From the linked City Paper article:
"Let's hope the city they are shipped to doesn't have a similar program to send them back to Nashville."

Hilarity

i don't understand how this "helps" them...

"yay! now i'm homeless in a whole NEW town!"

??

It dosent help them at all, The whole idea of it was to get rid of most of the homeless because it was detering some tourists that wanted to come to Nashville. As one of the police officers downtown said when i asked him what after they do go? and the sargeant told me,
"Thats not Nashville's problem, The city is fed up with the homeless people and the establishments have been complaining about them for years now to the city and as far as the city and the metro police is concerned they have to go and if that means a free ticket out of town then so be it"

@WheeeGuy: Hilarious. Seems to be one of many issues with shipping a complex social problem out on the next bus.

@megaphonic: I'd have to say I'm with you on this, though it's really interesting to me that the NHPP seems to be pretty warm to the idea. But the motivation seems pretty clear, since the end result is getting them out of sight rather than connecting them with any sort of services. Mental illness, substance abuse, disabilities... none of that's going to go away in a new town, you know?

I can see how this would help if the homeless person was voluntarily going to somewhere he had family or friends. Realistically, though, I'd be surprised if that situation applied to any homeless person.

The fact of the matter is that most people are stubborn and prefer to focus on a reality that has no homeless or problems beyond their own narrow view. Seeing homeless people on the street discomforts especially people who have accumulated a lot of wealth, so what's the solution? Oh, everyone is focused on personal problems, let's bus these guys out of here, we have so much stuff to deal with.

Reading about a free one way tickets out of town for homeless people makes me sick, and harkens to the height of irresponsibility that plagues our culture (and in reality humanity throughout history). Thank you Nashvillest for reporting this.

The truth is most of the homeless community diddnt like the idea to be honest. I should i know, I used to be homeless in Nashville when the idea was first thought of by the city.

@Jordan: Yeah, in my experience with the homeless, their families are usually estranged if they even have any. Can't imagine many of them have anywhere to go where life will miraculously get better.

@Jim: Glad you liked it. I totally agree with your thoughts about "out of sight, out of mind." Given the Downtown Partnership's track record with the homeless lately, I can't imagine they're genuinely interested in helping. I'll be interested to hear what the NHPP has to say about it in the next few weeks.

I have been homeless in Nashville for sevral months before and in all honesty it wasent all that bad concidering the fact that i was abile to find work off and on with the day labor places in the area and i was one of the very few homeless that actually had a vehicle.
I wasent one of the kind of homeless that was a drinker or all strung out on some kind of drug, My days usually consisted of sleeping in my vehicle at diffrent locations every night and then spent most of the rest of the day hanging out with the street musicians (John Field, Velvet Thunder,Guitar Gary ect...) aswell as other homless and at the various establishments on broadway and on second street and the rest of the time i was usually either walking the city (I avaraged 15+ miles a day) or i would go to my favorite place Preist Lake and just sit and watch the water while writing a song or two.
Yes i admit on occasion i had to out of nessesity eat food that came from a dumpster but it was always packaged and never out in the open or near the stinky part or wet, Beleive me its nothing that im proud of having to do when i had to do it just to get by when there was no day labor work avalible.
I remember one night in particular, I came across this drunk guy that was attempting to hold himself up on this wall on the side of a bulding downtown he wasent a fellow homeless person by any means probaly just a guy out for some fun but in any case he kept dropping his money that he was holding and unlike most i kept picking it up as he was dropping it and trying to give it back to him and put it in his hand but to no avail and so the next thing i know he dropped all the money ($450 in total) on the ground and stumbled his way to the cab that was waiting for him and he was gone before i could give it to him so i kept it.
I felt sorta bad about it at the time and in some ways i still feel bad about it to this day.
After that i lingered in nashville still homeless for a while till i was abile to get on with an over the road trucking company driving trucks (Since i possess a commercial drivers licence).
I realize that for being homeless i did have it better then 90% of the other homeless population but, I did help whenever and however i could other less fortunate members of the homeless community in Nashville and i wouldent trade the experience that i had and everything ive seen and everyone ive met for anything in the world and in a way im happy that i was homeless in Nashville for them sevral months.