www.zerohedge.com New York City officials have been quietly dumping homeless people to more than 370 cities across 32 states, including Honolulu and Houston.
Under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Special One-Time Assistance Program,” (SOTA) local homeless families are given a full year’s worth of rent – which has cost NYC taxpayers $89 million on rent alone since August 2017 – before exporting some 5,074 homeless families (12,482 individuals) to cities as far as the South Pacific, according to the New York Post, citing data from the Department of Homeless Services (DHS).
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.
DHS defends the stratospheric costs, saying it actually saves the city on shelter funding — which amounts to about $41,000 annually per family, as compared to the average yearly rent of $17,563 to house families elsewhere. –New York Post