Putting a homeless family up in a night shelter for a year in New York costs the taxpayer a whopping £32,000, so the NY authorities were keen to find a more cost effective way of dealing with its overcrowded shelters – and they’ve struck upon the idea of buying one-way tickets for homeless families to leave the city…
The new system, which was introduced by the NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has already seen hundreds of homeless families being given plane, rail or bus tickets, petrol vouchers or even free passports in a bid to get them to leave the city.
This may not sound like a particularly cost effective way of solving the homelessness problem blighting the city’s streets, but the Mayor insists it is a cheaper alternative to putting families up in a shelter long-term.
If homeless families have a relative in another country, or even in another part of America who would be willing to house them, they can qualify for the expenses to travel there.
The scheme has been running since 2007 and has so far paid for 500 families to leave the city. No one has yet returned.
Visas have been paid for, letters of recommendation have been written and passports have been arranged in order to assist the families to leave.
This may seem like it is just shifting the problem onto another city, and in essence, that’s exactly what it is doing. Critics are up in arms over it, saying that this isn’t solving the problem, as the family is still homeless, they are just on the streets of another city rather than New York.
But this isn’t enough to stop the scheme, which in the eyes of New York authorities has been a success, helping to keep the streets clearer of homeless families and the shelters less crowded.
“We want to divert as many families as we can that need assistance,” Vida Chavez-Downes, a city official said.
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