Chronic alcoholic program reports progress

When an apartment building for chronic, homeless alcoholics opened in Seattle at the end of 2005, critics said it would be a waste of public money for a party house.

The 1811 Eastlake program sought out the most frequent users of hospital emergency rooms and the King County Jail, and offered them apartments where they could drink as much as they wanted behind closed doors.

Two years later, housing provider Downtown Emergency Service Center says its 75 residents on Eastlake Avenue East are drinking a third less, and taxpayers have saved $1.8 million from fewer emergency-room visits, 911 calls and nights in jail over 12 months.

While spending for doctors and jail guards hasn't gone down, housing officials say, resources are now directed toward treating life-threatening injuries and jailing criminals.

It's right for the bottom line, and it's the right thing to do, they say.

"It has addressed one of the most seemingly intractable sets of homeless people: street alcoholics," said Bill Hobson, executive director of the Downtown Emergency Service Center. "This group was dying at much greater rates than any other subset of homelessness."

Mayor Greg Nickels plans to announce the 1811 Eastlake results in a news conference today, as well as $1.5 million in similar savings from a Plymouth Housing Group building at Second Avenue and Stewart Street that provides 87 apartments for homeless people.

The programs are based on the Housing First philosophy, which advocates placing homeless people in permanent homes with supportive services, rather than requiring them to be clean and sober. The hope is that stability will help them address issues such as mental illness and addiction.

The city spends $50,000 on human services annually at 1811 Eastlake and invested $2.1 million to build the apartments. It has become a national model for treatment of chronic inebriates living on the street.

Seven out of 75 residents died in the first year of the program, which is lower than the 20 percent mortality rate for homeless alcoholics, Hobson said.

Sixteen residents left and returned to homelessness. Most of them were evicted for violent behavior, Hobson said, adding that the environment is much like a convalescent home.

The Downtown Emergency Service Center compared residents' behavior a year before they moved into 1811 Eastlake with a year later. It found that residents' visits to Harborview Medical Center fell from 1,160 to 794 a year, saving the county $679,853. Days spent in jail decreased by 42 percent, from 2,312 to 1,343. Visits to the Dutch Shisler Sobering Center declined by 87 percent. Results were similar at the Plymouth building on Stewart.

Kate Joncas, head of the Downtown Seattle Association, said the business association assigned extra safety and cleaning staff to the area when it opened, but members have not complained about problems since.

She said calls for a van to pick up passed-out homeless people fell 47 percent downtown after the alcoholics moved into 1811 Eastlake, although some of that drop could be from new restrictions on alcohol sales.

Joncas says she has supported the center since the beginning.

Hobson said at least a quarter of the people who live in the buildings he runs could return to the working world if they had the right support. His organization just received a grant to create "a vocational program that targets people most of the community has given up on," he said.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958