Latest Post | Last 10 Posts | Archives
Previous Post: Caption contest!
Next Post: Ugh
Posted in:
* Adriana Cardona-Maguigad has written a fascinating story about Puerto Rico municipalities giving heroin addicts one-way airline tickets to Chicago, where the addicts often end up in unlicensed, unregulated “treatment” centers, and then, eventually, on the streets. Read it all.
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:00 pm
Sorry, comments are closed at this time.
Previous Post: Caption contest!
Next Post: Ugh
WordPress Mobile Edition available at alexking.org.
powered by WordPress.
I hope this isn’t more Rolling Stones type of journalism.
Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:11 pm
HFS!
Comment by Nick Naylor Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:14 pm
And Gov. Rauner just eliminated the GRF funding for addiction prevention.
Comment by Give Me A Break Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:20 pm
Give Me a Break—-Didn’t know it was Illinois’ duty to solve Puerto Rico’s problem. Maybe that is the problem?
Comment by Ben Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:32 pm
Prevention won’t be an issue if they arrive here already addicted, treatment will be the problem so Rauner’s cuts in might not be an issue for this group (snark). Agree with VM I hope this is a Rolling Stone type of story.
Comment by illinifan Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:35 pm
Heard the story on NPR over the weekend. Seemed very well researched and absolutely astounding.
Comment by late to the party Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:39 pm
Well Ben I guess you are all for creating the same problems with Illinois residents.
Comment by Give Me A Break Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:43 pm
==This is crazy. Sick people are being sent thousands of miles from home to unlicensed drug rehab places in Chicago?==
==I called the headquarters of Alcoholics Anonymous; a representative there said they have nothing to do with these rehab places. I checked on 14 places to see if they had licenses from the state. But they had none. I checked with Joseph Lokaitis, a public service administrator with DASA, the Division of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse under the Department of Human Services, but he said he had no idea that these unofficial treatment groups existed.==
==Like other users I talked to, she said she was sent by the municipal authorities from Bayamon. She said she had tried at least six 24-hour groups in Chicago since she came.==
Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:52 pm
@Ben- considering that people who come here from Puerto Rico are US citizens, it’s not like we can do a whole lot about it. I believe in the 60s and 70s, the state of Illinois used to do similar things with wards of the State by just shipping them off to other places.
Comment by Juice Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:56 pm
Nevada got caught doing something similar. They would ship their mentally ill to California. I believe California sued and got an eight figure settlement. Maybe we could do the same. Every little bit of extra cash will help, right.
Or we could return the favor. Chicago winters are cold, I am sure some of the inmates at 26th and Cal would happily take a one way trip to Puerto Rico, especially if it was offered to them in January or February.
Comment by Guzzlepot Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:02 pm
Beware of the catchy bad news story so bad, it just has to be true!
Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:14 pm
Oh it’s going to be a bad day for that Family Community Resource Center (FCRC) who issued SNAP benefits to those guys. Snap Integrity Unit is going to be all over that like a puma on a peacock.
Comment by Honeybear Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:20 pm
This is so crazy-sounding, just crazy enough that it could be true. Is also disgusting.
Comment by Belle Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:25 pm
One way ticket out of town — that’s old school. Not that uncommon. Greyhound would be the transport of choice in the lower 48.
Back in the day, cops in Rock Island and Davenport would drop their “problems” on the other side of the river. Probably all evened out.
VMan, if you read the story, you’ll see the Puerto Rican authorities cop to shipping problems to Chicago and other cities in the country.
Comment by Wordslinger Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:53 pm
The fact that Chicago attracts these people is no surprise. Chicago has always been viewed as a sanctuary city for “anything and anybody” much like a magnet attracts scrap iron. Maybe Rauner will designate a special state fund to buy return plane tickets back to Puerto Rico for them. Rauner might even decide to send Puerto Rico a couple hundred thousand extra uninvited Illinois guests to reciprocate the favor granted us by our friend Puerto Rico. Nice to become known as the premier dumping ground for those who don’t want to pay the tab for their own indigent people.
Comment by Ethan Hawk Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:56 pm
Belle, well said. This is disgusting, and Cardona-Maguigad’s work is thorough.
No Rolling Stone here.
Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:57 pm
EH, I don’t know that Chicago is “attracting”these folks, considering the coppers shoved them on the plane.
According to the story, P.R. authorities admit to shipping 758 people to the states, 120 to Chicago.
Comment by Wordslinger Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 3:06 pm
Not a single unnamed source that I saw. Looks like pretty solid work.
Comment by Jan Wenner Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 3:27 pm
I had heard of this type of thing 40 years ago, concerning the mentally ill. Some southern cities would put them on the bus to Chicago. Most of them then ended up in care of the state mental health hospitals. Never heard of anything being done to stop this practice.
Tom Dart should do a survey of how many of his mentally ill jail patients came here from out of state.
Comment by DuPage Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 4:22 pm
I’m sure Tom Dart has some guests who he wouldn’t mind sending to P.R. on one-way _vacaciones_.
Comment by CEA Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 4:54 pm
Sounds liked the segregationists in the Deep South issuing bus tickets to Chicago for residents that they disliked.
Comment by Under Further Review Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 5:07 pm
The NPR story was broadcast on This American Life. Here is the link: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/554/not-it
Comment by Pot calling kettle Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 9:20 pm
Perhaps Von Rauner could open his own IDOC satellite office in San Juan for some aviation therapy programming? They get freedom and Spanish, we get empty prisons and outsourcing. Win-win?
The IPI boys and the tribbies would be impressed.
Comment by read em and weep... Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 9:54 pm