Detox shelter aims to start
mobile emergency team
The project to help homeless addicts and alcoholics could ease the burden on police.
By John Richardson jrichardson@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
PORTLAND — An average of four times each day, Portland police get a call about someone who's drunk or under the influence of drugs to the point where they are causing a disturbance or passed out on a street or sidewalk.
Tom Allan, director of the Milestone Foundation shelter in Portland, said Wednesday he hopes to receive federal grant money from the city for a van and outreach patrols to pick up intoxicated homeless people and take them to his India Street detox shelter starting this summer.
John Ewing/Staff Photographer
Tom Allan, director of the Milestone Foundation shelter on India Street in Portland, proposes to create a street team to respond to social ills.
John Ewing/Staff Photographer
Sometimes, the result is a ride to the emergency room or the county jail.
The calls are a burden to the city's police and rescue crews, and typically do little to help homeless addicts and alcoholics get off the street for more than a day, or an hour.
"It's a long-term problem. It needs long-term solutions," said Tom Allan, director of Milestone Foundation Inc.
Milestone operates a detox center and emergency shelter on India Street for intoxicated men and women. This summer, Allan hopes, the agency will hit Portland's streets with walking outreach patrols and a rapid-response van.
If all goes as planned, the new street team will quickly reduce calls to police and medical rescue crews. In the long run, it also could help more of Maine's homeless addicts and alcoholics get treatment and, ultimately, jobs and homes.
"We'll be able to do real-time intervention," Allan said. "We'll build relationships."
The City Council is scheduled to decide Monday whether to provide federal grant funding to Milestone's Homeless Outreach and Mobile Emergency Team -- HOME Team for short.
City Manager Joe Gray is proposing a $100,000 grant to start the project in July as one of more than 20 programs scheduled to receive more than $2 million in Community Development Block Grants.
If the project wins startup funding, and if it works as expected, Milestone and its partners say they will seek grants and other funding to keep it going.
The partners include the city's police and health and human services departments and the Portland Downtown District, which has pledged private funding to get the project rolling.
Last year, Portland police responded to 1,603 calls concerning people who were intoxicated or passed out in public, sending two officers and two cruisers each time, according to city records. In about 250 of those cases, Medcu emergency medical technicians also responded.
"These clients are people that we deal with on a daily basis, and sometimes two or three times a day," said Portland police Cmdr. Michael Sauschuck.
Officers try to take as many of the people as possible to Milestone to sober up, he said. Some can't be roused and are taken to hospitals for potentially expensive emergency room treatment. Others agree to move along or are taken to the county jail, charged with public intoxication or another offense.
Police will continue to respond to calls when needed, including after hours. The HOME Team's outreach workers and van are expected to begin operating during business hours, when the calls are most frequent.
The effort should immediately reduce the need to tie up police and rescue resources in routine cases, and gradually reduce the underlying problems, Sauschuck said.
"There's a resource side to this, but there's also the human side," he said. "We all want to make sure everybody's safe and get them off the street, and we're looking for long-term solutions."
People who operate businesses downtown have been excited about the idea since last fall, when they learned how a similar program has reduced disturbances and public drunkenness in Burlington, Vt.
Concerns about the issue are especially high along Congress Street, where business owners describe aggressive drunks, fights, people urinating in public and other problems.
Tamara Gilliam, general manager of the Eastland Park Hotel, said a man who was scouting locations recently to host a winter conference for a large group of women toured the hotel and seemed positive until he saw a drunken fight on Congress Square, just outside the hotel.
"He chose another state and another city," Gilliam said. "I counted at least $100,000 to $150,000 of lost revenue for group business because of things (prospective guests) saw in Congress Square. I'm talking in the last two to three years."
Business people, like the police, hope that the HOME Team will be a better long-term solution for the homeless, too, she said.
But perhaps no one sounds more excited about the idea than Mark Eason.
Eason, 39, was a homeless drug addict and dealer on Portland's streets for several years, and accounted for his share of calls to police.
"I was alone," he said. "I felt shunned. I would use drugs to make friends (and) find places to stay. I did anything to survive."
After time in jail and detox, Eason is recovering because of the help he got at Milestone, he said.
He lives in Milestone's temporary housing in Old Orchard Beach and works at the organization's shelter in Portland. He's also taking courses and plans to study behavioral health at Southern Maine Community College in the fall.
Eason is sure the HOME Team will help more people get off the streets.
"It took someone to tell me about Milestone. I think it'll be an excellent outreach," Eason said. "Once a client knows that somebody out there cares and gives a damn, it will help them in their decisions. If it can take one person (off the street), then that's worth it."
Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791-6324 or at:
jrichardson@pressherald.com
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16 COMMENTS
Klown said...
Good idea. Round um up and take them to India St. for a quick spin dry and let um loose again! and again and again and again and again and again and again..........................................
March 18, 2010 at 2:17 AM Report abuse
Felix said...
HERE WE GO AGAIN, MORE OF THE COSTS OF BEING A REFUGE CITY FOR SOCIETY'S PROBLEMS!!! THE PEOPLES' REPUBLIC OF PORTLAND IS JUST STARTING TO GET THE TAB FOR ALL THEIR LEFTY PROGRAMS. THE TAXPAYERS OF THE STATE AND NATION ARE SICK AND TIRED OF THIS. ANYBODY GOT A SPARE KNIFE?
March 18, 2010 at 5:11 AM Report abuse
Rocky4 said...
Just when was it that a "patient" became a "client"? Just another feel-good social program run by those who can not get a real job. OH...and that "federal grant money"? Guess that grows on trees, right?
March 18, 2010 at 5:31 AM Report abuse
Gary said...
Rocky4, of course it grows on trees! Let's face it, we have become a freakin' welfare nation, and those of us that still have enough pride to earn our own way through life without government assistance or oversight are in the minority. We definately need to change the way things are done in government. We've been headed south since the "Great Society" of the 60s and NAFTA and on it goes.
March 18, 2010 at 6:21 AM Report abuse
mtc said...
"Tamara Gilliam, general manager of the Eastland Park Hotel, said a man who was scouting locations recently to host a winter conference for a large group of women toured the hotel and seemed positive until he saw a drunken fight on Congress Square, just outside the hotel." A small step Portland needs to take to take the downtown back from the crazies and drunks. These chronic alcoholics should be put in jail. It's probably the only place they can function and limit the destructiveness of their alcoholism on the rest of the world.
March 18, 2010 at 7:35 AM Report abuse
Lucy said...
Thank you Portland for caring. Anyone with an addiction deserves all the help they can get as do our homeless population. I was so happy to read the success story of Mark Eason. Even if just one person can achieve recovery and find a home off the streets, then this program will be successful. Helping others is what we should be all about...."To whom much is given, much is expected"
March 18, 2010 at 7:38 AM Report abuse
homeboy said...
So now we are going to have limo service door-to-door for our intoxicated friends? Where does this madness end? What ever happened to personal responsibility?
March 18, 2010 at 7:48 AM Report abuse
BSmart said...
Just a thought here....maybe if Portland didn't go out of their way to RECRUIT these people with lavish giveaways, housing, free meals, and cash handouts, we could, just MAYBE reduce the number that are hanging around town. It's MUCH worse in the last year or so. Congress street is a freak show with these idiots urinating, vomiting, fighting and passing out everywhere. Enough!
March 18, 2010 at 8:33 AM Report abuse
Klown said...
Lucy I agree with you to a point! Waiting on these people is not the answer. In most of these cases the police need to be called anyway because of drunk and disorderly behavior or crimal activity. The article says sometimes they go to jail. A mobile emergency team can't force a drunk to get help and they aren't going to get in the van without physical force in some cases. This has bad idea written all over it. There are those who believe India street like clinics are ENEBLING alcoholics and drug addicts. The addict always knows theres a place to go when the going get tough instead of helping themselves out of lifes jams. Thats why they call it a spin dry it isn't a solution but a temporary refuge for 3 hots and a cot!
March 18, 2010 at 8:39 AM Report abuse
SL said...
You've heard of meals on wheels and bears on wheels how about drunk felons on wheels. Don't forget when an EMS call goes out to gather up a bunch of drunks the PPD responds. This affords them the chance to search for warrants not just give them a shuttle to their next bed. MTC. The folks I worked for relocated a meeting after I discussed with them the issues of that location. They assumed it was a quick walk to the Old Port area...certainly is quick if you're running! Downtown Porkland is disgusting once you leave the Old Port area.
March 18, 2010 at 9:16 AM Report abuse
homeboy said...
Who will these folks have working the "liquor limo" for them---ex wrestlers? How can they assure their own safety, as well as those of the occupants of the vehicle? Sounds like an idea just waiting for a lawsuit...
March 18, 2010 at 10:05 AM Report abuse
homeboy said...
Gives a whole new meaning to the term "booze cruise"...
March 18, 2010 at 10:56 AM Report abuse
jude said...
The other night I was heading to a restaurant on Monument Square when I saw one of the usual suspects lying on bricks right in the path of pedestrians. Police were called, and several officers and EMT's spent the better part of a half hour loading this guy into the ambulance and hauling him away. What a waste of police manpower. There are so many better things the cops could be doing instead of pouring this guy into an ambulance. I'd much rather see those officers walking a beat in the Old Port and calling the detox shelter to deal with the drunk.
March 18, 2010 at 11:19 AM Report abuse
UofA said...
Maine is only a spot in the "network" that these people work. At least one comes up from FL in the spring, stays the limit in the Tedford Shelter in Brunswick, then up to Elsworth for a while, returns to Brunswick, then back to FL. He was done this for at least the last tywo years. As for the drunks, the people that give or sell these known offenders booze should cut off the supply.
March 18, 2010 at 1:32 PM Report abuse
null said...
Felix, where do you get the idea that these folks are 'refugees'? I've personally placed several calls for 'layouts', and all of the folks in question where Caucasian English speakers... Personally, I think this is a great idea!
March 18, 2010 at 5:58 PM Report abuse
reader said...
for several years i use to have read the daily police logs of central maine....i would say SKOWHEGAN ,MAINE police gets about 3 calls a day for drunks,mental unsound people....skowhegan has 1/15 the population of portland....
March 18, 2010 at 7:43 PM Report abuse