<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Under a secret program, New York City has been shipping its homeless population to other cities without telling those cities about the program. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The <i>Special One-Time Assistance Program (SOTA) </i>provides homeless families with transportation to another city and rent for one year. The families are not connected to social services or otherwise monitored. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Over the past two years, NYC has sent more than 12,480 people to 373 cities throughout the country and to Puerto Rico. The program has cost upwards of $89 million (for rent) and an undisclosed sum for travel expenses and furnishings. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The program is obviously not in the best interest of the families, but NYC&#8217;s Department of Homeless Services actually supports it because it costs less money to pay rent in other cities than it does to run homeless shelters in New York City. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><strong><span class="s1">Homeless shelters in NYC cost roughly $41,000 per family per year, compared to the average annual rent for one family in the US, which is about $17,560.</span></strong></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">As you can imagine, cities on the receiving end of the program are not happy. Lawmakers in New Jersey are working on legislation to block NYC from sending homeless people to the state. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Mayor Tony Vauss of Irvington, NJ, which unwittingly received 278 SOTA families, says he is “highly disturbed by the lack of communication from New York and the lack of oversight of this program by the city.” </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">These families “require ongoing social services and resources,” continues Vauss. “Therefore, once SOTA ceases funding, program recipients end up using our state and local resources to maintain themselves.”</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">A handful of SOTA recipients are suing New York City based on the conditions of the places they were sent to live. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Sade Collington and her family were sent to an apartment in East Orange, NJ that had no water, heat, or electricity. “It was completely unlivable. We could not stay there any longer. We went to a shelter for another six months.”</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The New York State Senate has opened an investigation into the program based on such complaints. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">&#8220;We were initially seeing a lot of complaints about conditions,&#8221; admits policy analyst Jacquelyn Simone. &#8220;Now that the program has been in operation long enough that the SOTA subsidy is expiring, one of our main concerns is it might not be realistic for people to be entirely self-sufficient after that first year.&#8221;</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><i>This is utterly ridiculous. Did NYC really think those families would succeed away from home, with just enough money to pay rent? Not surprisingly, at least 224 SOTA families ended up moving back to New York City&#8217;s shelters, which as of January 2019 were utilized by 63,000 people each night. </i></span></p>
<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note: </strong> I&#8217;m horrified that any city would send its citizens away. This is essentially an act of banishment, you can be sure that the families are not entirely volunteering for this.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s next? How about if New York City does the same with its criminals? How about with its older people? Or anyone else who has difficulty pulling his weight? Rather than pass good laws, and find ways to take care of the weaker in our population, let&#8217;s just get rid of them &#8211; it&#8217;s much cheaper!!<em><strong> Then they are someone else&#8217;s problem!</strong></em></p>
<p>Can you imagine what the receiving cities will think when they realize that New York is sending people who can&#8217;t support themselves out so another city can support them?</p>
<p>I never thought the Democrats would fall this low, this fast.</p>