http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/WetHouse_WEB.mp3
The homeless population in Traverse City has grown, following years of economic recession. Homelessness has also grown more visible, which has the attention of city leaders who last week added an alcohol ban to three downtown city parks.
Residents and business owners complain a few homeless people have been causing problems including loitering, drinking, fighting in parks, and in city heavily reliant on its status as a quaint beach and foodie town.
Most everyone also agrees the drinking bans are a “Band-Aid” and that more should be done. Commissioners will talk about it further in a study session tonight.
And some advocates for the homeless are proposing to close a gap in the safety net for some of the city’s worst addicts.
A Humanitarian Problem
On a bitter and rainy day on Front Street, Greg Stone acknowledged the problems – though he says they’re not all caused by homeless people.
“Not all of those folks that might be urinating on the building… they might have a home to go to,” he says. “They’re just doing it drunk and maybe just being stupid, okay?
“What we’re looking at are those folks that are chronic, constant, they’re passing out on the sidewalk.”
As Stone sees it, it’s fundamentally a humanitarian concern that homeless people have been drinking and loitering around the Jay Smith Walkway, a small public park on Front Street. He says the people need somewhere safe to go.
“It wasn’t just a couple weeks ago right across the street in front of Subway, there was a person passed out – on the sidewalk here,” he points the way. “It was a Saturday afternoon, nice afternoon. Two police vehicles, to fire trucks, a North Flight ambulance …”
Stone says, and pretty much everyone seems to agree, this is not a problem of homelessness in general. He says there are eight-to-twelve people in town who have been identified as homeless addicts who are the severest of the severe cases. They frequent the local emergency room and are prone to fight and are difficult to deal with in traditional shelters and detox centers. They’re also not ready to give up drinking, he says. For these folks, Stone says the prognosis is not good.
“Some folks are going to die and that’s just the reality. So, as a community, are we going to say, well because you’re not going to follow my rules you have to live on the street and die in a snow bank? Or die in a park alone?
“Or are we going to, like any other person who has an illness – then you go to hospice. In other words, this is about humanity, not necessarily sobriety.”
A Wet House
Stone is a substance abuse counselor and an addict with decades of sobriety. He proposes a “wet house.” Those eight or twelve addicts he says are causing some of the biggest problems in city parks would live together in a house, cook together … drink together.
To be clear, Stone would not provide alcohol. But he wouldn’t restrict its use. And he says in other communities with wet houses it seems many of the big behavior problems go away because when severe alcoholics have their drink and a comfortable spot, he says, maybe cable TV, they tend to want little else.
Safe Harbor
The closest thing to this kind of service in town is run by area churches, which are lenient about inviting addicts in for the night. Even someone who has clearly been drinking is welcome.
Safe Harbor is a shelter service that moves from church to church in the winter months. It began close to a decade ago, and among others, it serves folks who can’t or won’t follow the rules at traditional shelters, such as the Goodwill Inn, with zero-tolerance alcohol policies.
The churches do not allow people to drink on premises, and some shelter guests like that rule.
“Alcohol in a homeless situation can be very dangerous,” says shelter guest Donald Griffith, 29. “People don’t always get along when they’re drunk.
“If you’re trying to provide a service for homeless people, you want to provide as safe an environment as possible. That’s why I wouldn’t support something like drinking in a homeless building.”
But another guest at the shelter compared the wet house concept to a needle exchange for drug addicts.
“They took the needles out and they went and delivered them because people were dying of –you name all those diseases that they were sharing the needles with. Maybe their idea is with the alcohol,” he said.
Devil In The Details
In large part, leaders in Traverse City seem interested in the concept, though they have concerns about issues like zoning.
Kirt Baab, with Addition Treatment Services, says that’s reasonable. The organization runs a residential program and detox center on East Eighth Street downtown.
He agrees a wet house is worth pursuing, but he also says a house like this will scare the neighbors without some serious neighborhood outreach efforts.
Baab also says a program like this should be carefully thought through, which would require time, planning and money. It should be carefully placed in the community, have a structured program and a budget for 24-hour trained staff.
“I appreciate the idea that we need to act, but I think that it’s really easy to make a mistake by acting in a way that we’re unprepared,” Baab says.
Greg Stone agrees it’d be best not to put a wet house in the middle of a downtown neighborhood. But as he sees it, winter is here; time is of the essence. And if he can find a landlord a few backers and volunteers, he’ll get a wet house running right away. He even plans to move in himself.
“We have a long-range plan with a facility – with services – that will take a lot of public input and process and going through,” he says. “But for right now I’m just looking for a house, duplex preferably, that we can rent and have them live there as a family.”
With no real budget or plan, Stone admits he’s not so good about details and careful planning. But he does have a track record. His nonprofit, Stoneshouse, operates two transitional houses for recovering addicts in Manistee. And back when he opened the first, Stone says he did so with little more in his pocket than first and last month’s rent.