Anchorage Daily News

An experiment at the Clitheroe Center, one of the biggest and oldest substance-abuse treatment centers in Anchorage, will try to help hard-core homeless alcoholics -- even though they don't want help.

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Clitheroe director Robert Heffle says 11 people have been through the Salvation Army center's specialized treatment unit.

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The new specialized treatment unit at the Salvation Army center is for people ordered by a court to get help to save their lives or at least stop them from hurting themselves. The hope is that once they get sober, they will be able to make rational, healthy choices.

The grand opening was Wednesday with the mayor, state lawmakers, city and state health officials and a swarm of reporters all there to check out the new unit near Stevens International Airport.

The involuntary commitment provision has been allowed for years under state law, specifically Title 47, which is already used to commit people for psychiatric treatment at the state mental hospital. But until this year, the state didn't provide any funding to force alcoholics or addicts to get sober.

State Sen. Johnny Ellis, D-Anchorage, worked on the project for years and said he saw the problems caused by public inebriates firsthand in his Fairview neighborhood. He helped piece together the $1 million in state funding. The Salvation Army gave him a plaque on Wednesday.

Ellis said state Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Fairbanks, who chairs the finance subcommittee for corrections, was key to making the project happen. The Legislature put partisan politics aside for the project, Ellis said.

"He and I were able to lock arms to try and do the right thing for people that the Bible and Jesus would call 'the least among us,' " Ellis told the crowd.

Melissa Stone, director of the state Division of Behavioral Health, told the crowd she used to run a private agency and can remember being at wit's end trying to save the lives of self-destructive alcoholics.

The new project will need to be assessed and clients tracked to see if it works, she said.

"The people in the field do not take lightly the significance of imposing the Title 47 process," Stone said.

"On the other hand, people in the field are witness daily to the destruction of drinking. Seeing people injure themselves as they're unable to walk or unable to stand. Seeing people belligerent. Seeing people huddled in urine," she said. People destroyed by alcohol.

In the new program, people are initially committed for 48 hours, with extensions of 30 days or longer if ordered by a judge.

Robert Heffle, director of Clitheroe Center, said the treatment services began in July and detox in September. So far, 11 people have come through the new unit, and six of them are staying beyond the court-ordered 30 days for treatment, he said.

A week ago, one of the men now in the program was standing on a street corner with a sign, panhandling for booze money. He's now sober, Heffle said, and happy to be in a place where he's safe and warm.

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