NBC’s San Antonio affiliate reports:
More than 12,000 homeless New Yorkers are being relocated to about 370 cities around the country. San Antonio is expected to receive several people from New York, all of who are getting a year’s worth of rent and money for furnishings, courtesy of NYC. …
Local officials we contacted today were surprised to hear about New York’s Special One-Time Assistance (SOTA) program. …
New York officials apparently did not communicate with city leaders in locales where the homeless are being sent. …
Over 5,000 families have been relocated from New York, most to other cities in the East, although at least one homeless person was flown to Hawaii. (Emphasis added.)
The New York Post has more details:
City taxpayers have spent $89 million on rent alone since the program’s August 2017 inception to export 5,074 homeless families — 12,482 individuals — to places as close as Newark and as far as the South Pacific, according to Department of Homeless Services data obtained by The Post. Families who once lived in city shelters decamped to 32 states and Puerto Rico. …
DHS defends the stratospheric costs, saying it actually saves the city on shelter funding — which amounts to about $41,000 annually per family, as compared to the average yearly rent of $17,563 to house families elsewhere.
According the Post, New York has exported homeless people to 24 cities in North Carolina, including Charlotte, Durham, Fayetteville, and Raleigh!
