On St. Anthony’s back patio — the only place where residents are allowed to drink — I find a handful of men in their 40s, 50s and 60s downing cheap beer and vodka and trying valiantly to remember the names of the Seven Dwarfs. It’s a team effort, and so far they’ve come up with Grumpy, Dopey, Sneezy, Sleepy and Doc. They can’t recall Bashful or Happy.

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“Do you know why we’re allowed to drink here?” a 51-year-old named Vini asks me through slurred speech. Before I can offer an answer, another man — who tells me he has been to treatment 11 times — chimes in. “Because it’s the lesser of two evils,” he says. “We can either be out on the street causing trouble and costing you money, or we can be in here, out of sight and out of mind.”

It costs $18,000 a year to house and feed each St. Anthony’s resident, a tab that’s shared by Catholic Charities and the state of Minnesota. Each resident gets $89 a month, much of which is spent on alcohol. Three hot meals are served here each day, cable television is available in every room and there is a computer area where I saw a resident watching a YouTube video of Charlie Sheen. “There are people who say: ‘That’s outrageous. You’re just enabling these guys to sit around and drink all day,’ ” Jim Gillham, St. Anthony’s service coordinator, tells me in his office. “And to that I say: ‘Well, we’re not actually doing that, because we help these guys moderate their drinking. Many drink much less than they did on the streets.’ I also try to help people understand how much taxpayer money is saved by this kind of program.”

A University of Washington study found that a similar “housing first” facility in Seattle cost taxpayers significantly less than leaving alcoholic homeless people on the streets, where they disproportionally rely on hospital emergency rooms and social and legal services. But is publicly supporting addiction the humane thing to do? That question is especially relevant here in Minnesota, dubbed “the land of 10,000 treatment centers.” St. Anthony’s harm-reduction philosophy (where it can be a victory if a resident switches from vodka to beer) is considered dangerous and ineffective by many treatment providers steeped in a 12-step abstinence model.

Before leaving St. Anthony’s, I seek out Dave again, whom I last saw smoking a cigarette in his room. I find him in his favorite spot — on the back patio, drinking with his new friends, a baseball cap covering his oily, slicked back hair. “As you can see, alcohol has a ring in my nose,” he tells me. “I’ve fought it my whole life, and it has cost me my whole life. I’m not sure there’s much hope for a scoundrel like me.”