have you heard of wet houses?
 

I'd post the link but I don't think I can...

The Detroit Free Press has an article today about wet houses. They are a place for chronic, homeless alcoholics to live. A place where they can drink behind closed doors.

Advocates say that it will reduce police, jail and emergency room services because the alohoholic can drink in peace rather than in public.

I don't know how I feel about the idea. My exah has been homeless at times. He's been in jail. He's been in the emergency room. He's been in psych wards. If you accept that alcolism is a disease (which I most definitely do), than isn't it an act of compassion to give him a room...a place to live...even though he is sick...or maybe especially BECAUSE he is sick?

Or is this just another form of enabling. Homelessness isn't the bottom for some people. Some people never get better. I worry that my exah is one of them. Being homeless hasn't done it...jail...er visits...psych wards...maybe he doesn't have a bottom. Maybe it's an act of compassion to give him a place where he can live and drink in peace. (Just as long as it isn't MY house).

I just don't know what I think about it.

What do you think?

I have seen this on tv. It really blew my mind at first. Still not quite sure I know what to think of it. The theory behind it is just as you said. They get a room, food, and are allowed to drink. They are rationed so many alcoholic drinks a day. Supposedly research has shown that some alcoholics end up drinking less after being there for a while.

Definately got mixed feelings about it.

might be a peace of mind for family members though. At least they know where their son, daughter, husband, wife, are at.

One opened this year in my town. I don't know how to feel about it either. On the one hand, yes, it gives alcoholics a place to drink themselves to death with some dignity -- that's been the argument from the people who created it. That it's sort of like a hospice for alcoholics who can't be cured.

On the other hand it makes me angry. Because hospice is for people for whom there is no help; a place for them to die with dignity. These "wet houses" are for people who either deny they are sick or refuse to get treatment. It's more like leper colonies than hospices. It's a way for well-meaning do-gooders to feel like they're doing something for these unfortunate addicts when, in reality, they're padding their fall and preventing them from hitting rock bottom, thereby really being the ultimate codependents.

I don't know which one it is. If my AXH was homeless, would I rather that he had a place to drink himself to death while being warm? Sure. But I would rather that his life become so uncomfortable that he decided to get sober.

There have been several people who died there. The cops are there a lot. There are I believe something like 23 apartments in this place. There are many times that many addicts and mentally ill people who camp out in the woods. I sort of have the feeling that the people who are together enough to be able to apply for a spot in these houses could theoretically become sober, too. The folks who sleep in the woods out here don't even have the wherewithall (most of them) to consider that there may be options. So are these houses harming people that could be helped, while ignoring the people who really are beyond sobriety and recovery? I don't know.

Oh -- then that's something different. What I'm talking about is just subsidized housing for "chronic inebriates" where nobody cares how much they drink as long as they don't cause trouble.

I confess, I don't know, either.

dandylion

I've never heard of subsidized housing for chronic inebriates.

For low-come families...yes.

For disabled folks...yes.

Even if the housing rent is 100% subsidized, the alcoholic would still responsible for food, clothing, utilities, etc. I don't get it.

I did watch a documentary on a place like what LynnRae described. It's sort of like a halfway house in that there are multiple people with their own rooms, but instead of recovering alcoholics, it's the opposite.

I definitely have mixed feelings on the subject.

I saw it on tv too, like they get so many free shots per day or something to keep the DT's away.

Ridiculous, in my opinion. If people can get state assistance, they should be sober. Our tax dollars are paying them to stay drunk.

And I keep telling the ABF I won't pay for him to drink. At least I KNOW him.

There's one of those here, the cops are called there frequently. It was meant to keep homeless alcoholics from freezing to death outside during our bitterly cold winters.

There is a bean counter in this mix. And I am leaning towards the health insurance industry.

It's a hell of alot cheaper to supply them with some cheap gut rot booze than to pay for detox, rehab, recurring hospital stays.

IMO, this is about MONEY. Health is no longer an issue. How very disturbing.

Its a ridiculous idea,the ultimate in enabling.

To be fair, all the ones I've ever read about do not supply the alcohol, the homeless alcoholic does that. The shelter is just that, a shelter for the person to sleep.

I'm sorry, I find it very obnoxious that active alcoholics are being provided a safe place to drink when there are children who are hungry and cold.

Funded enabling.

Bad idea, on so many levels.

According to this NYT article, this housing alternative is actually "cheaper" for the taxpayer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/ma...re-t.html?_r=0

Yeah, tjp, I don't wish to turn this into a political discussion, but it's infuriating and disgusting to me that tax payers at all are involved in paying for anything for addicts. Infuriating.

I think it's a wonderful idea. The one I saw in Minnesota took 30 of the chronic street alcoholics in. One guy owed close to 1,000,000 in hospital bills & another had been detoxed over 150 times! It actually saves taxpayers money because they have a full time nurse that lives there. The police just have to take them back to the "wet house" when they find them passed out in the park. Being homeless is not always an alcoholics bottom.

It's an emotive issue. There's probably no right answer.

A lot of homeless alcoholics and addicts in my town die from other causes apart from drink/drugs...violence, accident, exposure, ill health....

these places, at least where I am, are not for the middle tier alcoholic - they're for the homeless, the vagrants, and those who've reached the end of their tether and may not be capable of making much in the way of rational decisions anymore.

It's not the Ritz.

Maybe it's because I'm an alcoholic myself and I can see what might have been in every homeless guy but I personally don't see that as enabling.

It's not a perfect solution, but to me it's a humane response to a pretty damn intractable problem.

D

I have never heard of this, but I live in a small town. It would never fly here.

A few questions came to mind:

Do these houses have rules? What if someone is violent? Are they kicked out?

Are the houses cleaned periodically? Or do the alcoholics live in there among vomit, excrement and spilled alcohol?

What if they wander away drunk; wouldn't that defeat the purpose?

Amen Dee, couldn't have said it better myself.