You won't need to roam very far on the streets of any of New York City's five boroughs to get an earful from legal residents about the situation in the city's shelters for illegal migrants. Even among traditionally liberal Democrats, people want the shelters to be cleared out and returned to their normal functions as hotels, public housing units, or public municipal facilities. The overflowing migrant shelters have caused nothing but problems, running down property values, promoting higher crime rates, and eliminating homeless housing for legitimate homeless citizens, including American veterans. Perhaps now, however, the municipal government has heard their cries from the wilderness and will move to begin emptying out those shelters. How will they do that, you might ask? If you guessed that they would hand out even more massive checks to the migrants to help them move into "permanent housing," give yourself a cookie. (Fox News)

New York City launched a pilot program to help migrants transition out of city shelters by providing them with $4000 for permanent housing, a city official confirmed to Fox News Digital on Friday.

The NYC Department of Homeless Services (DHS) offered 150 families cash assistance through the Asylee Moveout Assistance (AMA), a pilot created in December last year to help find permanent housing for asylum seekers. The pilot was launched in partnership with some city shelters providing services for asylum seekers.

"The city is using every tool at its disposal to implement innovative and cost-effective solutions to help recently-arrived asylum seekers residing in shelters take the next steps in their journey," a Department of Social Services (DSS) spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

The deeper you dig into the details of this program, the more it stinks on ice. First of all, the public is being told that there is "no city funding allocated for this program" and the money is all coming from existing DHS funds. But DHS is the Department of Homeless Services. This may not be an allocation of "new funding," but it all still came from the taxpayers. Making matters worse, the DHS funding was supposed to be spent to assist homeless residents of New York City. So the money intended to care for and house legitimate homeless New Yorkers - including some veterans - is now being flushed down the rabbit hole to benefit the illegal migrants.

Let's also look at the value of these payments. This money is allegedly intended to move migrants into "permanent housing." What sort of permanent housing is anyone going to land in Gotham for $4,000? The average monthly rent for an apartment in Queens is more than $3,000 and you typically have to put down the first and last month's rent as part of the contract. $4,000 won't even get you in the door. The cost of a very modest single-family home in Queens is more than $600,000 with a minimum of ten percent expected to be put down up front. How does this program put anyone in permanent housing at that price without the need for virtually endless additional public funding being poured into the effort?

Pulling back the camera a bit, the people in charge of this program describe this effort as a way for migrants in shelters to, "take the next steps in their journey." While many citizens are still awaiting shelter, these people are living on the public's dime after coming into the country illegally and contributing virtually nothing to New York society. Why isn't the "next step in their journey" a ticket to the airport and a free flight back to their country of origin? 

New York City has had to make cuts to the NYPD budget (again) because of all of the money being flushed into the sewer and all of the "defund, reimagine" nonsense we've seen in recent years. We've seen countless NYPD officers being attacked and women being raped in New York's parks by migrants in broad daylight. Where are the priorities of the City Council and the Mayor's office? Normal human beings should have reached the breaking point long before now. But as long as the residents of the Big Apple keep electing this same group of clowns over and over again, the well of sympathy has run dry, at least for me. Take Kurt Russell's advice and Escape From New York while you can.