By Melanie Sharpe
Ron Kilpatrick spent nearly 30 years living on the streets. He was in and out of jail and treatment programs, but always ended up homeless and drinking again.
Two years ago, he was admitted to Ottawa’s Shepherds of Good Hope’s managed alcohol program. He still lives there today.
“If I wasn’t here I’d be out in the park drinking, looking over my shoulder for police,” he says. “I feel safe here. I’m very lucky to be here.”
Kilpatrick is one of the 25 chronic street-alcoholics in the program. It is one of only two in the country, providing safe shelter, healthcare, food and support services to its residents. It also provides them with a steady supply of alcohol. Every hour from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. residents can have a drink.
Supplying alcohol to severe alcoholics seems completely absurd, but the program is drastically improving the lives of one of the most rejected populations in society. It’s also saving taxpayers time and money and shedding new light on the benefits of harm- reduction programming.
Last month, the Canadian Medial Association Journal published a report on a study that followed 17 of the Ottawa program’s residents for 16 months.
The majority of the participants had alcoholic parents, began drinking in their early teens and had been alcoholics for 35 years. On average, they had 46 drinks a day before entering the program and many drank non-beverage alcohol such as mouthwash or hairspray .
The study found the program decreased participants’ encounters with police by 51 per cent and their visits to emergency rooms fell by 36 per cent. The residents also consumed less alcohol, they were eating and sleeping more and had improved personal hygiene and health.
But many organizations working with homeless addicts aren’t willing to provide similar services.
The Ottawa Mission has been working with the city’s homeless population for decades. Spokesperson Susan Howe says changing its policy of no alcohol on the premises is highly unlikely.
“It would be very difficult to change that long-standing policy. For us it would be difficult to determine who would qualify for the program or not. It’s not something we felt we should get into,” says Howe, adding The Mission’s 12-step addictions program has been very successful.
“We’re having a very good success rate with our six-month rehabilitation support program and the after care that goes with it,” she says. “We have about a 65-per-cent success rate, which is well beyond the average.”
But the Shepherds of Good Hope’s program isn’t for people who can successfully get their lives together through instant sobriety.
It’s a program based on the principles of harm reduction, an approach to assisting addicts that doesn’t require sobriety. Instead, harm reduction programs try to reduce the negative health effects and social and economic consequences of drug addiction and alcoholism.
These are programs that are often designed for the most severe addicts, and Ottawa’s managed alcohol program is no different. It targets a small but very vulnerable population that exists in every city. People who go in and out of hospitals, jails and treatment centres, but continue to live a life of alcohol dependency.
Wendy Muckle, executive director of the Inner City Health Project, the organization that runs the managed alcohol program, says telling its participants not to drink isn’t an option.
“These people’s brains are hard-wired to consume alcohol. If not drinking is an option they will not be in the program. It is a program of last resort,” she says.
But the program also provides a stable life for people that society has given up on. By transferring their out-of-control alcohol habits into the hands of professionals, participants drink less and their lives become more than just a deadly cycle of drinking, homelessness and jail.
“We always wish we had videotaped what people were like before they came to the program. When you see them a year later often you can not even physically recognize them,” says Muckle.
There are larger social benefits as well. Police officers and paramedics have little choice but to arrest or bring homeless alcoholics to hospitals.
When these people have a real alternative to their chaotic street life, emergency services can devote their time to real emergencies, rather than a population they have few resources to actually help.
Ottawa’s managed alcohol program proves the effectiveness and humanity of innovative harm reduction. Instead of giving up on such a troubled population, the program approaches chronic alcoholics with respect and the care they need.
The positive results are undeniable. Muckle says many people have left the program sober while others stay but choose not to drink.
“Generally as a society we’re realizing that we have to look at these things differently. The cost of not doing anything is greater than the cost of doing something,” she says.
For someone like Kilpatrick the benefits are obvious. He’s designated himself the program’s laundry man, he washes and dries everyone’s clothing. “I try to help out as much as I can,” he says, sitting beside the washing machine with a drink on the table in front of him. “We all work together here it’s like a family.”