Most of you likely heard about the incident in New York State where a number of homeless veterans were kicked out of the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh, New York where they had been put up, to make room for another busload of illegal migrants. People were outraged, and rightly so. And since the Mayor of New York City had been busy trying to ship migrants all over the state, it made sense. But once people began investigating the story, it started to fall apart. The New York Post is reporting that the entire affair turned out to be a scheme invented by a veterans’ advocate. She allegedly bribed some homeless men from another shelter with cash and booze to talk to reporters and claim that they were veterans who had been put out on the streets.
In a disturbing turn of events, a group of homeless men say a well-known veterans’ advocate in the Hudson Valley region bribed them with cash, food, and booze to pretend they were former military personnel who had been booted from a hotel in favor of migrants.
The seven men – who have not been named – were part of a group of 15 that was recruited from a Poughkeepsie homeless shelter to pose as traumatized veterans who allegedly been kicked out of Newburgh’s Crossroads Hotel, the Mid Hudson News reported Friday.
In an interview with The Post on Friday, Orange County DA David Hoovler said he was planning on launching an investigation into how YIT’s money was allocated.
If true (and it appears to be), this is disgusting. Sharon Toney-Finch is a veteran herself and the head of the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation. She formed the group ostensibly to assist parents of premature children as well as to find housing for disabled and homeless veterans. But according to this report, she paid a group of fifteen seemingly random homeless men $200 each and provided them with alcohol in exchange for posing as displaced veterans.
To make matters worse, reporters contacted the management of the Crossroads Hotel. They were told that the supposed “veterans” had never even stayed there. The entire tale appears to have been a farce. And now an investigation is underway.
Toney-Finch is denying that she did this. She claims that an associate of hers did pick up the homeless men and drive them to meet her for lunch where she picked up the tab. That’s where the men claim that the deal was struck, though Toney-Finch insists there was no such arrangement and all she did was buy them a meal. There don’t seem to be any other viable suspects at this point, however.
When the story broke, people began raising and sending money, and a lot of it flowed in. You would expect that to happen because this sort of treatment supposedly being dealt out to some of our most vulnerable veterans is an outrage. A state assemblyman is currently investigating the case and he wants to know how much money YIT took in and where it went.
Some of the homeless actors would like to know the same thing. Toney-Finch apparently failed to pay at least some of them the money she allegedly promised. One of them can be seen in a photo of the press conference holding up a sign demanding to be paid.
Assuming this is all solidly proven, this woman has done some serious damage. How many people will hesitate in the future before reaching out to help legitimately homeless veterans after hearing this story? And if she was willing to pull a trick like this, what’s going on at the YIT Foundation? Is that legitimate? Many questions remain.
Read the full article here