Last Friday, Darrel Hess, the newly appointed Homeless Coordinator for the city of Anchorage, along with a handful of state and municipal employees, got his first look at one of the cornerstones of Mayor Sullivan’s recently announced plan to address the issue of homelessness in Anchorage. The group, which included Senate Majority Leader Johnny Ellis (D-Anchorage), the state’s director of Health and Social Services, Melissa Stone, the city’s Health and Social Services director Diane Ingle, and the city’s intergovernmental affairs director, Stacey Schubert, toured the secure treatment unit at the Salvation Army’s Clitheroe Center at Point Woronzof, which will officially open on September 29.

The secure treatment unit is for “homeless chronic inebriates” who are involuntarily committed by judges under Title 47 of Alaska’s statutes; the mandatory treatment can last anywhere from 30 to 180 days. There will be ten beds available for those committed; Title 47 has been Alaska law since statehood, but without beds to treat chronic inebriates, it’s essentially gone unused for that purpose. The new facility is part of a pilot project that Senator Ellis coordinated with unused funds from Health and Social Services and the Department of Corrections, and if successful in its three-year trial period, Ellis hopes to see it replicated across the state.

It’s estimated that some $4 million is spent dealing with homeless chronic inebriates, and although the Clitheroe S.T.U.’s cost is near a million dollars, the aim is to save dollars as well as lives. “We will pay, it’s how we choose to pay,” Ellis says. Considering the facility is meant for “involuntary commitment,” it doesn’t resemble anything like a correctional institution. Detox beds are lined up in a room where a nurse’s desk is placed so that those detoxing can be monitored at all times. There’s a break room where those out of detox and into treatment can watch television, and residents can walk around outside.

After 11 homeless chronic inebriates died of mostly alcohol-related causes this summer, support for Ellis’s pilot project has snowballed, and with winter approaching, the experiment couldn’t come at a better time.

bjk@anchoragepress.com