New York City has been silently sending homeless people to other cities and communities around the country without telling local political officials what's going on.
According to a new report by Katherine Rodriguez, NYC sent local homeless families to 373 cities across to places like Honolulu to Louisiana.
The city gives these individuals a year’s worth of rent as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Special One-Time Assistance Program.”
City taxpayers spent $89 million to ship 12,482 homeless individuals. This practice has been taking place since 2017.
The Department of Homeless Services defended the high costs of the program, saying that housing the homeless in city-run shelters costs $41,000 per family per year compared with the average yearly rent of $17,563 to transplant families elsewhere.
Even though the agency claims it is saving money, the cities on the receiving end of the program are reportedly not happy.
Newark city spokesman Mark Di Ionno said that the city—home to 1,198 families who are part of the program— is “in the process of passing an ordinance to ban New York from sending us SOTA clients.”
New York’s state senate also opened an investigation into New York City’s program to ship the homeless to cities in upstate New York.
According to the Coalition for the Homeless, 63,839 men, women, and children in New York City slept in homeless shelters for the night in January 2019.
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