No Shelter Here, by Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia – Pop Art… and Chris #35

August 4, 2009 Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia 9 Comments

Dear Art and Chris,
Recently a program my administration instituted that provides our city’s homeless with a one-way ticket out of the city to stay with relatives has come under intense public scrutiny. Homelessness is a serious problem our city faces and housing a homeless family costs an average of $36,000 per year. By paying the transportation expense for some homeless families to reunite with their families we’re providing a cost-effective, innovative and sensitive solution to a challenging problem. How can I convince the homeless loving pansies out there to put down the Haterade and get behind this program?

Michael Bloomberg, Mayor New York City

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

Mayor Bloomberg, no one will ever mistake you for a master spin-doctor. We came up with five quality campaigns that we think will curry favor with the citizens of New York. Our first idea, “Finally, something comes out of New York that won’t defraud you and cripple your retirement fund.” If that sounds like it might have too much of a negative connotation attached to it you may want to blame your predecessor tell the people something like, “It’s better than Giuliani’s plan to put all the homeless into shelters, then accidentally light the shelters on fire. Then shoot the homeless people.” Of course, most New Yorkers will instinctively doubt that Giuliani was ever thoughtful enough to develop a plan for the homeless. How about a slogan like, “New York: a great place to have money.” Many people love the idea of providing help for the homeless, but hate actually interacting with the homeless. When people worry about the ethical issues of your program just tell them, “It’s like we’re stopping and giving that guy on your corner a buck 5,000 times.” Of course, there’s no pleasing everyone which is why our final idea should keep the naysayers in line, “Hey fuckers deal with it or we will exile you to fucking New Jersey. Do not fucking test me.”

Bloomberg let’s be honest your plan kind of sounds like a bad Saturday Night Live skit. Without addressing its flaws, we would like to praise bold initiative it must take to actually enact this cartoon villain plot. Penn Station already possesses a potent enough bouquet of burnt feces and hair gel without the unwashed masses calling it home(less). Once we give those homeless a one-way ticket to NotHere-istan we can address another problem stenching up your city. The tunnels in Penn Station literally pipe in the overwhelming shit stink of New Jersey and Long Island. What is your plan for dealing with this pollution? And by pollution we mean people. And by people we mean sub-humans. We’ve got an idea that can solve both of the problems facing your city. On a small island off the coast of New York build a New York backdrop, add in about forty sports bars, and a club or two playing douchey techno, then import all the city’s homeless to give it an “air” of authenticity. The bridge and tunnel crowd will never notice the difference. Of course if the city’s homeless leave, where will the hipsters get their fashion cues?

We do have to mention that one solution to your P.R. issue would be to develop a plan that actually addresses the homeless problem effectively. We applaud the fact that according to data from the New York Times, sending New York’s homeless to their relatives with one-way tickets has saved the city approximately 13.5 million dollars. However this figure only addresses the cost to New York City, not the cost of sheltering the homeless once they reach their destinations elsewhere. It’s not a solution or even a band-aid fix, because its not fixing anything at all. If other cities begin following in New York’s footsteps it won’t be long until we have an escalating battle of which city can inundate other cities with the most of their homeless. It won’t end until we find one city too poor to ship any of their homeless back out. Detroit, brace yourself for a population boom. The bottom line, try spending this money on job creation programs.