance and a brokers fee.
City officials said that none of the families that have been relocated have returned to city shelters.
The program fails to address the underlying problems that brought the families here in the first place, said Arnold S. Cohen, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for the Homeless, an advocacy group in New York.
The city is engaged in cosmetics, Mr. Cohen said. What were doing is passing the problem of homelessness to another city. Were taking people from a shelter bed here to the living room couch of another family. Essentially, this family is still homeless.
Sometimes the journey to and from New York is quick. Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, both 20, owed back rent on their apartment in Fayetteville, N.C., so they came to New York on Saturday with their 5-month-old, Inez. They planned to stay in shelters while they looked for jobs, and went straight to the intake center.
Then relatives of Mr. Little, who worked at a telephone center serving insurance customers, scraped up enough money to pay their back rent, and homeless services workers confirmed that his mother would be around to help. By Monday night, they were waiting outside Gate 73 at the Port Authority Bus Terminal to board their 7:15 p.m. Greyhound to Greensboro.
We were going to come here and then find work, you know, because theres always work in New York, Ms. Martin said, as Inez bounced on her knee.
Mr. Little said, Once we found out we could keep our apartment, there was no point in staying here, because I can go back to my job in North Carolina.
"Mr. Correa and his companion, Elisabeth Mojica, and their two young sons, both also named Hector, arrived in New York in May to live with his mother. But after they failed to find jobs and the bills began to mount, his mother threatened to kick them out. Out of cash, they checked into the city intake center for homeless families in the Bronx."

I've been saying for months I wish we could build that stupid fence. But at the Florida border, not Texas. There is NO need for more people to flock, either to or back to, Florida. My thought is if one doesn't already reside here or isn't traveling for commerce or tourism purposes, stay out. There are no jobs, en masse, no wind to harness for windmills, locals are more than able to fill any "shovel ready" jobs if they ever create projects to build. There is no need for new Mickeys or Goofys at Disney, a service industry that is being infiltrated by displaced clerical, middle management and recent college grads and a downturn in the need for such bar and restaurant positions. We certainly don't want to encourage the return of welfare ready families. The state is stressed, strapped and worn as thin as it can be. We have a high unemployment rate, dwindling state resources, limited public transportation and far too many people on the road with uninsured "clunkers" as it is. I say, leave? Stay gone. Here's the change you asked for, now "hope" for the best. On the softer side, I do think it's sad that the Correz family couldn't somehow manage to work it out WITH HIS MOTHER. Appears this able bodied mechanic couldn't find work in his trade ANYWHERE in NY? Seems odd that the NY mother would have the family move to her home only to displace them back into reality. Maybe, just maybe, they liked the couch when they got to the Empire State.

"I didn't expect New York to be like this"? That's the best he could come up with?
BD

Local Florida................. which does not have a New York mentality / mindset would gladly take them in exchange for New York to take it's roosted, entitlement warped, bloodsucking, system screwing natives back from us And, anyone who truely owns this state would say be sure and, fence out New York first. If anyone loves a couch and a lazy life filled with cold brew it is those we put up with here from New York that never appreciate the light of a Florida Day sober. The majority of New York here has manipulated the system illegally albeit disability and, welfare through child hording and, flat out forcing the New York way on us. Gator

Date: Wed Jul 29 3:27 AM, 2009

Psych Lit wrote:

City Aids Homeless With One-Way Tickets Home
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, with Inez, returned to North Carolina after only a few days when relatives paid their back rent.

By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: July 28, 2009
They are flown to Paris ($6,332), Orlando ($858.40), Johannesburg ($2,550.70), or most frequently, San Juan ($484.20).
Skip to next paragraph
Multimedia
Graphic
Outward Bound
Enlarge This Image

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Hector Correa and Elisabeth Mojica were at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday to fly home to Puerto Rico, to stay with her father.

They are not executives on business trips or couples on honeymoons. Rather, all are families who have ended up homeless, and all the plane tickets are courtesy of the city of New York (one-way).
The Bloomberg administration, which has struggled with a seemingly intractable problem of homelessness for years, has paid for more than 550 families to leave the city since 2007, as a way of keeping them out of the expensive shelter system, which costs $36,000 a year per family. All it takes is for a relative elsewhere to agree to take the family in.
Many of them are longtime New Yorkers who have come upon hard times, arrive at the shelters doorstep and jump at the offer to move at no cost. Others are recent arrivals who are happy to return home after becoming discouraged by the citys noise, the mazelike subway, the difficult job market or the high cost of housing.
I didnt expect the city to be the way it is, said Hector Correa, who was in a homeless shelter last week and flew home to Puerto Rico on Tuesday. I was expecting something different, something better.
Mr. Correa and his companion, Elisabeth Mojica, and their two young sons, both also named Hector, arrived in New York in May to live with his mother. But after they failed to find jobs and the bills began to mount, his mother threatened to kick them out. Out of cash, they checked into the city intake center for homeless families in the Bronx.
The person I spoke to in the shelter informed me that if I have a person I could stay with in Puerto Rico, that I could get help to go, said Mr. Correa, who worked as a mechanic in Carolina, on the north shore of the island. They will stay with Ms. Mojicas father. I feel very happy because Im going to be able to get back to do the things that I know how to do, he said.
At the intake center, social workers ask families about their housing options in other places. If a family says that they have relatives who might be willing to take them in, and social workers confirm their report, the family could be on a plane, bus or train within hours, although the city will sometimes wait a few days to avoid the expense of last-minute fares. The Correas flew to San Juan for less than $1,000.
The city, which spends $500,000 a year on the program, employs a local travel agency, Austin Travel, to book one-way tickets for domestic trips. Department of Homeless Services employees do all the planning for international travel.
City officials said there were no limits on where a family can be sent, and families can reject the offer and stay in city shelters. So far, families have been sent to 24 states and 5 continents, most often to Puerto Rico, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
We want to divert as many families as we can that need assistance, said Vida Chavez-Downes, the director of the Resource Room, a city office with 11 social workers, two managers and an administrative assistant who help relocate families. We have paid for visas, weve gone down to the consulate, weve provided letters, weve paid for passports for people to go. Anyone who comes through our door.
One family with 10 children accepted an offer to go to Puerto Rico on a nonstop JetBlue flight. An adventurous but ultimately unlucky Michigan couple drove to the city in search of jobs and a new life. They got $400 in gas cards to drive back.
One set of parents agreed to move to France with their three children to be with the mothers family. The $6,332 travel cost included five plane tickets to Paris and five train tickets to the town of Granville, in the northwest.
In the past, the city contracted with the Salvation Army for a now-defunct program called Homeward Bound, but only for single adults and couples, not families with children. Both versions followed the example of Travelers Aid, a 150-year-old nonprofit organization that provides stranded and homeless people emergency aid so they could return to their homes, and which still exists today. Other cities have experimented with similar programs, but they are largely focused on adults without children.
The Hawaii Legislature recently rejected a plan to send homeless people on one-way flights to live with relatives on the mainland, because of the cost.
Once a family leaves New York, homeless services officials say they follow up with a phone call to make sure they arrive safely, then make a few more calls over the next two to three weeks. In rare cases, they will advance the family up to four months rent, a one-month security deposit, a furniture allowance and a brokers fee.
City officials said that none of the families that have been relocated have returned to city shelters.
The program fails to address the underlying problems that brought the families here in the first place, said Arnold S. Cohen, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for the Homeless, an advocacy group in New York.
The city is engaged in cosmetics, Mr. Cohen said. What were doing is passing the problem of homelessness to another city. Were taking people from a shelter bed here to the living room couch of another family. Essentially, this family is still homeless.
Sometimes the journey to and from New York is quick. Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, both 20, owed back rent on their apartment in Fayetteville, N.C., so they came to New York on Saturday with their 5-month-old, Inez. They planned to stay in shelters while they looked for jobs, and went straight to the intake center.
Then relatives of Mr. Little, who worked at a telephone center serving insurance customers, scraped up enough money to pay their back rent, and homeless services workers confirmed that his mother would be around to help. By Monday night, they were waiting outside Gate 73 at the Port Authority Bus Terminal to board their 7:15 p.m. Greyhound to Greensboro.
We were going to come here and then find work, you know, because theres always work in New York, Ms. Martin said, as Inez bounced on her knee.
Mr. Little said, Once we found out we could keep our apartment, there was no point in staying here, because I can go back to my job in North Carolina.

"Mr. Correa and his companion, Elisabeth Mojica, and their two young sons, both also named Hector, arrived in New York in May to live with his mother. But after they failed to find jobs and the bills began to mount, his mother threatened to kick them out. Out of cash, they checked into the city intake center for homeless families in the Bronx."

I've been saying for months I wish we could build that stupid fence. But at the Florida border, not Texas. There is NO need for more people to flock, either to or back to, Florida. My thought is if one doesn't already reside here or isn't traveling for commerce or tourism purposes, stay out. There are no jobs, en masse, no wind to harness for windmills, locals are more than able to fill any "shovel ready" jobs if they ever create projects to build. There is no need for new Mickeys or Goofys at Disney, a service industry that is being infiltrated by displaced clerical, middle management and recent college grads and a downturn in the need for such bar and restaurant positions. We certainly don't want to encourage the return of welfare ready families. The state is stressed, strapped and worn as thin as it can be. We have a high unemployment rate, dwindling state resources, limited public transportation and far too many people on the road with uninsured "clunkers" as it is. I say, leave? Stay gone. Here's the change you asked for, now "hope" for the best. On the softer side, I do think it's sad that the Correz family couldn't somehow manage to work it out WITH HIS MOTHER. Appears this able bodied mechanic couldn't find work in his trade ANYWHERE in NY? Seems odd that the NY mother would have the family move to her home only to displace them back into reality. Maybe, just maybe, they liked the couch when they got to the Empire State.

"I didn't expect New York to be like this"? That's the best he could come up with?

BD

Psych Lit · Guru

City Aids Homeless With One-Way Tickets Home

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, with Inez, returned to North Carolina after only a few days when relatives paid their back rent.

By JULIE BOSMAN

Published: July 28, 2009

They are flown to Paris ($6,332), Orlando ($858.40), Johannesburg ($2,550.70), or most frequently, San Juan ($484.20).

Skip to next paragraph

Multimedia

Graphic

Outward Bound

Enlarge This Image

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Hector Correa and Elisabeth Mojica were at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday to fly home to Puerto Rico, to stay with her father.

They are not executives on business trips or couples on honeymoons. Rather, all are families who have ended up homeless, and all the plane tickets are courtesy of the city of New York (one-way).

The Bloomberg administration, which has struggled with a seemingly intractable problem of homelessness for years, has paid for more than 550 families to leave the city since 2007, as a way of keeping them out of the expensive shelter system, which costs $36,000 a year per family. All it takes is for a relative elsewhere to agree to take the family in.

Many of them are longtime New Yorkers who have come upon hard times, arrive at the shelters doorstep and jump at the offer to move at no cost. Others are recent arrivals who are happy to return home after becoming discouraged by the citys noise, the mazelike subway, the difficult job market or the high cost of housing.

I didnt expect the city to be the way it is, said Hector Correa, who was in a homeless shelter last week and flew home to Puerto Rico on Tuesday. I was expecting something different, something better.

Mr. Correa and his companion, Elisabeth Mojica, and their two young sons, both also named Hector, arrived in New York in May to live with his mother. But after they failed to find jobs and the bills began to mount, his mother threatened to kick them out. Out of cash, they checked into the city intake center for homeless families in the Bronx.

The person I spoke to in the shelter informed me that if I have a person I could stay with in Puerto Rico, that I could get help to go, said Mr. Correa, who worked as a mechanic in Carolina, on the north shore of the island. They will stay with Ms. Mojicas father. I feel very happy because Im going to be able to get back to do the things that I know how to do, he said.

At the intake center, social workers ask families about their housing options in other places. If a family says that they have relatives who might be willing to take them in, and social workers confirm their report, the family could be on a plane, bus or train within hours, although the city will sometimes wait a few days to avoid the expense of last-minute fares. The Correas flew to San Juan for less than $1,000.

The city, which spends $500,000 a year on the program, employs a local travel agency, Austin Travel, to book one-way tickets for domestic trips. Department of Homeless Services employees do all the planning for international travel.

City officials said there were no limits on where a family can be sent, and families can reject the offer and stay in city shelters. So far, families have been sent to 24 states and 5 continents, most often to Puerto Rico, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

We want to divert as many families as we can that need assistance, said Vida Chavez-Downes, the director of the Resource Room, a city office with 11 social workers, two managers and an administrative assistant who help relocate families. We have paid for visas, weve gone down to the consulate, weve provided letters, weve paid for passports for people to go. Anyone who comes through our door.

One family with 10 children accepted an offer to go to Puerto Rico on a nonstop JetBlue flight. An adventurous but ultimately unlucky Michigan couple drove to the city in search of jobs and a new life. They got $400 in gas cards to drive back.

One set of parents agreed to move to France with their three children to be with the mothers family. The $6,332 travel cost included five plane tickets to Paris and five train tickets to the town of Granville, in the northwest.

In the past, the city contracted with the Salvation Army for a now-defunct program called Homeward Bound, but only for single adults and couples, not families with children. Both versions followed the example of Travelers Aid, a 150-year-old nonprofit organization that provides stranded and homeless people emergency aid so they could return to their homes, and which still exists today. Other cities have experimented with similar programs, but they are largely focused on adults without children.

The Hawaii Legislature recently rejected a plan to send homeless people on one-way flights to live with relatives on the mainland, because of the cost.

Once a family leaves New York, homeless services officials say they follow up with a phone call to make sure they arrive safely, then make a few more calls over the next two to three weeks. In rare cases, they will advance the family up to four months rent, a one-month security deposit, a furniture allowance and a brokers fee.

City officials said that none of the families that have been relocated have returned to city shelters.

The program fails to address the underlying problems that brought the families here in the first place, said Arnold S. Cohen, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for the Homeless, an advocacy group in New York.

The city is engaged in cosmetics, Mr. Cohen said. What were doing is passing the problem of homelessness to another city. Were taking people from a shelter bed here to the living room couch of another family. Essentially, this family is still homeless.

Sometimes the journey to and from New York is quick. Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, both 20, owed back rent on their apartment in Fayetteville, N.C., so they came to New York on Saturday with their 5-month-old, Inez. They planned to stay in shelters while they looked for jobs, and went straight to the intake center.

Then relatives of Mr. Little, who worked at a telephone center serving insurance customers, scraped up enough money to pay their back rent, and homeless services workers confirmed that his mother would be around to help. By Monday night, they were waiting outside Gate 73 at the Port Authority Bus Terminal to board their 7:15 p.m. Greyhound to Greensboro.

We were going to come here and then find work, you know, because theres always work in New York, Ms. Martin said, as Inez bounced on her knee.

Mr. Little said, Once we found out we could keep our apartment, there was no point in staying here, because I can go back to my job in North Carolina.