Add It Up: New York’s homeless get a free (plane) ride
August 1, 2009 at 9:02 am by Candace Wheeler in Add it upNumber of homeless families relocated from New York through the city’s one-way airline ticket program, since 2007: 550
Amount it costs the city of New York to house a homeless family for a year: $36,000
Amount the city spent to buy plane tickets for the 550 families: $1,000,000
Number of plane tickets the city purchased to relocate a family to Paris: 5
Number of states where families have chosen to relocate: 24
Number of families that relocated to Georgia: 38
Number of states that had more families relocate there than Georgia did: 2
Number of homeless men housed at Atlanta’s Peachtree-Pine shelter: 350
Estimated cost to purchase 350 one-way tickets to New York: $29,750
Sources: New York Times, Sidestep.com
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Oh, Candace…you’re just getting my hopes up.