Call 888-647-0579 to speak with an alcohol or drug abuse counselor.

Who Answers?

Anchorage motel could house chronic alcoholics

The Anchorage division of RuralCap is negotiating to buy a Red Roof Inn at Fifth Avenue and Karluk Street. The agency is seeking a state grant through the Alaska Housing Finance Corp.

The Anchorage Daily News reported Monday the effort would follow a housing program in Seattle that does not require residents to stop drinking. Supporters said it could provide a safe home for chronic alcoholics while reducing the cost of services such as jail, detoxification and medical treatment.

“The concept is intriguing,” Mayor Dan Sullivan said. “You are getting people out of public parks and camps and into secure housing. That sounds like a positive step, but really the devil’s in the details.”

Fourteen homeless people died in Anchorage public parks, camps and on the city streets during 2009.

The mayor said the location of the motel wasn’t ideal, and he needed more information about staffing, financing and remodeling.

The building would be staffed around the clock, and employees would use video monitors to keep tabs on visitors as they come and go, said Melinda Freemon, director of RuralCap’s Anchorage division, including the Homeward Bound residential program.

There would be limits on visitors to prevent drug-dealing and to keep residents’ rooms from becoming party destinations, Freemon said.

Residents could stay as long as they followed the rules. They would pay fair-market rent for a single room, typically through public housing assistance or disability or other benefits.

“This is just like if any of us rented an apartment, with extra staffing to ensure the safety of tenants and the neighborhood,” Freemon said.

Anchorage Assembly member Dan Coffey, a member of the mayor’s homelessness team, is drafting an ordinance for a special permit for such housing.

For hard-core street alcoholics, “what we’re doing now is a total waste of time, money, energy, everything,” Coffey said. “Take them to the drunk tank, sober ’em up, let them drink again. Boom boom. Around and around and around we go.”

source: Associated Press

More Treatment & Detox Articles

Feds fail to use effective drug treatment plans in prison

Despite 20 years of scientific evidence showing that drug treatment programs work, the feds fail to offer enough of them to prisoners, according to a new study. Currently 7.1 million adults – over 2 percent of the population — in the U.S. are locked up or on probation; about half of them suffer from some….

Insurance Coverage For Drug Treatment

Most people who are seeking a drug rehab center and are fortunate enough to have health insurance want to know if it will by for the treatment. While there isn’t really a simple answer to this, there are some basic guidelines here that can help you understand the process a bit more and how it….

Campaign aims to steer kids off booze

Thousands of children are being admitted to the region’s hospitals with alcohol-related illnesses. Statistics show more than 3,000 under-18s end up in hospital in North East England each year due to excessive drinking, 149 of those in South Tyneside hospitals. The Department for Children, Schools and Families launched an advertising campaign to get parents to….

We have a drinking problem, say Aussies

The majority of Australians say the nation has a drinking problem, new research reveals. Almost 80 per cent of adults think Australians drink too much and 85 per cent want to see more action to address excessive drinking, a Galaxy survey commissioned by the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AER) has found. The survey showed….

Binge drinking starts at five

Regular alcohol consumption can lead to binge drinking among all gender and age groups, a new study suggests. “What we found is that when people drink more often, they are more likely to drink more, take more drinks, and go to binge drinking,” said Andree Demers of Universite de Montreal, the study’s main researcher. She….