New York Exporting Homeless

New York has "discovered" a frequently-tried method to mitigate problems with homelessness. Export homeless people to Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. I'd wager that New York officials didn't clear the idea with the homeless importation departments in each of those states.

My contention is that the only permanent solution to homeless problems in a location is to make homelessness a less attractive lifestyle than getting a job. I'll grant, however, that shipping homeless people elsewhere also works -- but only for a while. Sooner or later, the "ship-to" city starts complaining about the homeless dumping.

An example is the San Francisco Homeward Bound Program, pejoratively called Greyhound Therapy, implemented a few years ago. The idea was to get rid of homeless people by giving them a one-way ticket to Anywhere Else, U.S.A. It worked fine for a while then complaints were lodged, most notably from Humboldt County, 200 miles away in northern California.

In another instance, officers of the Los Angeles Police Department complained that police departments of surrounding communities -- El Monte, El Segundo and Pasadena -- were dumping homeless in downtown Los Angeles. Even though the LAPD officers said they observed derelict dumping, usually at night, the suburban departments were effectively Sgt. Schulz impersonators, claiming they "know nothing."

In summary, New York has joined the group of cities which erroneously believes that they can dump their problems on other folks and nobody will notice. Heh, good luck with that.