San Francisco flew homeless to Honolulu

[snopes]

Comment: A friend who used to live in Hawaii once told me that the city of San
Francisco once bought a bunch of homeless people airline tickets to
Honolulu, HI because it was cheaper that providing long term government
assistance. Sounds kinda hokey to me, but I've heard it from more than one
person. Surely this is an urban legend.

[Stan The Man]

According to this, they're coming from Detroit also:

A few years ago Detroit was buying plane tickets for homeless people in the motor city - and sending them here to Honolulu. Great, their idea was, "At least they will be warm, in paradise, and we will get rid of them!"

[tagurit]

Hey, we only send them to Hawaii for the winter!

I'll be homeless long enough to get a ticket to Honolulu. Heck, my whole family will!

If Honolulu won't take us, I would hope they could send us to Europe or something....

[Dear Babby]

We've been hearing rumors like that for years over here but I've never found anything to back them up.

[Troberg]

Assuming the homeless and Honolulu is OK with this and it's cheaper, what's the problem? Is it wrong to provide a solution because it's considered "too good" for them?

Being homeless is not easy, it's not a choice someone does to get a trip.

A Swedish actor, and we are not talking about a rich, glamourous actor, we are talking about a very down to earth guy with a background as an alcoholic, was going to try to live the life as a homeless for a day for a TV program. Even though he was just a "tourist homeless", he couldn't go through with the entire day, he just couldn't take the way people behaved towards him and the loss of human dignity. This guy is a fighter and a well known political activist, but this was too much for him.

Don't make the mistake of believing that it's a situation lazy people get into, because lazy people don't survive as homeless.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Couldn't the people in Honolulu just buy them tickets back?

[Ravenhull]

Originally Posted by Tarquin Farquart

Couldn't the people in Honolulu just buy them tickets back?

I could see this... then tickets back.... then back again... and finally the Supreme Court stepping to stop it... I mean forcing these people to eat that many airline meals?

I got it....

[Floater]

Originally Posted by Tarquin Farquart

Couldn't the people in Honolulu just buy them tickets back?

This reminds me of something I read once about a homeless woman in England who had some sort of pension, meant to pay the rent for a small apartment. She figured that the pension could also buy her a one year season ticket on British Rail, so that's what she bought instead.

Glasgow does the same with trains to Blackpool.

[Roadie]

I always thought that if I were homeless, I'd scrape together airfare and go to Puerto Rico - the temperature is perfect for me 95% of the year, you can eat fruit off of the trees, and sleep on the beach. I suppose Hawai'i could be my backup plan.

[Dear Babby]

Originally Posted by Troberg

Assuming the homeless and Honolulu is OK with this and it's cheaper, what's the problem?

Why would Honolulu be OK with this? With the high cost of living, there are plenty of people who are the proverbial "one paycheck away" and become homeless. Homelessness is a huge problem already with the local population, taxing our social services. Camping areas meant for recreation are full of permanent camps of homeless people. Just because you probably won't freeze to death in the winter doesn't mean you don't need to find someplace to sleep, eat, etc.

I don't have a cite for this but I remember reading at one time that some local government agencies were looking at paying airfare for indigent people to go to other places where they had the support of family or other resources for getting jobs, etc. on a case by case basis. I have no idea whether or how often this is done. This makes some sense vs just dumping people into another locality's social services.

clearly that guy hasn't walked around SF recently... the homeless people are everywhere... I doubt a plane full of them would put much of a dent into their numbers. Atleast they have it better (and warmer) than the thousands in New York... that must be absolutely brutal.

[Mouse]

I heard a similar story from my Psych teacher saying that Rudy Guiliani got rid of the homeless in NY by buying them all bus tickets to Florida.

As you can guess by my presence here, I'm skeptical.

[rhiandmoi]

Part of the homeless out reach in SF is to help people be reunited with their families and support systems. This progam is called Homeward Bound and provides people with free one-way bus tickets back to a waiting support network. I guess if a person needed a trip to Hawaii because that is where their support network was, special arrangements could probably be made. I haven't heard of any people being returned to Hawaii, but not every trip makes the news. Usually it is when the family thought the individual was dead for like 20 years before the Homeward Bound team contacted them that it makes the news.

[Christie]

My parents spend their winters in Hawaii (we used to live there) and certainly they have been told by friends that one of the problems in Hawaii is a high homeless population (not surprising given the cost of houses in Hawaii ) and these friends have insisted that many of the homeless are transients from the mainland.

What I don't think they can really know for sure though is how many of these people come to Hawaii intending to be homeless. Surely it is not unrealistic to think that they made their way to Hawaii thinking they could find jobs and get to live in "paradise" and may even have found jobs but can't afford a place to live.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by rhiandmoi

Part of the homeless out reach in SF is to help people be reunited with their families and support systems. This progam is called Homeward Bound and provides people with free one-way bus tickets back to a waiting support network. I

That is a great program, especially for a "destination city" like SF, where many people move from the East or Midwest.

[BoKu]

Originally Posted by Stan The Man

According to this, they're coming from Detroit also...

I'd think they'd just give the homeless cars that get 200 mpg and let them drive home.

[Mickey Blue]

Originally Posted by Troberg

Assuming the homeless and Honolulu is OK with this and it's cheaper, what's the problem? Is it wrong to provide a solution because it's considered "too good" for them?

Being homeless is not easy, it's not a choice someone does to get a trip.

A Swedish actor, and we are not talking about a rich, glamourous actor, we are talking about a very down to earth guy with a background as an alcoholic, was going to try to live the life as a homeless for a day for a TV program. Even though he was just a "tourist homeless", he couldn't go through with the entire day, he just couldn't take the way people behaved towards him and the loss of human dignity. This guy is a fighter and a well known political activist, but this was too much for him.

Don't make the mistake of believing that it's a situation lazy people get into, because lazy people don't survive as homeless.

Maybe I missed it but did anybody suggest anything resembling that? I mean presumably Hawaii would be unhappy if they were the shipping destination for a bunch of other cities homeless, and its not exactly a solution to the problem, it simply removes one element of it (the cold).

Originally Posted by Tarquin Farquart

Couldn't the people in Honolulu just buy them tickets back?

Only if they took em.. I know if I had to choose (though I have limited knowledge of both) to be homeless in NYC or Honolulu they'd have to drag me onto the plane home.

Originally Posted by Roadie

I always thought that if I were homeless, I'd scrape together airfare and go to Puerto Rico - the temperature is perfect for me 95% of the year, you can eat fruit off of the trees, and sleep on the beach. I suppose Hawai'i could be my backup plan.

I've thought of this too (though not Puerto Rico, though perhaps its not a bad idea). I figured if I ever lost it all, no job or job prospects, no home, no possessions, etc then I'd try to make it to someplace warm and preferably tropical. I had always figured I'd slowly make my way south to southern California, its a long trip but between hitchhiking and walking I think it could be done. Hawaii would be cool too.

-MB