Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

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
MaineToday Media State House 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.

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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

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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

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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