Detox Center Subsidized For Six More Months But Money Only One Problem; Short-Term Housing Taking Space

Homeless alcoholics can count on at least another six months of “eats and sheets” at Spokane’s detox center.

Center officials told city and county leaders in December that the center was going broke helping drunks who are looking only for a place to clean up, warm up and dry out before hitting the streets - and the bottle - once again.

Spokane County commissioners, Deaconess Medical Center and Sacred Heart Medical Center each have agreed to pay $2,000 a month to help cover the cost.

The Spokane City Council finance committee recommended Tuesday that the city chip in the same amount for six months. That pledge must be approved by the full council.

But money is only one problem, said Staurt Evey, a board member for Spokane Care Services, which runs the private, non-profit center.

The center has only 45 beds, and they are supposed to be reserved for alcoholics waiting to get into treatment centers, or those who already have quit drinking and are putting their lives back together.

Offering short-term housing to alcoholics with no desire to quit drinking is filling up the beds and making life tough on the other residents.

“We’re not equipped to be a homeless shelter,” Evey said.

But homeless shelters aren’t equipped to handle drunks.

“They upset the atmosphere too much (at shelters). They’re too disruptive,” said Barbara Ries, executive director of the detox center, who uses the term “eats and sheets” to describe what the homeless alcoholics are seeking.

For 14 years, Spokane Police have relied on the center to respond when emergency operators get reports of drunks passed out on sidewalks or in doorways.

Without that service, police will have to pick up homeless alcoholics and take them to an emergency room for care. And the drunks will be back on the streets sooner.

“It’s not just the intoxicated individual that is affected,” said Councilman Chris Anderson. “It’s you and I in our neighborhoods, it’s the businesses, it’s the police and firefighters and it’s the hospitals who will have to absorb these people if there isn’t an agency like this (center) that’s willing to do it.”

Evey doesn’t expect to find a solution when the money dries up; more than likely, the monthly payments will have to be extended, he said. But he and others hope that in the next six months, business and government leaders will help them plan a solution.

The detox center at S165 Howard is funded by $300,000 in federal and city grants and another $425,000 from Spokane County, which is required by federal law to provide detoxification services.

Helping homeless alcoholics has put the center about $60,000 in the hole, said Evey.

That’s in addition to much bigger financial problems that stem from mismanagement when the center had a different board and executive director.

The center is six months late on loan payments to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and is late paying other creditors, as well. The city guaranteed the HUD loan and would have to pay $403,000 if the center defaulted.

Although he voted for the additional funding in the financial committee, Anderson said he’ll withdraw his support if the council doesn’t require monthly financial reports from the center.

“We’re not just throwing money into a dark hole,” he said.