While its only three months old, a local program to curb chronic alcoholism appears to be providing a bit of relief.
The Shelter House’s alcohol management program’s two-year pilot project started at the end of March. The program’s 13 participants are housed and given a glass of wine every hour-and-a-half. Co-ordinator Robert Deleo said the program is about harm reduction.
“It’s to try and encourage them to stop drinking non-palatable items like Listerine hand sanitizer, things like that,” he said.
“We’re trying to encourage them to stop going outside and drinking on the streets.”
While residents are free to come and go, they won’t be given alcohol if it is suspected they’ve been drinking.
Deleo said that has been less of a problem as the program moves along. More and more residents are content to hang out at the George Street facility.
Some are even painting or playing guitar.
Still, deputy police chief Andy Hay said the service does see its fair share of residents on the street still.
The difference though is that in the past those people had to be taken to hospital, detox or the police station.
Now they can be brought back to the program.
“What we will be seeing is our availability to focus on more important policing activities other than bringing intoxicated people into custody,” Hay said. “Addressing a health issue using police resources is probably your most inefficient means of addressing the problem.”
The program is about harm reduction and looking at alcoholism as a health problem rather than a criminal one city drug strategy coordinator Patti Hajdu said. It’s the idea that people don’t have to be completely sober in order to receive services.
“By removing that barrier of having to be abstinent then they’re able to retain the clients of the program and in fact people start to become healthier and use substances in a less harmful way for them and the community,” she said.
“It’s about getting rid of our old ideas and judgments about what people have to live like.”
Most people in the program will probably never fully recover from their addiction, but Hay, Hajdu and Deleo say that’s not the point. Success will be measured individually as well as a whole.
