GREENSBORO, NC (WFMY) -- Rumors have been flying for years now that homeless people are being bused into Greensboro from nearby cities so those cities don’t have to deal with the issue.

WFMY News 2 is putting those rumors to rest by verifying the information with several sources: The Greensboro Police Department, Mayor Nancy Vaughan and the Interactive Resource Center.

The Greensboro Police Department and Mayor Vaughan both verified they aren’t aware of any organized busing of the homeless to Greensboro.

The Executive Director of the Interactive Resource Center said those rumors can be chalked up to urban legend.

“If you’re relocating an individual person, it’s to a sustainable situation somewhere else,” Kennedy said.

“You’re not shuffling one person from homelessness in one community to homelessness in another, and you’re certainly not loading up a bus full of people and shipping them to Greensboro.”

Kennedy said some homeless people are offered bus tickets, but only if they can prove they’re traveling to stay with family, friends or loved ones. They go through a verification process to ensure it’s a safe and legitimate shelter.

“The idea that somehow this is part of some vast conspiracy to end homelessness in other communities while we dump them all of in the city of Greensboro is just flat out ridiculous, it’s an urban legend,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy is aware of where the rumors may have come from. She explains the saying ‘Greyhound Therapy.’

“The term greyhound therapy is this idea that well we have a homelessness issue so the way we want to deal with it is put people on greyhound buses and get them out of our town,” Kennedy said.”

According to Partners Ending Homelessness, there was a spike in the homeless population this year in Guilford County. Since they started collecting data in 2007, the homeless population had decreased year by year until the census in 2018.