Shifting responsibility for the city’s sleep off program was revisited Monday night with some new information and some familiar complaints.<\/p>\n
Previously, the idea of Capital City Fire\/Rescue assuming responsibility for the program — which transports inebriated residents to a safe space to sleep off their intoxication — was discussed at length. City and Borough of Juneau Committee of the Whole talked about it again during its meeting.<\/p>\n
The program is currently operated 24\/7 by Bartlett Regional Hospital and housed at the Rainforest Recovery building. The new program, called Community Assistance Response and Emergency Services (CARES) would operate 8 p.m.-8 a.m., when 95 percent of calls for the service come in, said Deputy City Manager Mia Cosgrove, and inebriated residents would be transported to a St. Vincent de Paul property in the Mendenhall Valley.<\/p>\n
[Big changes could be coming to sleep off program<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n The city provides $800,000 annually for the program as operated by the hospital, and the new iteration is also asking for $800,000.<\/p>\n “We believe the actual start-up cost will be closer to $700,000,” said Deputy City Manager Mila Cosgrove.<\/p>\n City staff was instructed to prepare budget documents to that effect, but there were no voting decisions made or motions made.<\/p>\n As during the last committee at which the topic was discussed, there was a lot of discussion about the relative unpopularity of the program — hospital chief behavioral health officer Bradley Grigg said fewer than one person per day uses the sleep off shelter — and some of the logistical wrinkles in the new plan.<\/p>\n While people actually sleeping off their intoxication at the shelter is less common that in past years, Grigg and CCFR Chief Richard Etheridge said demand has increased for transportation from bars to the Juneau Housing First Collaborative building, which houses homeless people.<\/p>\n Assembly member Wade Bryson asked if people seem to be using the service as a de facto shuttle service.<\/p>\n Grigg said the people being picked up do “have some level of intoxication.”<\/p>\n Bryson said there are other several other services in Juneau that provide support for homeless people that may be more deserving of the $800,000 being considered for the sleep off program, but aren’t receiving the money because their clients aren’t getting “obliterated in public.”<\/p>\n He also asked Etheridge bluntly if he thought the revamped program is a good idea.<\/p>\n “Personally, I do think it’s a good idea,” Etheridge said. “Hopefully we can connect people to the services and help solve some of those needs.”<\/p>\n