Many Government Programs Reinforce Addiction
Mr. Boerner is a graduate student in English at California State University in Sacramento.
Of the chronically homeless in America, about half are single men with addictions to drugs and/or alcohol. Most agree that these homeless addicts ought to be helped; the question is how. The prevalent solution is governmental: the federal government’s entitlement programs and local government shelters. An examination of the philosophy behind these programs reveals the flaw in government’s method.
The federal government classifies alcoholics and drug users as disabled by their substance abuse, and thus unable to work. This definition labels the homeless addicts as victims of an illness. As a result, more than 250,000 addicts collect disability payments—$1.4 billion last year—through the Social Security Administration. Addicts are presumed to buy shelter and food and seek treatment with the money, which averages $434 a month (plus additional state benefits).
In effect, however, the entitlement is a reward for being addicted, and it therefore encourages continued addiction. This well-intentioned entitlement program allows addicts to buy drugs and alcohol with taxpayer dollars. Sometimes checks are sent directly to bars that allow addicts to run up a tab. That the government subsidizes addiction is bad enough. What’s worse, this drug program also kills! When disability checks come on the first day of every month, addicts binge on drugs or alcohol—sometimes with fatal results.
On the local level, states like Colorado require that anyone publicly inebriated be provided the opportunity for shelter, counseling, and medical evaluation. In Denver there are shelters like Denver CARES, which receives $1.7 million from the state to pick up and detoxify street addicts. Each addict is given food, drink, and bed for the night, and offered long-term treatment in a rehabilitation program. Again, addiction is being reinforced. Nearly half of these addicts reject treatment and are released and picked up again another night. Many of those that do pursue treatment are set up for dependency on government agencies in place of dependency on drugs or alcohol.
Requiring Personal Change
There is a better way, an approach aimed at developing personal responsibility. In Denver, this model is being implemented by a privately funded shelter called Step 13. Founder and director of the program, Bob Coté, holds that homelessness and addiction are the result of choices made by individuals, and they should be held accountable. If addicts refuse to make an effort to reform, he feels, help is no help. But if they want to get their lives together, Step 13 is ready to extend a hand.
The Step 13 philosophy is to expect something of the clients, in contrast to the government- funded approach. Residents at Step 13 have to give up drinking, submit to regular urine tests, work or go to school full-time, and pay rent of $125/month. They buy their own food, cook, and clean up for themselves. Step 13′s goal is to allow addicts to take control of their lives, which begins with breaking their dependencies.
The shelter, founded in 1983, houses 100 men a night, who stay as long as they need to—a year or more—if they follow the rules. Step 13 provides addicts with shelter, counseling, and drug- and alcohol-abuse treatment. It is staffed by former addicts, like Coté himself, who understand the pitfalls of street life and recognize the need for firm direction.
Step 13 makes a point of accepting no government funding. The shelter generates over half of its own income through the rent it collects from clients and from a community recycling program it operates (which also provides some of the jobs for clients). For the rest, Step 13 relies on voluntarism and philanthropy. Nearly 100 volunteers assist operations. One local cancer surgeon has for six years been the program doctor, giving every client a free physical. “That’s how we survive,” says Coté. “By the kindness of others.” Coté is proud to operate with a budget of around $300,000. He estimates that if he tried to set up the same program with government help, it would cost over $2 million because he would be required to meet government mandates for academically trained personnel.
A 1990 study found that 35 percent of Step 13′s clients succeeded in getting their lives straightened out. Coté is not claiming to solve all the country’s homeless problems. Defenders of the prevailing programs will say that addicts will die on the streets without the government programs. Yet addicts are dying now, as Coté points out, with government help! “Show me a government handout, and I’ll show you something that encourages irresponsibility,” he says. No drug rehabilitation program for the homeless can work that does not require personal change. Without individual responsibility, human dignity and well-being cannot be restored.
