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Rumor has it that the city of Portland is busing many of their homeless to Medford. Is this possible? — Larry, via email Well, Larry, we’ve heard this before, but Rogue Retreat says the assertion that lots of people are arriving in Medford direct from Portland as part of a concentrated effort is “not accurate.” “It’s very common for social service agencies to pay for transportation for people to be in a better situation, but not just randomly shipping them to a particular location,” said Heather Hassett, operations director for Rogue Retreat. In 2016, Portland started the Ticket Home program, offering one-way tickets to wherever homeless people wanted to go. It was modeled after a San Francisco program called Homeward Bound. Those optimistic-sounding names, however, seemed to fall short of their intention at times, as news reports later revealed that people who left Portland on a one-way ticket didn’t necessarily head on to better lives with housing. In many cases, they ended up still homeless, but elsewhere. An employee with Portland’s Transition Projects said it’s a common practice to check in with people a few months after their departure, BUT She didn’t know whether data is kept to track the destinations of ticket purchasers. Send questions to “Since You Asked,” Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by email to [email protected]. We’re sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them.