Homeless in St. Petersburg, Florida Offered a One-Way Bus Ticket to Somewhere Else

"If you do not have anything to do here, we don't want you. Here's your ticket out of town. It's a lot cheaper to send them home than to house them," is one way St. Petersburg, Florida officials are coping with their homeless.

Every morning of the week except Sunday in downtown St. Pete, city sanitation trucks and workers armed with brooms, shovels, and gallons of cherry and lemon scented disinfectant, fight the war of human waste. They spray, scour and clean the stairs of local churches, businesses and City Hall, where the homeless sleep at night and relieve themselves.

The workers spray disenfectant on front yards, alleyways, trash bins and park benches trying to get rid of the stench, which the heat and long dry spell have made worse. There are public toilets available until midnight, but many homeless are afraid to use them because of physical threats and violence.

If you are going to be homeless, do it in Florida. St. Petersburg (known as St. Pete by locals) is a good place in which to settle down. It is so much warmer than Chicago and is known as the Sunshine City. The sun shines 300 out of 365 days a year. You can even sleep on the beach, and maybe catch a fish.

St. Pete is a world class tourist attraction, a simply beautiful old Florida city surrounded by the blue water of the Gulf of Mexico. The new Salvador Dali museum along with the Dale Chihuly glass museum recently opened. Yacht and tennis clubs as well as a pretty good baseball team attract visitors year-round..

The downtown section is lovely with a nice park by a lake, with City Hall, churches, hotels, businesses and many beautiful homes near by. For the homeless there are food kitchens where meals are provided, rehab programs and a brand new shelter.

The homeless liked St Pete so much that they established their own tent city there in 2007. Unfortunately the tent city attracted more homeless and more problems, and the police ended up burning down the tents.

The problem just seems to get worse and worse with no easy solution. Everyone wants to help the homeless, but no one wants the homeless living near them and their children, or urinating in their yards.

The homeless affect the quality of life for residents, workers, businesses and the economy of St. Pete. They scare people away. Tax money, social programs and resources are exhausted.

St. Pete's officials, churches and charities have done their best to help, but there are no easy answers.

The city has quietly come up with a new program. A new increase in tax money, a discretionary fund, is being used to provide the homeless with a one-way ticket out of town. Besides paying for a bus ticket, the money pays for motel stays and lice treatments.

Case workers will provide a ticket only to a homeless person who has family willing to help at the end of the bus ride, but the family definition also includes friends. The program is called "Reunification." Bus tickets are not given out during the holiday season.

St. Pete is not the only city giving the homeless a one-way ticket out of town: New York City is doing the same thing. However, most of the homeless who get a bus ticket in New York City, head to Florida

Sources:

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/jan/13/some-homeless-get-frr-bus-ticket-...

http://maddad0467.newsvine.com/2010/10/10/10/22/53333841-st-petersburg-fl-usi...

St. Pete Times

Personal observation