Ticket to ride

Found this is today's Modesto Bee [emphasis, mine]:

Remember a few years back when we caught San Jose buying one-way bus tickets and shipping their homeless folks to Modesto? Well, our neighbors to the north are about to try something similar.

Our friends at the Stockton Record report that their fair city is planning to borrow an idea that Sacramento has used to reduce its homeless population. Under the program, one-way tickets are given to homeless men and women who can show that they have a place to go where friends or family will provide food, shelter and other assistance.

The newspaper's editorial noted that "such a program requires trust be built up with the homeless person, and that can take time. But if that happens and there is a place elsewhere for the person, a ticket to ride helps that person and, let's be honest, helps the city, too."

If it works in Sacramento and Stockton, perhaps it can in Stanislaus County as well.

Yep. There is such a program in Sacramento.

Many on the street will remember Karl Jones who came to Sacramento from Arkansas. He came here about nine months ago because he had read that there would be jobs in Sacramento relating to green energy ideas.

Well, there were no jobs of that nature. I believe that the only work Karl got was a part-time job bussing dishes at a downtown restaurant. He lost that job, got frustrated and got Francis House to help him get a Greyhound ticket to return to his wife and young son in Little Rock.