Thread: Hawaii to offer homeless one-way ticket back to their home states

Hawaii to offer homeless one-way ticket back to their home states


As tourists watch the sun go down, a man sleeps near Waikiki Beach, Friday, May 13, 2011 in Honolulu. Honolulu is currently grappling with one of nation's most serious homeless challenges as the city prepares to host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in November. Homelessness threatens to mar the perfect picture Hawaii would like to present to those attending APEC.

Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News 31 minutes ago

Aloha!

The state of Hawaii is set to offer homeless people airfare to fly back to their home states.

The controversial "Return to Home" program, set to launch later this year, is an effort by lawmakers to tackle the state's homeless problem. An estimated 17,000 people are homeless in Hawaii, and the three-year, $300,000 pilot program is designed to transport at least some of them back to the U.S. mainland.

Supporters of the initiative say it gives the homeless a chance to get back on their feet in a supportive environment while reducing the state's costs associated with sheltering them.

But not everyone thinks it's a good idea.

"We remain concerned this program is an invitation to purchase a one-way ticket to Hawaii with a guaranteed return flight home," Kayla Rosenfeld, a spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services, told Hawaii News Now.

"This is not a silver bullet, this does not solve everything," John Mizuno, a state representative who supports the legislation, admitted. "It's fractional, it's not for 5,000 homeless people. It's going to be a handful of homeless people that we send home ... home to their support unit."

Mizuno said he hopes the program will send 100 homeless people home this year.

http://news.yahoo.com/hawaii-to-offer-homeless-one-way-ticket-back-to-their-home-states-150737036.html

For years Nevada has given free bus tickets back home to mental patients that they want to get rid of. If they don't want to go back home they tell them how nice the weather is in southern CA. and try to get them on a bus to L.A. or San Diego. It's called Greyhound therapy. CA. calls it patient dumping and has sued NV. for doing it.

Nevada buses hundreds of mentally ill patients to cities around country

www.sacbee.com/2013/04/14/.../nevada-buses-hundreds-of-mentally.ht...‎

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Apr 14, 2013

Greyhound therapy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhound_therapy‎

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Greyhound therapy - said to be used in the USA healthcare system in the 1960s and 1970s where a difficult patient would be bought a ticket on a Greyhound ...

Word Spy - Greyhound therapy

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Mar 9, 1999 - Providing a homeless person or mentally-ill patient with a one-way bus ticket to another city.

3 things you need to know about ‘Greyhound therapy’ aka patient dumping

Daniela Capistrano
May 9, 2013



Not everything that happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas — or even in the state of Nevada, for that matter. Twenty-one California Democrats have asked the Obama administration to investigate reports that mental health centers in Nevada are dumping their patients across state lines. Nevada has slashed funding for mental health services, and the number of such patients being bused out of Las Vegas climbed 66 percent from 2009 to 2012, reports The Sacramento Bee.

“Greyhound therapy” is neither limited to the state of Nevada nor exclusively tied to health services. Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know about the practice of patient dumping.

1. An old problem: Greyhound therapy has been a last resort solution for the U.S. health care system for decades, with reports of its use as early as the 1960s. The appearance of this practice coincides with the Community Mental Health Act of 1963. Enacted during John F. Kennedy’s administration, the CMHA allowed mental health patients to go back into their communities.
The results were mixed—many states didn’t have the facilities, expertise or funding to cope with the influx of discharged patients. Even worse, many of the patients who were sent packing to other states via Greyhound therapy were not prepared for such a drastic move. Many had not even consented to being moved to another state in the first place. And 50 years later, people are still suffering trauma and homelessness through patient dumping.

2. The immigration connection: There is a sordid history of U.S. law enforcement using Greyhound therapy both to clear the streets of the homeless and to “deal with” undocumented workers. For example, according to a 1990 Los Angeles Times report, two San Diego officers were charged with robbing and kidnapping three undocumented workers in 1989. As part of their defense, the officers insisted that they were following the common police practice of Greyhound therapy when they drove the undocumented workers out of city.

3. Ronald Reagan’s “gift” that keeps on giving: When former-actor-turned-POTUS Ronald Reagan arrived in Washington, he inherited the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980. One of the last achievements of former President Jimmy Carter, the act’s agenda was to minimize homelessness and the reliance on expensive nursing homes, jails and prisons and to provide other, better choices for those who needed help. The Mental Health Systems Act wasn’t perfect, but it responded to these problems.
Then Ronald Reagan changed everything. Soon after his arrival, the Office of Management and Budget announced it was going to cut the budget of the National Institute of Mental Health, phase out the training of clinicians, interrupt research and eliminate services. The Mental Health Systems Act disappeared and was replaced with the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1982, which slashed state health services funding under the president’s problematic concept of a “new federalism.”
Reagan’s new policies, among other questionable choices, restricted eligibility for Supplemental Security Income, leading to more homelessness. A 1982 Louis Harris survey found nearly three-quarters of the respondents said the president was hard-hearted toward the poor.

http://current.com/shows/the-war-room/blog/3-things-you-need-to-know-about-greyhound-therapy-aka-patient-dumping

greyhound therapy in New York - Health Forums

www.health-forums.com › ... › Schizophrenia › alt.support.schizophrenia‎

Jul 29, 2009 - ‎5 posts - ‎3 authors
New York gives homeless people a one-way ticket to leave city.
Families given travel costs to tackle problem of overcrowded shelters ...