Andrea and Greg Killgore were already living on the streets in Las Vegas when they decided to relocate to Lancaster in early March. They thought their job prospects would be better in California.
But the couple were unable to find work and feared they would soon end up back on the streets.
A few days later, they were on a bus headed to Denver, where a relative had agreed to take them in. To their surprise, a local nonprofit group had agreed to pay for their one-way ticket out of town.
Since January, the Grace Resource Center has offered to cover transportation expenses for homeless people to return to their home states or wherever they have families or other means of support. So far the group has spent about $2,500 to help more than a dozen people leave Lancaster through the Opportunity Bus Pass Program.
"It's to help people get well and start over," said Steve Baker, the center's executive director.
Andrea Killgore, 31, said she was grateful for the free bus voucher.
"This is a step for us to get back on our feet," Killgore said. Without it, she said, "we'd be on the streets, or stuck here until my next [Social Security] check."
Mayor R. Rex Parris is a strong advocate of the bus program, even contributing $10,000 of his own money. He said he is upset by what he believes is an unspoken policy by Los Angeles agencies and others to use his city as a "dumping ground" for the homeless.
"The more economically disadvantaged people they can ship to the Antelope Valley, or encourage to go there to live, then they don't have to pay for services for them," he said.
Homeless people who have chosen to relocate to Lancaster are putting a strain on local police and social services, Parris said. The city's own needy should come first, he said.
"We have an obligation to take care of our own homeless," he said.
There are an estimated 73,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County, including at least 2,000 in the Antelope Valley, on any given night, according to statistics from the United Way of Greater Los Angeles. Anecdotal evidence suggests the number is rising because of the economic downturn, said Christine Marge, officer of the agency's Basic Needs program.
Jonathan Powell, a spokesman for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, disputed allegations that the city was encouraging its homeless to relocate to the Antelope Valley or anywhere else.
