01-29-2008, 10:06 AM
quote:
Originally posted by alaskasteven
I know firsthand for a fact that hundreds (perhaps thousands) of the homeless people now in Alaska were put on airplanes headed to Anchorage from states in the Lower 48; this deportation appears to have been motivated more by the thought that these --often mentally ill-- homeless will find it more difficult to return from Alaska than that Alaska will do a better job in coping and caring than the point of origin. In other words, compassion does not appear to be a factor in this inter-state dumping of unwanted people.....
Back in the early 1990's, Hawaii did the same thing! See this NY Times article about that!
....This city has about 30 fewer homeless people than it had a month ago because of a state program that provides free one-way airline tickets to those who can show they have homes somewhere else.
Most of the people taking advantage of the program are from the mainland, but a few are returning to homes on Hawaii's outer islands, said the Rev. Lee Kiefer, acting director of the Institute for Human Services, which is handling the program
And then you hear stories like This one where a Homeless Mental Patient from NY was given a one-way ticket too Hawaii.
The head of a New York organization that cares for mental health patients adamantly denies that it is paying for a client to come to Hawaii and says the group wasn't aware that the man would be living in a homeless shelter.
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Coming home soon!