Posted on 07/31/2013 4:55:46 AM PDT by Makana
Hawaii is hoping to take the burden off its welfare system by saying aloha to its 17,000 homeless residents.
The state will offer one-way tickets home to any eligible homeless person to anywhere in the continental United States.
Hawaii has allotted $100,000 for a three year trial run of the so-called 'return-to-home' program, which could also even offer participants beds on cruise ships bound for their homes.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The streetkids I recall from when I lived in Portland - before it became Hipster Heaven - fit the category you described; middle-class, suburban kids from various parts of Oregon and surrounding states. Runaways, mostly.
I understand the cops really can’t do much about it, unfortunately. I like downtown Portland, personally. You can easily walk from Pioneer Courthouse Square to Chinatown; it’s fairly compact. But to the streetkids all I can say is.....go home.
I was downtown in KC just out of court walking to my car when a white dude came right up to me, an inch from my face and asked for money. I ignored him but took off my diamond ring at that point.
I don’t blame him. I was in Victor in the summer, but I was told the area gets lots of snow - LOTS of snow. So your former brother in law has found his own little place in paradise.
Provided I had a good tent and a good place to pitch it, I’d be quite content living on a Hawaiian beach. If I could find some wood in adequate quantities, I could easily build myself a little shelter. Tropical living!
Didn’t some city in Florida get into trouble about ten years ago for giving all their homeless one-way bus tickets to California?
Could be. Somehow I had it in my mind that it was in CA that at one time, at least, towns were giving one-way bus tickets from those released from local mental and prison facilities.
I myself fantasize about Tahiti: we used to talk about it at work, go to Tahiti and be waitresses and live on the beach
My only dealings with panhandlers are our smalltime “local color” kind. They’re very few, they’ve been around forever, they don’t approach people, they just take up their post they’ve had forever and hold up their signs once in a while. Older, white, usually bearded. After all these years, I don’t even have a clue as to where they sleep. They must have somewhere to be, I don’t recall that I’ve ever seen them out in bad weather.
Even though I don’t know if they’re “deserving” or not, I don’t mind giving them some money, because they don’t harrass people at all. It’s news if anything happens to one of them, or used to be.
What airline is ging to sell them a ticket for $5.88?
Don't leave the District of C. behind: Hope they at least set aside some bucks to "repatriate" an occupier resident grifter or two back to Hawaii.
Some of them likely scraped up the money to get there to begin with...I have to say if I was homeless Hawaii would look like a pretty good place to be. Nice weather year round and liberals to take care of me.
And the there’s NYC Mayor Bloomberg, who’s shipping/flying his homeless problem to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands during the winter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html?ref=nyregion
Heh. Getting away from it all. Permanently.
The only panhandlers in my part of the world are also of the “local color” type, and they’re harmless enough.
Prague is a different story; that’s where you’ll encounter the “professional panhandler”.
Not to worry, we’ll all pay for their transport in style to Hawaii—they’ve still got four more Christmases to go!
I got one ticket from Paradise; so pack your box and leave tonight...
I don't know how many of the homeless there would take them up on the offer of a ticket back to the mainland.
If they want to get rid of their homeless population, perhaps they should cut back on programs that reward homelessness.
A better way to do it, is to make them get drug tests for handouts, and then lower the benefits just to be sure they get the message- and show them the where the door to Newark is.
:)
That’s my plan.
Fixed it.
when we were there on vacation, a panhandler (white guy) stopped us with this sad tale.... he lost everything in hurricane Katrina!
Really? I told him he was lucky to have ended up on Oahu.
I actually Laughed Out Loud when I read your reply. No matter, my boss thinks I’m crazy anyway.
I think the way it would work is of the numbered homeless population whoever takes up the offer gets a ticket until the 100k is gone. Assuming say $500 per ticket they could fly about 200 of them.
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