The city of San Francisco is providing free beer and vodka to homeless alcoholics at taxpayers’ expense under a little-known pilot program.
The Alcohol Management Program, run by the San Francisco Department of Public Health, provides prescribed doses of alcohol to voluntary participants suffering from alcohol addiction to prevent homelessness from ending up on the streets and relieve the city’s emergency services. Experts say the program can save or extend lives, but critics question whether government funding for treatment and alcohol-free programs would be better.
“Alcohol management programs established in countries such as Canada and Australia, typically administered by nurses and trained support staff in facilities such as homeless shelters, transitional or permanent residences, are designed to minimize harm to alcoholics. A barrier to method use,” the California Health Care Foundation explained in a 2020 article describing the pilot program.
“By prescribing limited amounts of alcohol, the model aims to prevent the potentially life-threatening effects of alcohol withdrawal, such as seizures and injuries.”
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At night, a man pours wine from a vial into a glass. San Francisco funded a pilot managed alcohol program to provide free beer and vodka to homeless people suffering from severe alcohol abuse. (Soeren Stache/Picture Alliance from Getty Images)
San Francisco’s Managed Alcohol Program (MAP) was established during the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent alcohol withdrawal symptoms among vulnerable homeless individuals who are quarantined in hotel rooms. But according to the San Francisco Chronicle, the project started as a 10-bed facility and has since expanded to a 20-bed facility operating out of a former hotel in the Tenderloin with an annual budget of $5 million.
Alice Moughamian, nurse manager of the Alcohol Management Program and San Francisco Sobriety Center, explained in an October presentation that nurses provide clients with motel rooms, three meals a day and enough alcohol “to Satisfy their addictive needs but retain some people”. At a safe level of intoxication. ”
Mohamian said initial success in stabilizing alcoholic patients prompted health officials to expand the pilot into a longer-term program with 10 beds dedicated to “Latino and Indigenous populations” alongside the city’s traditional alcohol treatment center Also supports an additional 12 beds.
Bryce Bridge, a social worker involved in the program, said in a presentation that once a client is identified as having an alcohol problem and admits it, they undergo an assessment to determine individual needs. Clients can connect with a primary care physician who can provide them with resources to secure government identification if they do not have a Social Security card or other documentation and assist them with psychiatric care, on-site wellness activities and other evidence-based treatments.
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On June 6, 2023, a homeless encampment in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California, USA. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“We actually connect them with different community organizations that help us host art groups and poetry groups and help them explore ways to express themselves,” Bridge said.
Bridge also said marijuana use is “pretty common on our site” and said there is no policy prohibiting marijuana use, although health providers monitor marijuana use to prevent adverse health effects or interpersonal conflicts.
Although relatively unknown to date, the project gained momentum after Adam Nathan, CEO of an artificial intelligence company and president of the San Francisco Salvation Army, made several posts on social media criticizing what he witnessed at the site is under new scrutiny.
“In the lobby, they have a keg [sic] Nathan wrote on X after visiting a Tenderloin hotel serving homeless alcoholics:
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San Francisco’s Alcohol Management Program operates out of an old hotel on Eddy Street in the Tenderloin. (Google Maps)
“It’s set up so that people in the project can walk in and have a beer and then have another beer. All day long,” he claimed.
“The whole thing just feels weird to me and doesn’t feel right. Giving drug addicts free drugs doesn’t solve their problems. It just wears them out. Where’s the recovery in all this?” he asked.
The Salvation Army promotes alcohol addiction and provides free adult rehabilitation programs.
Public health officials have called some of Nathan’s claims misleading. In a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle, the health department said alcohol is dispensed by nurses and homeless people who are not participating cannot simply walk into the facility and receive free beer. The statement reportedly said the scheme was being carried out at a tourist hotel in the Tokulong district of Maeda, which had a bar but the on-site taps were “unavailable and unused”.
Still, the plan has drawn criticism from San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who said in February that harm reduction “doesn’t reduce harm” and instead “makes things worse.”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed has criticized harm prevention programs that provide addictive substances to drug abusers. (KTV University)
“Are we really going to spend taxpayer money forever controlling people’s addiction? It seems like that’s basically what we’re talking about,” Tom Wolfe, who is recovering from heroin addiction, told The Chronicle said a statement. “I think we should be spending that money on detox and rehab.”
But Mohamian said recovery is not the point.
“Our goal at MAP is not to reduce drinking, nor is it to phase someone out of drinking, although both of those things happen to clients in our program,” she said in a presentation in October. “Our goal is to mitigate the many health, legal and interpersonal harms associated with unsafe drinking.”
San Francisco health officials said the program saved $1.7 million in six months, reducing hospital visits and calls to police for participants who previously relied heavily on emergency services. After clients joined the program, officials said visits to the city’s sobriety centers dropped 92%, emergency room visits fell more than 70%, and emergency calls and hospital visits were cut in half, the Chronicle reported. .
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City officials previously said that just five residents struggling with alcohol addiction cost the city more than $4 million in ambulance transport costs over five years, with more than $100,000 in ambulance transport costs during that period, the Chronicle reported. Up to 2,000 vehicles.
The San Francisco Fire Department gave the program a positive review, telling the outlet that the alcohol management program “has proven to be a highly impactful intervention” in reducing the use of emergency services among “a small but highly vulnerable population.”
Other countries, such as Canada, Portugal and the United Kingdom, have adopted alcohol management programs much faster than the United States.
A 2022 study of Canada’s managed alcohol program found that homeless people with severe alcohol abuse had a reduced risk of death and fewer hospital stays after participating.
