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Editorial: St. Petersburg should track homeless it buses away

 
Published July 13, 2015

St. Petersburg officials should attempt to track how the homeless people it helps relocate to other cities ultimately fare. Helping the homeless reunite with relatives or other caregivers has merit. But buying them a one-way bus ticket without checking on their progress shows scant concern for the individuals, and taxpayers who have no idea if the program is worth the time and expense.

The Tampa Bay Times' Charlie Frago reported last week that a city program has helped nearly 1,000 homeless leave St. Petersburg since 2013. Called Family Reunification, the program seeks to connect the homeless with caretakers in other cities. Taxpayers pay for discounted one-way bus tickets to destinations that range from California to New York. Since August 2013, the program has purchased 949 one-way tickets. The city budgets $36,000 a year for the program and splits the bill and implementation duties with Daystar Life Center, a nonprofit social service agency that helps economically or physically challenged people.

Homeless people sign up for the voluntary bus program. Daystar staff screen applicants and determine if they have someone in another city to receive them before purchasing a bus ticket. It can be a useful service to provide homeless people the mobility to live where they want. But once the bus wheels roll, the city's accountability measures cease. That is a shirking of responsibility that serves no one.

Reintegrating the homeless into a stable lifestyle is difficult work that will not be solved by simply shipping them to new environs. While St. Petersburg officials are not equipped to run social work programs for the homeless, it owes the people it ships out more than a bus ticket and best wishes. The city and Daystar should work to provide caretakers with information about support services for assisting the homeless in their respective cities. The city also should attempt to make followup calls in the months after a homeless person leaves St. Petersburg to see how he or she is doing. The data would be useful in determining if the reunification program is working and how it might be improved. Ideally, cities across the country that facilitate reunifications would share data with each other about the transfer of homeless residents.

The city's busing program does not negate the need for more robust homeless initiatives in St. Petersburg. But done properly, with adequate advance work and followup, the reunification project could be a helpful tool in combatting chronic homelessness and its associated health concerns, such as mental illness.