Wet shelter to open at old Vic
A shelter for alcoholic homeless people will be opening on New Year’s Day in the old Vic, but with only ten beds for men and three for women. They’ll get regular doses of alcohol and help toward eventually stopping.
Note to CBC: Re the subhead “Homelessness advocates decried need for years”, decry does not mean what you seem to think it means.
Ephraim 22:24 on 2020-11-10 Permalink
It’s much more expensive to run a wet shelter. But it’s very needed.
david194 01:31 on 2020-11-11 Permalink
Basically, the point of this is sort of treatment is 100% harm reduction – to keep the drunks from wasting space in the jails and hospitals, in police cars and ambulances. This sort of treatment in no way leads to a cure, or turns people from drunks into solid citizens. The literature reports that it’s probably cheaper than the alternative, and keeps some of the most unpredictable and anti-social people from doing harm to others.
dwgs 12:38 on 2020-11-11 Permalink
I would like to think that the focus of the harm reduction would be the afflicted people themselves. Alcoholism and mental illness are diseases, not character flaws. And I have known plenty of people with substance abuse and mental health issues who were very solid citizens.
Michael Black 12:54 on 2020-11-11 Permalink
And since many/most shelters prohibit alcohol (maybe that includes people who’ve drank too much?), it leaves people with no where to go. On really cold nights, that may mean death, not being warm but also not being able to make good decisions.
There’s a balance. Drinkers may cause trouble in shelters, and there’s not enough staff, or the right kind, to deal with it. And it can disrupt other people.
I dropoed off a popcorn popper (and popcorn) to Resilience in December, and there was some sort of incident where “security” came along. This isn’t a judgenent thing, it’s a balance.
Blork 12:59 on 2020-11-11 Permalink
Side note: they’ve changed the subhead to: “Homelessness advocates highlighted need for years.” 🙂
Kate 12:15 on 2020-11-12 Permalink
Blork, I should get paid for my freelance editing 🙂