Using $25,000 confiscated from criminals, Fort Lauderdale is offering to buy one-way bus tickets for homeless people whose families will care for them at the other end of the trip, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports.

"We're not pushing them out," Mayor Jack Seiler said. "If somebody has a network of support, a group of family and friends that will provide for them back home, that's probably a good place for them to be."

Commissioners voted to create a Homeless Reunification Program through the police department's homeless-outreach unit, which had placed more than 7,000 people in shelters and housing through August. The city says 190 families with children who were living on the streets were still waiting for openings in early September.

Under the bus-ticket program, a homeless person or family must have a family member willing to pick them up at their final destination, and they can use the program only once.

Broward and Palm Beach counties have had similar programs for years.

Some homeless advocates say the programs merely pander to voters rather than address the problem.

"I think cities that embark on that as a course of action, like Fort Lauderdale, like New York City, like San Francisco, the nature of that is quite transparent, to move their problem onto somebody else's doorstep," Neil Donovan, executive director of the National Homeless Coalition, told the Sun Sentinel ahead of the Tuesday vote.

Broward County arranges between five and 10 trips a week but at the moment has a backlog of about 100 requests, the Broward/Palm Beach New Times says.

Home for the holidays?