Geographic Relocation Initiative Now Official Policy
New York City Announces Revolutionary Solution To Homelessness: One-Way Flights To New Jersey
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat bring you this dispatch from New York’s latest attempt at problem displacement.
New York City Mayor announced this week a groundbreaking homelessness solution: one-way airplane flights to New Jersey for any unhoused person who agrees to leave the city. The program, called “Operation Geographic Displacement,” will be funded through redirecting affordable housing development money toward airline tickets.
The Solution That Solves Nothing
“New York is expensive,” explained the mayor during a press conference. “Homelessness is a problem in New York. Solution: move the homeless people to New Jersey. New Jersey doesn’t charge New York taxes, so it’s not our problem anymore.”
When asked whether simply moving people to another state solves homelessness, or whether this violates interstate commerce regulations and basic human rights, the mayor replied: “Those are questions for the federal government. I’m just trying to make my statistics look better.”
He was, at least, being honest about the motivation.
How This Mirrors Other Governance Strategies
This approach is consistent with institutional problem-solving documented elsewhere, as analyzed in studies of how institutions solve problems by moving them elsewhere. New York isn’t solving homelessness. It’s displacing it, which is a completely different thing that accomplishes nothing except making New York statistics look better.
“We’ve learned from successful governance models that you can solve any problem by making it someone else’s problem,” explained city officials. “Homelessness is expensive. Flights are cheaper. It’s budget mathematics, not actual solution.”
It is not mathematics. It is relocation dressed in bureaucratic language.
New Jersey’s Response
New York media outlets report that New Jersey has responded by threatening to send them back, creating a situation where both states are trying to pass homeless populations to the other like an extremely depressing game of hot potato.
One New Jersey official suggested: “If New York wants to solve homelessness by shipping people to us, we’ll solve our homelessness by shipping them to Pennsylvania. Let’s see how long that game lasts.”
Nobody wants to play this game. Everyone is forced to anyway.
Implementation Chaos
Early results show that most people offered free flights to New Jersey decline, noting that “moving to New Jersey without housing, money, or family support is significantly worse than being homeless in New York.”
The city has responded by offering incentives: additional flights, spending money, promises of New Jersey employment opportunities that don’t exist.
Still, most people decline, because homeless people in New York understand that New York, despite its problems, has marginally more services, more shelter availability, and a slightly better chance of non-governmental assistance than New Jersey does.
Homelessness Advocates Respond With Appropriate Outrage
Local advocacy organizations have begun loudly noting that the program is “solving homelessness by eliminating people from New York statistics, not by solving actual homelessness.”
The city has acknowledged this criticism and proceeded anyway, reasoning that “if our homelessness numbers are better on paper, that’s technically a win.”
It is not a win. It is statistical manipulation dressed as policy.
At this point, asking whether this represents actual problem-solving is pointless. New York is shipping homeless people to New Jersey. That’s the policy. Whether it helps anyone is irrelevant.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/