Tag Archives: addiction

On patrol with Seattle’s homeless crisis response on Capitol Hill

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Outreach workers Bradly Smith, left, and Carlo Garcia give a man socks in Cal Anderson Park (Image: CHS)

The morning’s first contact came around 9 AM in Cal Anderson Park when a 29-year-old named Jayson approached the two homeless outreach workers and a Seattle police officer. Jayson quickly opened up, talking about how he had been living on the streets for a decade while struggling with drugs, alcohol, and mental health issues. He said he was released from the hospital the night before, but could not say why he was admitted.

Bradly Smith, a Capitol Hill outreach worker with the Metropolitan Improvement District, asked if he could help. Earlier this month, CHS reported on the first patrols for homeless outreach counselors joining East Precinct officers on the streets of Capitol Hill.

Maybe a fresh pair of socks? Jayson perked up. “Yeah. I just walked through the mud,” he said, looking down at his mud-caked sneakers.

While he pulled on the new socks, Smith asked if he would be interested in shelter for the night. A second outreach worker, Carlo Garcia, checked his phone and confirmed four beds were still available at Peters Place on Rainier Ave. If Jayson could make it to the MID’s downtown offices by 4 PM, they could get him in. “As long as there’s wi-fi,” Jayson said.

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Getting clients to commit to meetings is a major challenge for outreach workers. Smith handed Jayson a card with the downtown address, which Smith pushed into his coat pocket, preoccupied with discussing his desires to find a girlfriend.

While a $7.6 million emergency funding package for homeless services makes its way through City Hall, this is how the City’s immediate crisis response is playing out on Capitol Hill. Smith and Garcia have been walking the neighborhood for five weeks now, doing the laborious work of confronting chronic homelessness, one individual at a time.

Outreach often starts with offering people socks or blankets to open up a conversation. The MID workers can also provide city and regional bus tickets, motel vouchers, connections to homeless shelters, and other social services. It’s not a solution to homelessness, but an attempt to solve some of the every day issues homeless people face. Continue reading →

Homeless outreach counselors start Capitol Hill patrols with East Precinct officers

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Downtown isn't so far from Capitol Hill

Downtown, where MID patrols began, isn’t so far from Capitol Hill (Image: CHS)

Melancholy

As Mayor Ed Murray seeks more local, state, and federal funding to address the growing crisis, one successful homelessness outreach program has made its way to Capitol Hill.

Outreach counselors from the Metropolitan Improvement District have begun joining East Precinct officers on morning patrols. Cal Anderson is a regular part of the beat. It’s part of a long term strategy to do the hard work of confronting chronic homelessness: Counselors learn who sleeps on the street by name, what issues they face, and slowly, try to find ways to help.

“It’s really a relationship model,” said MID vice president Dave Willard.

Outreach workers often start with offering people socks or blankets to open up a conversation, Willard said. They can also provide city and regional bus tickets, motel vouchers, connections to homeless shelters, and other social services.

The effort follows promises made in the wake of a shooting at Broadway and Pike in November to bring more services to Pike/Pine to help free up East Precinct officers who have found themselves on the front lines of Seattle’s homelessness crisis.

There are currently two outreach workers assigned to Capitol Hill and a third drug abuse and mental health counselor on the way. Willard said the program is on the search for an empty storefront or small office space in the neighborhood. “Just a place to meet with people out of the rain … a table, a couple chairs, maybe a coffee pot,” he said. You can email Willard with any ideas.

Continue reading →

Capitol Hill drug arrest drop trails big plunge downtown following diversion program

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A concentration of drug related arrests on Capitol Hill since 2011 is part of the rationale behind expanding LEAD. (Image: SPD)

As the number of 911 calls involving drugs on Capitol Hill has declined in recent years, the decline in drug-related arrests has not kept pace. According to a recent report commissioned by the Seattle Police Department, drug-related calls for service declined 34% from 2012-2014 while drug-related arrests only declined 10%.

The trend is particularly interesting when compared to downtown, where drug-related calls for service rose 13% while drug-related arrests declined by 40% in the same time period.

The report didn’t attempt to identify reasons for the discrepancy but researchers said a successful downtown drug diversion program may be a factor. SPD commissioned the Council of State Governments study in order to determine how best to expand Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion — a successful downtown strategy for keeping non-violent drug offenders out of jail.

By looking at crime trends since 2008, researchers determined that Capitol Hill’s commercial core (primarily Pike/Pine and Broadway) ranked among the top three highest concentrations of drug-related 911 calls, arrests, and jail bookings along with downtown and Pioneer Square. It’s the statistical basis the city and county are using for expanding LEAD to Capitol Hill sometime this year.

By expanding LEAD to Capitol Hill, the SPD report said the service areas would cover 2.5% of Seattle’s land area — an area that covers roughly 60% of the city’s drug‐related calls for service and about half of the city’s drug‐related arrests. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill next likely target for drug diversion program that puts counseling before jail

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Outside the Broadway QFC. (Image: Tim Durkan with permission to CHS)

Heroin for sale outside the Broadway QFC (Image: Tim Durkan with permission to CHS)

A Seattle-born drug diversion program being replicated across the country could soon be making its way to Capitol Hill. Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion was launched in 2011 and works by placing drug use suspects into counseling instead of jail.

On Thursday at 6:30 PM, the Capitol Hill Community Council will be hosting LEAD organizers at 12th Avenue Arts to talk about the program and the possibility of expanding it to Capitol Hill.

“Most of us who are operationally involved in LEAD think it makss sense for Capitol Hill to offer,” said Lisa Daugaard, director of the Public Defender Association.

LEAD is currently available in downtown, Belltown, and in Skyway and is funded through a combination of public and private funding. The program is run through a partnership between City and County agencies and uses Evergreen Treatment Services for counseling.

Results from the program have been promising. LEAD participants were 87% less likely to be incarcerated after entry than those who didn’t participate, according to a 2-year study (PDF)of the program recently competed by the University of Washington. They also had 58% lower odds of a subsequent arrest after entry. Continue reading →

Seattle Fire stops overdose in Cal Anderson from joining awful King County heroin trend

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Monday night last week in the late evening sun in Cal Anderson, Seattle Fire medics arrived near the playground where bystanders were trying to save the life of a 24-year-old female suffering a drug overdose. Unconscious and not breathing, the woman was brought out of the OD with an injection of naloxone.

Far from a miracle, the overdose fortunately won’t be added to the disturbing trend of spiking heroin deaths:

Death from opiates in King County in 2014:

  • Heroin-involved deaths totaled 156, a 58% increase from 99 in 2013.

  • Heroin deaths involving no other drugs are most common among young adults.

  • Prescription-type opiate-involved deaths have decreased from a peak of 164 in 2009 to 98 in 2014.

In the study from the University of Washington’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, heroin deaths were up across all age groups. As in past UW studies, researches say a mix of heroin with other drugs is often part of the overdose — but 2014 totals reveal a new recipe. “Historically, many heroin deaths have involved cocaine, and this continues to be the case,” a report on the study notes. “However, over the past three years, many more deaths have involved heroin and methamphetamine.”

Heroin’s high, however, is at the core of the region’s addiction problems. “The number of treatment admissions with heroin as the primary drug doubled from 2010-2014 and are higher than any drug since at least 1999,” according to the study.

While it doesn’t address addiction, access to naloxone improved earlier this year with the passage of a new law allowing pharmacists to prescribe naloxone to first responders, homeless shelters, and family members and permit them to administer it across the state. The antidote can’t, of course, save everybody. In April, one man died in an overdose in Cal Anderson while two others were taken to the hospital.

Heroin is also taking its toll on the homeless and mentally ill population in the county:

  • Among those admitted to drug treatment, approximately one-third were determined to have serious mental health issues.

  • Among people who died of drug-overdose, approximately 20% had an antidepressant detected in their body — indicating that the decedent had a serious mental health condition and that they had seen a healthcare provider in the recent past.

  • Mental health and substance abuse commonly overlap and exacerbate one another.

You can read more about the 2014 edition of the study here.