A Firm Hand Up for Street Addicts; P. Boerner

In effect, however, the entitlement is a reward for being addicted, and it therefore encourages continued addiction. This well intentioned entitlement program allows ad dicts to buy drugs and alcohol with taxpayer dollars. Sometimes checks are sent directly to bars that allow addicts to run up a tab. That the government subsidizes addiction is bad enough. What's worse, this drug program also kills! When disability checks Mr. Boerner is a graduate student in English at California State University in Sacramento. come on the first day of every month, addicts binge on drugs or alcohol-some times with fatal results. On the local level, states like Colorado require that anyone publicly inebriated be provided the opportunity for shelter, coun seling, and medical evaluation. In Denver there are shelters like Denver CARES, which receives $1.7 million from the state to pick up and detoxify street addicts. Each addict is given food, drink, and bed for the night, and offered long-term treatment in a rehabilitation program. Again, addiction is being reinforced. Nearly half of these ad dicts reject treatment and are released and picked up again another night. Many of those that do pursue treatment are set up for dependency on government agencies in place of dependency on drugs or alcohol.

Requiring Personal Change There is a better way, an approach aimed at developing personal responsibility. In Denver, this model is being implemented by a privately funded shelter called Step 13. Founder and director of the program, Bob Cote, holds that homelessness and addiction are the result of choices made by individu als, and they should be held accountable. If addicts refuse to make an effort to reform, he feels, help is no help. But if they want to get their lives together, Step 13 is ready to extend a hand. 559 560 THE FREEMAN • OCTOBER 1994 The Step 13 philosophy is to expect some thing of the clients, in contrast to the gov ernment-funded approach. Residents at Step 13 have to give up drinking, submit to regular urine tests, work or go to school full-time, and pay rent of $125/month.They buy their own food, cook, and clean up for themselves. Step 13's goal is to allow ad dicts to take control of their lives, which begins with breaking their dependencies.

The shelter, founded in 1983, houses 100 men a night, who stay as long as they need to-a year or more-if they follow the rules. Step 13 provides addicts with shelter, coun seling, and drug-and alcohol-abuse treat ment. It is staffed by former addicts, like Cote himself, who understand the pitfalls of street life and recognize the need for firm direction. Step 13 makes a point of accepting no government funding. The shelter generates over half of its own income through the rent it collects from clients and from a commu nity recycling program it operates (which also provides some of the jobs for clients). For the rest, Step 13 relies on voluntarism and philanthropy. Nearly 100 volunteers assist operations. One local cancer surgeon has for six years been the program doctor, giving every client a free physical. "That's how we survive," says Cote. "By the kind ness of others." Cote is proud to operate with a budget of around $300,000. He esti mates that if he tried to set up the same program with government help, it would cost over $2 million because he would be required to meet government mandates for academically trained personnel.

A 1990study found that 35 percent of Step 13's clients succeeded in getting their lives straightened out. Cote is not .claiming to solve all the country's homeless problems. Defenders of the prevailing programs will say that addicts will die on the streets without the government programs. Yet ad dicts are dying now, as Cote points out, with government help! "Show me a government handout, and I'll show you something that encourages irresponsibility," he says. No drug rehabilitation program for the home less can work that does not require personal change. Without individual responsibility, human dignity and wellbeing cannot be restored. D Peter Boettke and Steven Horwitz Honored by Mont Pelerin Society Dr. Peter J. Boettke, a Freeman Contributing Editor and the Guest Editorof our May 1994issue,was awardedfirst prizein the Mont Pelerin Society's F.A. Hayek FellowshipEssay Contestfor his essay, "Hayek's SerfdomRevisited:GovernmentFailurein the ArgumentAgainstSocial ism." Dr. Boettketeaches at New York University.

Dr. Steven Horwitz,who teachesat S1. LawrenceUniversity,Canton, NewYork,wrotethe second-prizeessay,"Fromthe SensoryOrderto the LiberalOrder: Mind, Economy,and State in the Thoughtof F.A. Hayek." Dr. Horwitzmade his Freemandebutearlierthis year, with a book review in our May issue and an article on commercialbanking in July. Both Boettkeand Horwitzpresentedtheir papers at the Mont Pelerin Society's General Meeting in Cannes, France, last month.