Diversity and integration

New York City offers one-way tickets to any homeless person wishing to leave the city. This is New York mayor's solution put into effect to reduce homelessness in the city.

 

In New York, the legislation requires.the provision of emergency shelter to homeless people. It costs New York's taxpayers $36,000 to put up a homeless family in a night shelter for a year, awhile the cost of shelter for a homeless individual is $23,000 per year.

 

In two years, the Bloomberg administration has paid for more than 550 families to leave the city, as a way of keeping them out of the expensive shelter system. Some families were repatriated to South Africa, some others to Puerto Rico and even France.

 

This solution to the homeless problem is source of much criticism. Anywhere but here is the mentality, Arnold Cohen, head of Partnership for the Homeless, a leading advocacy group, said. In a short time, those folks can fall in homelessness again and become a burden on that municipality or they might come back to this city.

 

Other critics quote the inscription on New York City's most famous symbol, the Statue of Liberty: