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News & ArtsWednesday, February 17, 2010
Music / News Love Is A Social Disease: Jon Bon Jovi Visits the Shelter on Eastlake Where Homeless Drunks Aren't Kicked Out for Being Drunks
Posted by Jen Graves on Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 5:04 PM
- I took a picture of these many-times-taped glasses at the counter of 1811 rather than taking a picture of anyone living there.
This is how it works at 1811 Eastlake. Unlike at any other shelter in Seattle or almost anywhere, at 1811 Eastlake you don't have to stop drinking in order to stop being homeless—which means you're safer, which means you land in the emergency room less often, and which means that maybe, eventually, you might actually be able to start dealing with your habit. 1811 Eastlake is one of those rare common-sense public service projects. The kind that conservatives would say is downright Canadian. You know, the kind that work. This single little program, which opened in 2005 and houses 75 hardcore, formerly homeless alcoholics—people referred in according to how many public services they use at places like the Harborview ER and the Sobering Center—saved taxpayers $4 million in its first year alone, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this past April.
And when HUD secretary and Jon Bon Jovi pal Shaun Donovan mentioned 1811 Eastlake in a speech, Bon Jovi decided to take a tour of 1811 Eastlake since he'd be in Seattle anyway for the kickoff Friday night of the world tour for his new album. (Key Arena, sold out.)
- There are several necklaces under there, including one with black beads, and yet somehow, he did not look remotely like a jackass.
We asked him the basics: why homelessness ("I don't need a scientist to invent the cure; it just takes money and determination, so this is something I can make a difference in"), why philanthropy (he founded the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation in 2006 to help poor and homeless people; good deeding became an interest "for real for real for real"—after years of obligatory photo ops and celeb benefits—because it's time to do something "instead of sitting in hotel rooms like I have for the last quarter century").
This was the first stop on "a factfinding mission" he'll keep doing in other cities on his tour, looking for models for JBJ Soul Foundation. He came across as smart and unsimplistic. "Not everyone is suffering at the entry level," he said, seemingly referring almost sheepishly to the fact that his past work helping mothers and families get housed in Philadelphia was maybe easier than what they do at 1811 Eastlake, where the residents are "advanced" in the backwards, disease sense of the word.
Like a politician, he dropped the name of a guy he'd met: Ed, a vet, who after years on the street, finally started sobering up at 1811 Eastlake. "We're all people in this together," Bon Jovi said. "None of us are able to rely on the private sector as an island or the government. It's only grassroots up." This woman is his hero.
Here's a recording of the whole 11-minute group hug. (Yes I did make that "Livin' on a Prayer" joke. And later I told Bon Jovi that I went to see him at Saratoga Springs when I was 13 years old, despite the fact that the night before, I fell down a 9-foot dry well and was entirely covered in abrasions from which I still have scars. I did not tell him that I do a mean karaoke "Livin' on a Prayer." "Mean" as in I mean it. I am not fooling.)
All the photos I could snap without feeling like a big jerk (how do shooters of living beings do it?) on the jump.
- ART!
- Okay, maybe I got a little too focused on the art.
- I could have sworn he had a giant grease stain on the front of his shirt, but this photo disagrees with me.
1
Good for you, him and yay 1811 Eastlake! That place is such a great example of creative, nonjudgmental thinking, ironically championed by a Republican appointee in D.C., and carried out carefully by Bill and the DESC crew. It makes me very happy to see it getting attention outside the universe of wonks and drunks.
2
Jon Bon Jovi is one of those people you want to hate, but just can't. He's earned his success, and it's good to see him giving back like this.
4
They don't kick out the drunks because the drunks are not paying for the units, tax payers are. The rents is paid every month whether the tenant is sober or not. Owning or renting costs money that these people don't have. But guess who does Mr/Ms Citizen tax payer.
5
Oh wow. I had no idea such a place could exist and succeed and that people care. Very, very educational post, thank you.
6
Anybody know about similar shelters in Denver, CO? I like to give to shelters, but hate to see all the churchy requirements that come with a place to sleep at night.
8
Sargon you ignorant slut! The article just said that the freakin taxpayer saved $4 million the first year by not having to pay for these sad sacks's emergency room, ambulance, and other bills...
If you want to deny medical service to the indigent, just come out and say it. Otherwise, this is saving us money.
If you want to deny medical service to the indigent, just come out and say it. Otherwise, this is saving us money.
9
@4, if you would rather pay to pick them up dead drunk off the street and haul them to the emergency room and then the drunk tank and then the county jail, over and over and over again, you can go live in one of the cities that don't have facilities like this, like Seattle didn't used to. But you'll pay a hell of a lot more. This facility saves the taxpayer money. Unless you think homeless alcoholics should just be killed.
10
Fnarf, Homeless alcoholics are killing themselves. Stop being a silly talker about killing people. Weird joke that. I'm not so righteous and arrogant as to step in and insist I know better. Others seem to know better and have that high level of arrogance we call paternalism. No one is stepping in and telling me my bad habits are unsightly, but then I pay my own rent and get drunk. It's when these bad habits hit the street that people go, "Oh how ugly that is, let's 'clean' up this mess."
11
Sargon, in your original post you complained about the burden this places on the taxpayers, but you have no response to the idea that this actually saves money, as well as saving many people headache's. So, if this saves us money, are you then saying that we would be better off spending more money on this?
On top of your arrogance, you have diverted the topic of discussion away from how admirably JBJ is using his wealth and fame. He's not fundraising for Africa or some other 3rd world hell hole like the other celebs, he is putting his neighbors first. Not that we shouldn't help the 3rd world too, but our American arrogance often encourages us to shun the least among us here.
On top of your arrogance, you have diverted the topic of discussion away from how admirably JBJ is using his wealth and fame. He's not fundraising for Africa or some other 3rd world hell hole like the other celebs, he is putting his neighbors first. Not that we shouldn't help the 3rd world too, but our American arrogance often encourages us to shun the least among us here.
13
Q: Why spend money on them? A: So they are not seen. (Your solution not mine).
The arrogance is the spending of money to get these people off the streets. Be a do gooder, get the drunks and addicts off the streets so you don't have to see them. I object to paying for it. THAT is the point. YOU don't want them on the streets. I don't care where they spend their time. No one cares where I spend mine. You make it sound like the drinking is fine (WTF!) but keep in mind the drinking is the ROOT of the problem. Cloistering the addicts is not a solution in my book. They are still drunks and addicts mind you, that has not changed. Are they being enabled? I think so. The difference is they are out of sight, and out of mind now. Problem solved because we don't see it.
The arrogance is the spending of money to get these people off the streets. Be a do gooder, get the drunks and addicts off the streets so you don't have to see them. I object to paying for it. THAT is the point. YOU don't want them on the streets. I don't care where they spend their time. No one cares where I spend mine. You make it sound like the drinking is fine (WTF!) but keep in mind the drinking is the ROOT of the problem. Cloistering the addicts is not a solution in my book. They are still drunks and addicts mind you, that has not changed. Are they being enabled? I think so. The difference is they are out of sight, and out of mind now. Problem solved because we don't see it.
14
@13 Can you maybe imagine benefits of this program other than getting drunks out of sight? Or is it that you don't believe anyone else could have any motivation other than their own aesthetic wellbeing?
The great thing about this program is that it's designed to help people as they are, not how one might want them to be. If it happens to be cost-effective, all the better.
The great thing about this program is that it's designed to help people as they are, not how one might want them to be. If it happens to be cost-effective, all the better.
15
@14, obviously the fact that we spend less money on them this way means nothing to Sargon. All he sees is that we are "enabling" these people. Who was enabling them on the streets, huh? And yes, I do like it better that we don't have to see them, and when we do see them they don't smell as bad.
I don't remember where I read the article, but someone interviewed a few months ago said that the dignity that a roof over their head gave them helped them to drink less, and there have even been some who quit drinking after doing this. Giving people a little dignity, like a shower and a warm place with a toilet to crap in goes a-lot further than leaving them on the streets. But a self reghteous jackoff like Sargon will never get that.
I don't remember where I read the article, but someone interviewed a few months ago said that the dignity that a roof over their head gave them helped them to drink less, and there have even been some who quit drinking after doing this. Giving people a little dignity, like a shower and a warm place with a toilet to crap in goes a-lot further than leaving them on the streets. But a self reghteous jackoff like Sargon will never get that.
16
I don't think Sargon is saying the program enables them so much as he's saying we, and people in general, only approve of it because it takes the drunk homeless out of our sight and stows them away in a private space to drink themselves to death.
I shouldn't bother responding to someone who is clearly unwilling to learn more about that upon which he pontificates, but I believe that this program IS aimed at helping these people kick alcohol. It just doesn't make their continued residence here contingent upon success.
I shouldn't bother responding to someone who is clearly unwilling to learn more about that upon which he pontificates, but I believe that this program IS aimed at helping these people kick alcohol. It just doesn't make their continued residence here contingent upon success.
17
From the 1811 page which Ms. Graves linked to in her article:
"As the name suggests, Housing First practice dispenses with decades of trying either to reward people with housing for achieving some pre-determined clinical goal or trying to predict who is 'ready' for housing. Instead, Housing First practice says, simply, let’s get people into housing, because it is a basic human right, and because it makes more sense to try help someone with a major mental illness, addiction or developmental or other disability once you have eliminated the chaos of living on the streets."
"As the name suggests, Housing First practice dispenses with decades of trying either to reward people with housing for achieving some pre-determined clinical goal or trying to predict who is 'ready' for housing. Instead, Housing First practice says, simply, let’s get people into housing, because it is a basic human right, and because it makes more sense to try help someone with a major mental illness, addiction or developmental or other disability once you have eliminated the chaos of living on the streets."
18
Actually Sargon they do pay rent. Did you listen to the audio? The one guy JBJ met got sober at this place, despite the fact that it wasn't required. Ironic, eh?
21
Bon Jovi is and always has been one of the great influences in musical social awareness. He is what is good about entertainers who can't walk around without mirrors and others like that revered bimbo singer from England and her idiot boyfriend, who are both bigger drunks and drug addicts than most of the people found in these shelters. Many of them never had a chance to begin with.
22
The city should just buy some cheap land in Eastern WA, erect a big fence around it, offer free one way bus tickets to it, and provide free, all you can drink Sparks and Mad Dog. The problem will just sort itself out naturally. These shit birds deserve no better.
23
I worked at a similar project at the same agency and I can assure you that they do pay rent. Most people housed in the agency pay the same rent that anyone in Section 8 housing pays....about 30% of their income. Addicts and non-addicts are expected to pay the same rent, period
As to them being more "visible" or less- first of all, I do not know what the big issue is about that. Is there some kind of moral dilemma here? Some folks look at people doing a good thing that eases abject human suffering and look for some kind of secret motivation behind it. Besides, there is nothing more invisible than a person on the streets. They may be noticed by passersby but I assure you that they are not SEEN. I don't know how a person in housing could be less visible that one on the street. People in housing get cable. People in housing go to doctor's appointments and chemical dependency meetings. People in housing get help taking their medications if they want that help. People in housing can secure their belongings. People in housing can host friends and family, can receive Christmas cards and can mail letters. They can obtain food with regularity. They are neighbors and tenants that people check on and care about rather than some anonymous “bum” drinking out of a bag on the street.
See Sargon, these are not your everyday hipsters drinking cocktails in Belltown or even someone’s dad who comes home late to yell at this family after hanging at the bar after work. These folks are deeply addicted and have been in the grip of a horrible disease for years. Will they live forever, even in housing? No. Will you? Maybe you have some bad habits, too. Maybe you suffer in some way. So should we chuck you out of your home so it is not invisible? No, that is just silly…no we should save that attitude for addicts. After all, they are not quite as human as the rest of us.
You have to be a productive member of society to "earn" housing and other basic services. Yep. It is right there in the constitution, right?
More...
As to them being more "visible" or less- first of all, I do not know what the big issue is about that. Is there some kind of moral dilemma here? Some folks look at people doing a good thing that eases abject human suffering and look for some kind of secret motivation behind it. Besides, there is nothing more invisible than a person on the streets. They may be noticed by passersby but I assure you that they are not SEEN. I don't know how a person in housing could be less visible that one on the street. People in housing get cable. People in housing go to doctor's appointments and chemical dependency meetings. People in housing get help taking their medications if they want that help. People in housing can secure their belongings. People in housing can host friends and family, can receive Christmas cards and can mail letters. They can obtain food with regularity. They are neighbors and tenants that people check on and care about rather than some anonymous “bum” drinking out of a bag on the street.
See Sargon, these are not your everyday hipsters drinking cocktails in Belltown or even someone’s dad who comes home late to yell at this family after hanging at the bar after work. These folks are deeply addicted and have been in the grip of a horrible disease for years. Will they live forever, even in housing? No. Will you? Maybe you have some bad habits, too. Maybe you suffer in some way. So should we chuck you out of your home so it is not invisible? No, that is just silly…no we should save that attitude for addicts. After all, they are not quite as human as the rest of us.
You have to be a productive member of society to "earn" housing and other basic services. Yep. It is right there in the constitution, right?
24
I don't get your logic in comment #13, Sargon.
Giving people a CHOICE to go into housing is not cloistering them. There is no curfew. They can come and go as they please. They are not locked in. In fact, they are more visible as they have less instances of being jailed when they are in housing. The public can't see people in jail or in the ER.
And if you have some magic solution for addiction Sargon, by all means please share it with the rest of us. In the meanwhile, lets give addicts the option of recieving basic human services rather than leave them to die on the streets while we cluck and tsk on our way to our warm homes.
Giving people a CHOICE to go into housing is not cloistering them. There is no curfew. They can come and go as they please. They are not locked in. In fact, they are more visible as they have less instances of being jailed when they are in housing. The public can't see people in jail or in the ER.
And if you have some magic solution for addiction Sargon, by all means please share it with the rest of us. In the meanwhile, lets give addicts the option of recieving basic human services rather than leave them to die on the streets while we cluck and tsk on our way to our warm homes.
25
Oh, Sargon. It is not clear to me what your fear is, or where your issue lies here, but I promise you - if you ever need it, the same help will be available for you.
26
Jen, thanks for writing about 1811 Eastlake and the great work it does. just to clarify a few things, though (note, I work for DESC):
-1811 is permanent supportive housing, not a shelter. All residents have leases and can stay permanently, presuming they can follow basic rules and co-exsist with other tenants, just like "normal" apartments.
-All of DESC's housing projects follow the "housing first" model which means that clients do not need to be clean and sober, medicated, or what have you before moving. The belief, which is backed by empirical evidence ((http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abs…)), is that clients will have better treatment outcomes housed and somewhat stable than they would on the streets. DESC is somewhat of a trailblazer in the "housing first" movement, but is in no means the only agency with this model (the citing above of a similar "wet" house in Denver being a good example). There has been a push nationally towards the housing first model as it offers an effective and humane alternative for clients who have repeatedly failed in abstinence-only housing (which, btw, is useful, too).
-As noted above, residents pay 30% of their income, the rest being subsidized. In the event the resident has no income, 100% of their rent is subsidized. Many clients have their income in the form of disability entitlements, either Social Security of Washington State General Aid. Taxpayer are, in fact, paying the lion's share of client's rent. This is still cheaper than the increased cost of emergency services that homeless clients incur.
-Mr. "Cocktostin". You're plan for alternative housing in Eastern Washington is interesting if somewhat controversial. Similar forward thinking models were attempted in 1930-40's Germany, 1900's Russia, and more recently, in Taliban hosted Afghanistan. I haven't checked the data on how these models fared, but would love to know what your research has uncovered. In fact, I would even suggest your taking a fact finding trip somewhere to a similar hardline "Socialist" country as you seem to have a political affinity. Who knows, you might like it so much you'll stay!
-Jon Bon Jovi's music is so soft that it makes Poison look like Slayer, but, by all accounts, he's always seemed like a good dude.
More...
-1811 is permanent supportive housing, not a shelter. All residents have leases and can stay permanently, presuming they can follow basic rules and co-exsist with other tenants, just like "normal" apartments.
-All of DESC's housing projects follow the "housing first" model which means that clients do not need to be clean and sober, medicated, or what have you before moving. The belief, which is backed by empirical evidence ((http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abs…)), is that clients will have better treatment outcomes housed and somewhat stable than they would on the streets. DESC is somewhat of a trailblazer in the "housing first" movement, but is in no means the only agency with this model (the citing above of a similar "wet" house in Denver being a good example). There has been a push nationally towards the housing first model as it offers an effective and humane alternative for clients who have repeatedly failed in abstinence-only housing (which, btw, is useful, too).
-As noted above, residents pay 30% of their income, the rest being subsidized. In the event the resident has no income, 100% of their rent is subsidized. Many clients have their income in the form of disability entitlements, either Social Security of Washington State General Aid. Taxpayer are, in fact, paying the lion's share of client's rent. This is still cheaper than the increased cost of emergency services that homeless clients incur.
-Mr. "Cocktostin". You're plan for alternative housing in Eastern Washington is interesting if somewhat controversial. Similar forward thinking models were attempted in 1930-40's Germany, 1900's Russia, and more recently, in Taliban hosted Afghanistan. I haven't checked the data on how these models fared, but would love to know what your research has uncovered. In fact, I would even suggest your taking a fact finding trip somewhere to a similar hardline "Socialist" country as you seem to have a political affinity. Who knows, you might like it so much you'll stay!
-Jon Bon Jovi's music is so soft that it makes Poison look like Slayer, but, by all accounts, he's always seemed like a good dude.
28
In my experience as the son of an addict/alcoholic, who has been homeless for many years, people get clean when they want to get clean - whether they have a roof or not. So why should we stipulate that people can't drink if they want shelter? I can name a good amount of alcoholics who have fantastic homes, and they didn't have to be sober to make the rent.
It's dangerous on the streets, isn't that enough reason to give shelter?
It's dangerous on the streets, isn't that enough reason to give shelter?
29
This program is what everyone should be looking to in every city. I have worked in a homeless shelter (big fun, low pay) and kicking people out because they blow even the lowest number on the breathalizer never helped them, they then go right back out into the night with no desire to stop drinking, whereas a few minutes before they were there, for a meal, a shower, and a bed, all the necessities needed to live and begin making better choices. Without these basic needs being met people have the lowest chance of getting better. My opinion, but I've also seen a little bit up close. As for Bon Jovi, he should be a shining example to everyone, not just other celebrities, though that can't be a bad thing. He's a nice guy and also, obviously, very smart.
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