S.F. has many ideas on handling drunks

Public Defender Jeff Adachi (left) and District Attorney George Gascón disagree on how to handle chronic inebriates. Public Defender Jeff Adachi (left) and District Attorney George Gascón disagree on how to handle chronic inebriates. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close S.F. has many ideas on handling drunks 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

We've got to give credit to San Francisco city officials. When their plan to handle chronically drunk homeless people was tossed out by a judge, they didn't merely opt to drown their sorrows in a stiff drink.

They've got several other creative ideas, including jury trials for the chronic inebriates, a wet house where alcoholics can continue to drink on-site, a revamped outreach program and even a pilot program to test an injectable drug that could make alcoholics not want to drink.

Earlier this month, a state appeals court quashed the city's four-month effort to get chronic inebriates, most of them homeless, into treatment by threatening them with jail for contempt if they repeatedly fail to show up in court. The idea, led by the San Francisco Superior Court and District Attorney George Gascón, was to arrest those who'd been cited at least 20 times for public drunkenness or other low-level offenses, put them in jail and tell them they were in contempt of court for not showing up all the previous times. Threatened with jail for five days per no-show, most offenders agreed to enter treatment instead.

But the state appeals court said somebody can't be held in contempt of court just for violating his or her own promise to appear in court, even if they'd signed the back of each citation saying they agreed to appear.

Score one for Public Defender Jeff Adachi who challenged the program, saying it was unconstitutional and illegal.

"We're eager to participate in the next possible steps," Adachi said. "We were excluded last time from the design of the court, and we would have pointed out these problems had we been at the table."

So what options does the city have to deal with the chronically drunk homeless people who bother residents and tourists, cycle in and out of jail, cost the city up to $13 million a year in emergency services and aren't doing themselves any favors either? Plenty, it seems.

For starters, Gascón said that within about a week, he'll switch his method to one in which the defendants can choose between a jury trial and accepting services - similar to the idea behind the successful Community Justice Center in the Tenderloin.

"The only tool we have is to file charges. I'm hoping the majority of them will actually take the service offer," Gascón said, saying the status quo cannot continue. "These are people who are decomposing in our streets right in front of our eyes. Some of them eventually die in the streets, and I don't think there's anything humane about this."

Bevan Dufty, the mayor's point person on homelessness, has been pushing the city to create a "wet house" where alcoholic homeless people can live and continue to drink on-site in hopes they will eventually curtail their drinking and get their lives together with a roof over their heads.

Most city officials are cautiously supportive of the controversial plan - slammed by critics as "bunks for drunks" - but the Department of Public Health continues to struggle to find a location for it.

In the meantime, Dufty said the city is likely to get a $750,000 federal grant for a 25-unit transitional housing complex for veterans. Not surprisingly, the feds aren't cool with the wet house idea, but Dufty has said the city may try what he's dubbed a "damp house" instead where the residents could continue to drink so long as it's not actually inside the facility.

The Public Health Department just weeks ago also remade its Mobile Assistance Patrol program, a van service that was supposed to provide outreach to homeless people on the streets but had become more of a transportation service to and from shelters.

Barbara Garcia, the public health chief, said she's keeping the transportation part, but has also started a new program called the Engagement Specialist Team that will provide 24-hour-a-day outreach and services to homeless people including chronic inebriates. Garcia said the department has data showing where drunken people are when they get picked up by ambulances for expensive trips to San Francisco General Hospital - and the notion is to have the EST vans, with a social worker on board, get there first to transport people to the city's sobering center South of Market and offer them services.

And perhaps most cutting-edge, the department is reviewing a plan to launch a pilot program to find 10 or 12 chronic drunks who voluntarily agree to be injected with the drug Vivitrol to reduce their alcohol cravings. Usually, the drug is used for overdoses, Garcia said, but there's thought that it could also work to stem the desire to drink in the first place.

Garcia said it's not a silver bullet - the drug costs $20,000 a year per patient, which would be picked up by taxpayers - but that it could prove cheaper than emergency visits to the hospital.

Not surprisingly, homeless advocates much prefer the wet house, outreach vans and Vivitrol pilot program to Gascón's plan for jury trials or mandatory treatment.

"Where we need to move forward is looking at how to truly address the needs of alcoholics," said Jennifer Friedenbach, director of the Coalition on Homelessness. "We can find solutions and we can address the needs of alcoholics without them ever even needing to enter the criminal justice system."

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"Compare that to the grade of your child on a test. That's an unacceptably low score, especially because what it translates to is more than academic."

Sara Shortt, director of the Housing Rights Committee, on the San Francisco Housing Authority earning a 54 out of 100 on a new audit by the federal government