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Different approach

The head of a local shelter says the city has not been very good at dealing with its alcohol issues.
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Cal Rankin speaks to council Monday night. (Jamie Smith, tbnewswatch.com)

The head of a local shelter says the city has not been very good at dealing with its alcohol issues.

Solutions for Thunder Bay’s chronic alcohol abusers have been hard to come by Shelter House executive director Cal Rankin said, because the community has been looking at abstinence-based programs.

"We’ve never really been good at that," Rankin told council Monday night.

Shelter House is currently renovating a building on its property on George Street to try a different approach. Based on Toronto’s successful Seaton House, the 15-bed facility would house alcholics on a long-term basis who are otherwise frequenting the city’s emergency rooms, detox facility, shelters and jail.

"They’re the people that you see stumbling on the streets," Rankin said.

The program would administer eight five-ounce glasses of wine throughout the day to people living at the facility in an effort to stablize their drinking habits.

"They’re not drinking alcohol (on the street) they’re drinking hairspray," Rankin said.

Rankin was before council to request $242,865 to complete the $500,000 facility, which Shelter House hopes to have open around November.

Administration has been asked for a report on the idea. While councillors were largely supportive, Cou. Ken Boshcoff want the province to step in to start funding projects like this.
"The city’s always asked to come to the rescue when the province doesn’t," Boshcoff said.

Rankin said the program would actually save the province and the city money by freeing up police and medical personnel. Shelter House will look elsewhere for funding if the city doesn’t but Rankin said regardless the city needs to step-up its homelessness and addictions strategies.

"The hospitals don’t want these people at their doors," Rankin said adding every couple of months a client he knows from Shelter House passes away without proper care.

"This population is literally dying on our streets."





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