Doubling the capacity of the City/County Alcohol and Drug Program's detoxification center will not solve Rapid City's public intoxication problems, program director Brenda Boetel said.

Increasing police presence downtown may discourage panhandlers and drinkers from lingering, but they will not disappear, Police Chief Steve Allender said.

The problem of public intoxication "keeps happening again and again," said Mike Thompson, chief of emergency services for the Rapid City Department of Fire & Emergency Services. He's torn by balancing the community's need for medical and fire services with the demand of caring for people who have consumed so much alcohol they are incapable of caring for themselves.

"This is not a problem that we can put our hands on and solve," Thompson said.

Public officials are frustrated by what has been a problem for decades but also are looking for ways to make the streets safer and care for people who are at turns among the community's most vulnerable and most unstable residents. Mayor Alan Hanks said the city will use grants and federal stimulus funds to put additional officers on downtown sidewalks.

"We're working on how to create an atmosphere where they (homeless) typically would not congregate," Hanks said.

But there are limits to what police can do.

"What we're experiencing here with these problems are symptoms of homelessness," Allender said. "I'm not going to try to outlaw homeless people wandering around."

And people who don't have a home will still find public places to drink.

On an afternoon shift, police officer Joshua Twedt swings his city patrol car through Prairie Market's parking lot west of East Boulevard. As he drives behind the building, Twedt points out numerous nooks littered with intact and broken liquor bottles.

"We could write citations all day," Twedt said, knowing that handing an alcoholic a citation for an open container or public consumption will not stop his or her drinking.

Police and emergency medical teams are on a first-name basis with many of the people they assist.

When detox is full and there's no one or no place to care for the intoxicated, it's not uncommon for police officers to carry someone around in a patrol car while they sober up, Thompson said. Others might end up sobering up in the hospital's emergency room.

The Cornerstone Rescue Mission's doors are closed to those who are intoxicated, and jail is a last, expensive resort that is only an option when a drinker breaks the law, according to Pennington County Sheriff Don Holloway.

What more can be done?

Boetel has lots of ideas, but they all take money.

With more treatment centers, affordable housing and case managers devoted to helping recovering alcoholics with each step of their recovery, there could be more successful outcomes, Boetel said.

If people needs treatment, they should be able to get it, Boetel said. But, first they have to want to stop drinking.

"There are several people within the community who do not want to and are not motivated to change their lifestyle," Boetel said.

That's not to say there isn't hope, Boetel added. "I've been here for 20 years, and I've seen people get sober at 67. You never know."

Ambassadors could deter panhandling

In Jacksonville, Fla. they wear pith helmets. In Raleigh, N.C., they ride bicycles. In Phoenix, residents recognize their bright orange shirts.

Programs to provide "downtown ambassadors" are becoming more popular across the country as part of the trend of downtown revitalization efforts.

The workers greet tourists and give directions but also serve some safety functions: provide first aid, discourage panhandling, help with crowd control and assist and redirect intoxicated people.

In Rapid City, they could be an effective tool in discouraging the panhandling and drinking that's bothering downtown business owners and shoppers, said John Brewer, president of Destination Rapid City.

He hopes to work with the Rapid City police this year to develop such a program, which could be paid for through the downtown improvement district he is proposing.

"They can make sure the behavior of folks downtown, typically those that may have had too much to drink or are in violation of the city's panhandling codes, that they are identified early and that situation is managed so we don't have some of the behaviors that have been of great concern to our business owners," Brewer said.

Banning panhandling can boost comfort level

Branding expert Roger Brooks of Destination Development worked with Rapid City leaders last year to develop strategies to market the city to visitors. Part of the plan is creating a vibrant downtown, with shops, restaurants and public gathering spaces.

Panhandling and intoxicated homeless people are not part of the picture.

"It does create situations where people don't want to go downtown," he said.

Brooks said women account for 80 percent of retail spending.

"Women want to go places where they feel safe, and even though most vagrants are harmless, they still make you feel uncomfortable and unsafe, so it is a challenge," he said.

To create a more welcoming downtown business climate, Brooks recommended stricter laws about panhandling and public intoxication, more police patrols and avoiding establishing social services downtown that would attract the homeless there.

"We don't have all the answers, because these are people - do you just throw them out with the trash?" he said. "The thing is to provide a place for them that's not in the core downtown, dining, shopping district."

Jobs, housing part of the picture

The Cornerstone Rescue Mission offers myriad solutions to help homeless people who struggle with alcoholism but can't be successful without help from the person himself.

"The individual needs to come to a point in their life where they honestly want to seek change," associate director Greg Palmer said.

There are counselors, ministers and volunteers ready to help, and case managers to help a homeless person put together a plan to get back on his feet.

The plan can include job training, addiction counseling, and mental health treatment. Last year, the shelter added transitional housing for families, women and children.

"They're welcome to stay here as long as we see there's a willingness to learn," Palmer said. Still, more could be done in Rapid City, director Jim Castleberry said.

More volunteers and funding for case managers would enable the mission to serve more people, or to help people at a deeper level. More job opportunities would help get the homeless to work. A halfway house would help parolees transition to society.

A "wethouse" where people who've been drinking could stay and get a meal would help curb the violence and health dangers of the streets.

And an inpatient facility for people with dual diagnoses of chemical dependency and mental illness, like the Yankton Human Service Center's program, would be helpful West River.

Palmer is concerned by the violence seen among some of the homeless, and wonders how to reach some people who won't allow mission workers into their lives.

He urges people who want to help to volunteer in any way they can, to come in and ask, "Where can you put me to work?"

Involve everyone in the solutions

The Rev. Bob Evans, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in downtown Rapid City, said the community needs to "think outside the box" to find solutions.

Churches could take turns housing and feeding people who are intoxicated and can't stay at the Cornerstone Rescue Mission, he said.

Some cities have had success with "wet houses," where intoxicated people are given a bed, food and allowed to stay and even drink there under certain conditions and limits.

Evans is working with John Brewer of Destination Rapid City to bring together the downtown association, downtown churches and city government to wrestle with this issue.

Evans, a former senior chaplain with the U.S. Navy, believes strongly that the larger community needs to be part of the solution to downtown's problems. Many people want government to solve this social problem, Evans said.

"I believe that it's everyone's responsibility in a community," he said. "All of this has to be discussed at every level by every sector of the downtown community."

Evans said businesses, government agencies, social agencies, churches and citizens at large need to share resources and work together.

"This comes from my military background," he said. "The most important thing you can do is coordinate (and) communicate before you shoot or you move."

He described the "dilemma" of long-term solutions to public drunkenness as helping people, without enabling bad behavior.

The challenges are daunting but Evans is hopeful.

"Everyone needs to be part of the process and you've got to trust that process, because every person is a valuable gem in God's crown."

Offer them a meal and an invitation

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening, the Salvation Army's mobile kitchen rolls up to a parking lot across from Prairie Market.

The window opens and volunteers start serving supper - something hot like chili in the winter, a sandwich and lemonade in the summer.

The "night watch" program started about a year and a half ago, in response to the number of intoxicated street people going hungry in the wintertime. People who aren't drinking have other options for a free meal.

More than a way to make sure the city's chronically homeless have a healthy meal, it's a hands-on ministry, Salvation Army Captain Rob Gauthier said.

"We ask them questions like, 'Are you sure you want to keep doing this?' 'What are you going to do tomorrow?'" Gauthier said. They invite people to come to church and get help out of the street life.

Most of the Salvation Army's programs deal with homeless prevention, such as help with rent and utilities. Success with people already on the street doesn't happen very often, Gauthier admits.

"The big problem is that most of the time they're so intoxicated it doesn't seem to get very far with them," he said.

As far as adding new solutions, he said, "It's kind of hard to do anything about, because until they want to get help, they're not going to."

But, "even if one person out of 100 is willing to get help, then it was worth being out there."

Work harder to spread the message of hope

When a drunken man smashed out the front window of Tom Haggerty's downtown music shop two weeks ago, Haggerty might have been expected to call for more police patrols.

But he says the solution isn't handcuffs, it's hope.

Haggerty says he used to be a heavy drug and alcohol user, but that changed.

"When the Lord got ahold of my life, I didn't need that any more, and I actually had the power to change," he said.

That's one reason why, Haggerty said, the local people who planned the Greg Laurie Harvest Crusade evangelical event that was held recently in Rapid City included a committee of 10 Native Americans, lay ministers who reached out to their own community.

The effort included sending buses to the Pine Ridge and Standing Rock reservations to give free rides to anyone interested in the event.

"The fact of the matter is that we are unfortunately in an area where the Native American culture is just hurting really bad," Haggerty said.

He said troubled Native people like the man who smashed his window feel angry and hopeless, and need to know God loves them.

"The problem isn't the police not doing something. The problem is the community, the faith community, has not done a good job of reaching out to these people that there is hope and there is power for change."

'Supportive housing' can help homeless

Each year the Black Hills Region Homeless Coalition helps with the statewide homeless count.

"The number one thing that it showed us was that still our biggest issue consistently is affordable housing," said Jada Johns, coalition chairwoman.

Johns encouraged people to be open-minded about trying new programs that help people escape chronic homelessness, mentioning an increasingly popular concept called "supportive housing."

As with the Pennington County Health and Human Services' new Rebound program, in supportive housing, a case manager helps individuals find and stay in permanent housing by helping them set up house, get the appropriate medications and stay in counseling programs to help with mental health problems and addictions.

It's "a little team that supports them where they are," Johns said, and can keep people out of the revolving door of detox, the streets and the emergency room.

A city of Rapid City five-year strategic plan describes ending chronic homelessness as a "high priority issue" and says the city will support the coalition's affordable housing efforts in several ways, including a plan to add supportive housing. The plan acknowledges that this can be difficult, as landlords are reluctant to rent to people with criminal records.

Despite the recent concerns, Johns said she has a positive outlook on the issues and on the community's future.

"Those of us that are involved and roll up our sleeves and are up into our elbows know there are more projects being talked about," she said. "I don't see it getting worse. I only see it getting better. The pace, that's going to depend on the community. But I don't think we're going to go backwards."

Don't ignore mental health issues

Better case management for people diagnosed with mental illnesses would help prevent Rapid City's problems of chronic homelessness and alcoholism, said Tommie Leenknecht, of the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

"You'll find most people that are truly alcoholics also have some sort of mental illness," she said.

The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimates that 38 percent of homeless people report alcohol use problems, and 39 percent have a mental health problem.

Case managers help people who have been in a homeless shelter or hospitalized because of mental illness with finding housing, finding work and taking their medications regularly.

"We need more programs like that," Leenknecht said. "It actually would save a lot of money."

While NAMI offers a support group for mental illness, not alcoholism, the two overlap, she said.

"Many of the people who really start drinking or drinking heavily are really self-medicating themselves, so they can cope with their illness," she said.

Families of people with mental illness and alcoholism want to help, but often are "burned out" by the cycle of problems.

When looking at solutions to help people who are chronically on the streets, Leenknecht said, "We have to always remember that they are real people."

Title: Public intoxication Date: May 18th, 2009 The Rapid City Journal takes a closer look at the issue of public intoxication - what causes it, how does it affect the community and what can be done? VIEW PRESENTATION »