Homeless Receives An All Paid Trip Back Home

It's a startling way to solve New York City's very real problem. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration is offering one-way tickets to homeless people to send them back to their original home towns. The program, which has been in operation since 2007, has sent people back to Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Puerto Rico and even Paris. Sometimes the travel comes with big price tags like $2,500 to go to South Africa. Bloomberg has defended the controversial program, saying relocation is much less expensive than spending up to $36,000 per year to keep a homeless family in a shelter. "This saves taxpayers of New York an enormous amount of money," Bloomberg said. "Also keep in mind nobody's forcing these people to go. They want to go."

Source: abcnews.go.com

Okay, I must say I was suprised at this news article on Good Morning America. I actually have mixed thoughts about it. One part of me is applauding the Mayor's administration team for wanting to be a humanitarian by offering a lending hand to help others who are in need, but also trying to find ways to cut back so they can help the city as a whole too. Then another part of me feels like this is just another idea that is not well thought out, providing individuals with a new way to get over. Although the people sitting in these offices are portrayed to be very intelligent with degrees on top of degrees, I sometimes wonder. Maybe the problem is.......how does that old saying goes, they are book smart, but not common sense smart. My reason for saying that is because it seems to never fail that people who have no college education (possibly not even their h.s. diploma) always seem to find someway to beat the system. I mean, we already know that there are people out on the street all across the country "pretending so they can start getting." Whose to say that these people who suppose to be homeless are not homeless at all, but instead trying to get over so they can get a free trip to visit who in the hell ever. Why pay for something when you can get it for free? That's the mentality of Americans in today's society. The same thing goes for all of these government assistance programs. It seems like people are taking advantage of the various types of help that is available. And instead of these programs being offered to the ones who are trying hard to help themselves, but are experiencing a rough time and not able to go out and pay for their medical expenses, go out there and pay for their food, etc, they offer to help the ones who are straight up not trying because they don't give a damn. All they want to do is think of a way that will make them eligible to get more than what they already have. OMG, I can go on and on and on about this topic, but this is already long as is and I have other stuff to post. I will end saying this, I just really hope that the money invested in this program is not blindly going to waste. I might just create another blog dedicated to this subject alone in the future, I'' have to wait and see.