For decades, some major U.S. cities have “bussed out” unsheltered residents, handing people bus tickets to get out of town, out of sight, out of mind.
Over the last year, unsubstantiated rumors that unhoused people were bussed from other cities to Licking County cities such as Heath and Newark have spread on social media and at Newark City Hall during some city council meetings.
The rumors persist, in part, because public officials and some community leaders continue to spread them without evidence.
Statements and data from Licking County volunteer and nonprofit organizations, local police departments, neighborhood associations and an investigation by The Reporting Project indicate the rumors are false: Unhoused people living in Licking County are from Licking County.
Of the 33 people at Newark Homeless Outreach who spoke with The Reporting Project on Saturday, Dec. 7, for example, 30 were from Newark or had lived in Newark for a significant period of time prior to becoming homeless. Two said they were from Marietta, Ohio, and one said he was from North Carolina and had moved to Newark recently, but he declined to give further information.
Coinciding with these numbers are the accounts of unhoused people and volunteers with their feet on the street every day.
“People say they are bussed in, but there is no evidence of that,” said Patricia Perry, co-founder of the Newark Homeless Outreach. “It’s easier to blame other people than it is to take a look at yourself here in Licking County, or especially in Newark, and know that this is a problem and you’re not doing anything to help.”
Perry’s thoughts are also shared by some unhoused people.
“I think most of it is based on rumors, not so much on action,” said Charlie Green, 66, an unhoused man from Newark. “I’m not proud of where I’m at, but I’m proud to be in Newark.”
Read more: Newark City Council approves ordinance targeting homeless people in 7-1 vote for ‘camping ban’
In 2024, an estimated 176 people in Licking County were homeless on any given night, according to data from the latest Point-in-Time count, a census of unsheltered people collected on one night in January each year. That’s a 52% jump from 2023, when estimates showed about 116 people were homeless. The next Point-in-Time count in Licking County is slated to happen on Tuesday, Jan. 28.
But the numbers fluctuate on any given night as some individuals gain – or lose – housing.
“Homelessness numbers are very fluid,” Julie Magar, chief clinical officer at Behavioral Health Partners of Central Ohio (BHP) said in April, when The Reporting Project first began investigating where unsheltered people came from in Licking County. “An individual may report experiencing homelessness at admission and may get housed while being served by BHP, or they may have housing and then lose it. There really is not a way to track the number of clients who are experiencing homelessness on any given day.”
BHP is a local nonprofit that provides mental health and addiction services in Licking and Knox counties.
Despite those difficulties, BHP has the numbers for those who were unhoused upon admission to their facilities. Between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, the organization said that 234 admitted individuals were unhoused. One was from Franklin County, another was from Richland County, 102 were from Knox County – all served by BHP providers in Knox County – and 130 were from Licking County. Two of 234 people were from outside the facilities’ counties, or roughly 0.9%.
According to Kathryn St. James, the CEO and president of BHP, the nonprofit served 3,372 people in Licking County in 2023, and 98% – or 3,305 people – were from Licking County.
In Licking County, people seeking care at BHP were overwhelmingly from Licking County.
“We may see a few people who come to the outreach [out of hundreds who come] that are from out of the county,” said Linda Mossholder, South Newark Civic Association member and Newark Homeless Outreach volunteer. “If any are from out of county or maybe another state, it’s because they came here for a reason. They are not being bussed in.”
Even so, the rumor that unsheltered people are filing into Licking County persists – in part, some say without evidence, because of support services provided by places like BHP, the Newark Homeless Outreach, and the local Salvation Army.
Newark City Council member Beth Bline is among the officials who have repeatedly asserted claims that unhoused people were being sent or brought here.
“I understand the numbers, but I can’t change the narrative of someone’s personal testimony: What they tell me is what they tell me,” Bline, from Newark’s second ward covering the south side, told The Reporting Project last May. “Financial clarity is important, especially as many nonprofits are tax-exempt and people donate to them. It’s important for citizens to know how donated dollars are being spent.”
Bline, who has served on the Newark City Council since 2022, has provided The Reporting Project with no verifiable evidence to support her repeated claims, which she reiterated in January 2025.
“It’s the nature of non-profits to gain income through numbers,” Bline said. “Obviously, if you have low numbers, you receive low tax dollars from the state; high numbers, you receive more money.”
One way to check this is with data from Licking County social service organizations, which often help unhoused populations.
Nonprofits are required by law to provide public records of their finances, but Bline remains skeptical.
When asked, Bline said that she had not looked at the tax dollars that specific nonprofits in Licking County were receiving, and she said she does not have any proof of misuse but is researching the matter to be sure.
Bline continued, asserting that multiple sources have contacted her about unhoused people being bussed into Licking County.
“I have been contacted by citizens that said they’ve witnessed people being brought in and dropped at places like Walmart,” Bline said. “I’ve received phone calls from professionals, one professional in particular, saying that they were just brought in a group. Most importantly, I’ve received testimony from persons themselves.”
Bline would not provide names of the people she said told her these things, but emphasized that her source was “very frustrated.”
But local law enforcement agencies said these claims are not true.
“Nobody’s been dropped off in Heath,” said Sgt. Ryan Peterson of the Heath Police Department. “I’ve heard rumors, but I’ve seen no evidence for it.”
Newark Police said the same thing.
“To our knowledge, we’ve not heard that, or anything remotely similar,“ said Sgt. Chuck Wilhelm of the Newark Police Department. “I really don’t think that’s happening.”
Refusing to disclose the identity of the professional who contacted her, Bline continued to speak about one group in particular who she said told her they had been released from prison and instructed to make their way to Newark.
“That’s their testimony to me,” Bline said. “I’m going to believe them; I don’t have any reason not to.”
Data and statements from service providers like BHP and the Salvation Army in Licking County, however, show that people coming to Newark specifically to access services is extremely rare.
“That’s not happening,” said Salvation Army Newark Corps Maj. Connie Higgins. “No one’s being bussed in here – we only serve Licking County residents.”
The idea that unhoused people are pushed into towns and cities from other areas has been perpetuated for decades, and there is some truth to it elsewhere in the United States. Across the country, major cities such as New York City and Atlanta implemented relocation programs for unsheltered individuals, offering bus and plane tickets for people to go elsewhere, according to a 2017 investigation by The Guardian.
The Guardian investigation, which relied on public records requests from 16 cities and counties – primarily along the West Coast – identified more than 20,000 instances between 2011 and 2016 in which someone was handed a bus or plane ticket to go stay with family living elsewhere.
There’s a history of this. Notably, for the 1984 Olympic games in Los Angeles and the 1996 games in Atlanta, unsheltered people were displaced. In Los Angeles, aggressive police sweeps and city ordinances banning public sleeping forced people out of the city. In Atlanta, thousands of arrests were made, and many unsheltered people were given bus tickets.
There are about 653,000 unhoused people in the U.S. on any given night, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, so while this practice might be occurring, it is occurring infrequently, and there is no evidence to support that it has happened in Licking County.
Community volunteers in Licking County have witnessed the same reality here.
Existing services such as Newark Homeless Outreach, the Licking County Emergency Warming Shelter, and Saint Vincent Haven, which see frequent use, are volunteer-run, and not operated by the City of Newark or Licking County government.
Read more: Newark community drop-in center at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church seeking volunteers, support
Licking County does not have a low-barrier shelter, meaning every available shelter in the county has obstacles that decrease their accessibility for some people. These often include drug tests, criminal background checks and even pet restrictions.
Mossholder sees the claims that homeless people are coming from out of the county as a defense designed to shift blame.
“They don’t want to admit that there are homeless in our area,” Mossholder said to The Reporting Project in 2024. “It’s easier to blame that they’re coming from outside than [to acknowledge] people becoming homeless in Newark.”
Noah Fishman and Owen Baker write for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.