Bloomberg Offers the Homeless One-Way Tickets Back Home

By Alicia Cruz
TheBlackUrbanTimes

(Photo Left) Justin Little and Eugenia Martin, with Inez, returned to North Carolina after only a few days when relatives paid their back rent.
Photo By / Michelle V. Agins / The New York Times

It costs $36,000 a year for the City of New York to house a homeless family and the City has shelled out multi-millions since over the years to house them in several of the cities shelters.

Mayor Bloomberg devised a plan to shave these costs and move homeless individuals closer to relatives where they may have support systems: he's offering anyone with a homeless status or currently residing in one of the city's many shelters or shelter programs a one-way ticket back to their home of record.

550 families have left the city since the inception of this program in 2007 and so far, none have returned to New York City.

Some are going by bus, some by plane and some are driving, but all are headed home to what they hope is going to be a better life. Many of these families and individuals arrived in New York hoping for a shot at a better life, but instead met the inability to find jobs which eventually led to them entering or re-entering shelters.
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Camden, N.J. Count The Homeless

The streets of this city are a place people end up when their lives fall apart. And the people who live there say that in the rough economy, they are finding they have more neighbors.

Homeless people stand outside a van in the rain Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009, in Camden, N.J., as they wait to fill out census forms.

Social service workers and volunteers set out across Camden and the state as part of a homeless count they complete most years. The results of the census, along with those being conducted in all 50 states this week, are forwarded to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 2007, the last time every New Jersey county participated in the count, there were more than 17,000 people who met the government's definition of homeless, which doesn't include the nearly homeless, such as those staying temporarily with friends or family.
Nationwide, about 124,000 were counted two years ago. The state report from Wednesday's count will not be compiled for a few months and the federal one is not expected to be done until sometime next year. HUD officials say the tallies are useful for assessing the need for services and are not used to determine how much federal grant money each state or community receives.

After an overnight snowfall, Neil Floyd (left) warms himself near a fire Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009, outside his tent in the small tent city where he lives with other homeless people in Camden, N.J.

For every homeless person counted this week, two to three times as many are homeless at some point during the year, said Alison Recca-Ryan, the director of the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which runs New Jersey's census. She said that there are signs that the state's homeless number will be up from previous years.
This week's count is the first nationwide one since a recession began more than a year ago. New Jersey's census comes as the state government is forming a panel to look at homelessness.
Social service agencies in every county were offering free services from medical checkups to haircuts to try to get people who live on the streets to a place where they could be counted — and where they can get help.
For the harder to reach, teams of workers were searching for those without homes. The stops included Tent City and the Walter Rand Transportation Center, where people lined up to answer survey questions in exchange for a bologna sandwich and candy.
A group from Volunteers of America strolled through Tent City not long after dawn Wednesday as a gentle snow turned into a bone-chilling frozen rain.
Outreach worker Hal Miller led the way through the maze of 15 abodes, which ranged from expensive camping gear to ragged tarps, and called into each in search of residents.
Tent City dwellers said they ended up in the woods because they felt they had no other place to go. They said that, as uncomfortable as it is, it's better than trying to live at a train station or in abandoned homes, which are numerous in a city that constantly ranks as one of the poorest and most crime-ridden in the country.
Twenty-six-year-old Jessica Massa, who is pregnant and has seven children living with family elsewhere, said she came to Camden from suburban Gloucester County a few months ago hoping to stay at a shelter. She said she was turned away because she didn't have a referral from a social service agency in her home county. Now, she uses blankets and Sterno candles to try to stay warm. A social service worker said she would get Massa prenatal care and a place to stay, if she wanted it.
Erwin James, 47, said he has been on the streets off and on since he was released from prison in 2006. He's been rejected by shelters, he said, because he was convicted of dealing drugs.
John Palumbo, a 53-year-old former heating and air conditioning technician from Mount Laurel, said he suffers from manic depression that led him to homelessness.
Floyd, a clean shaven former truck driver and father of three grown daughters who was wearing new-looking jeans, said that he hasn't had regular work since he had a kidney transplant 10 years ago.
In 2006, he said, his wife died. "I just couldn't keep up," he said. "I couldn't pay the bills when she died."
Floyd, who had lived in nearby Paulsboro, said he's been on the street for more than a year but still dreams of having a job and family again.
"I don't plan to stay outside for the rest of my life," he said.

New York City Rescue Mission looking to expand aid to homeless

BY CHRISTINA DOKA
In addition to a one-year residential program, the New York City Rescue Mission on Lafayette and White Sts. in Manhattan serves 400 free meals a day to the needy.

Roberto,who has cerebral palsy, grew up around staggering alcoholics and drug addicts because he felt that his own limp and speech impediment would blend in. He says that he suffered so much physical abuse in foster homes that he preferred sleeping on the streets.
But Roberto, now 41, has a new outlook. He recently graduated from the New York City Rescue Mission's one-year Residential Program, which gives 20 homeless men a chance to live there, study the Bible and turn their lives around.
These days, he says, "caring for others is my main option."
People like Roberto have found refuge at the faith-based mission since the three-story outpost opened at Lafayette and White Sts. in 1982.
Besides the Residential Program, the mission takes in nearly 100 men a night and provides nearly 400 free meals a day to growing lines of hungry individuals and families.
Yet despite a recession and a drop in donations, the organization is planning to expand.
"We think there is a demand for it - and we ask God to help his people to help us," said Joe Little, the mission's spokesman. The mission has already raised more than half the $398,500 needed to renovate cramped second- floor dorms and offices. Work will start next month with the hope that the rest of the money will become available.
And there are plans to help some of the city's 35,000 homeless who stay at shelters.
Next year, the mission hopes to offer emergency beds for women and children, as well as expand the men's Residential Program by adding three more stories to its building, said Little.
The mission has been trying to fulfill these dreams since 2001, when the city authorized it to expand its facilities and community outreach. But fund-raising plans stalled due to a recession.