A GOVERNMENT funded scheme to help Eastern Europeans living on the streets of Boston return to their homelands has been slammed as a "cynical gimmick" by a leading campaigner for migrants rights.

National charity Crime Reduction Initiatives with support from Boston Borough Council is running the programme aimed at people from the likes of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania who are sleeping rough.

It has so far seen six foreign nationals given one-way tickets home and, with more expected to take up the offer, the project has been hailed a success by its organisers.

But former migrant workers chaplain the Rev David de Verny has claimed the initiative is just an excuse for the authorities to avoid tackling the problem of homelessness.

He told the Target: "This whole ticket home business is a cynical gimmick because it is far cheaper to send people away than to provide proper provision for the homeless.

"It is a scandal that a large county like Lincolnshire with over 660,000 inhabitants only has two night shelters for the homeless and one day centre here in Boston.

"Homelessness can hit anybody not just migrant workers who have been mercilessly chucked out by their greedy landlords.

"Migrant workers are here because they want to work and because there is no work where they come from.

"Eastern Poland has an unemployment rate of 40 per cent. Can we as a supposed civilised country really just send people back to that?

"The wonderful people who run Centrepoint Outreach and other Christians from all churches in Boston have been demanding action for our homeless for years without the slightest success.

"Perhaps it is time that our politicians and their civil servants finally wake up to their social responsibilities.

"Rendering a handful of desperate individuals to joblessness in their home countries does not solve the problem of homelessness in Boston."

Council head of the regulatory services Simon Sandland-Taylor said: "What we are doing is recognised by central Government as best practise and we have already met the needs of a quarter of these people.

"A lot of people want to go home and until we put this scheme in place they were not able to do so.

"They had no money, no paperwork and no means of getting the necessary paperwork.

"Return home is just one option they have. The choice is theirs. One man came to us last week to return home but is now staying because his prospects have improved as he has got a job.

"Another had a medical problem and we found accommodation for him. It's not just about getting them home."