Michael John Sparby, homeless, carries around a backpack full of meds, which he says Campus Police constantly search for alcohol. Sparby says they never find any.
Minutes later, with his deformed right hand, Sparby takes a flask from inside his jacket and begins to drink.
\Don't mind me,"" he said. ""I drink, yes I do.""
So did his companion, Gary Collins, who during the course of this mid-afternoon interview, crawled away to detox.
Local activists like UW-Madison sophomore Nathan Fuller, however, are calling detoxification centers ""revolving doors"" for homeless people who have no other recourse in Madison. Fuller, an active member of in the Madison Warming Center Campaign, supports a recently proposed ""wet"" shelter to care for the intoxicated homeless.
The shelter, proposed Wednesday by Porchlight, Inc. Executive Director Steven Schooler, would cost the city an estimated $325,300 every year to operate and would serve to rehabilitate those homeless with alcohol abuse and to prevent the estimated three to eight homeless deaths per year in Madison.
Madison's winter exacerbates the problems of alcohol abuse among the homeless. A homeless shelter employee told The Daily Cardinal last year two homeless men, rejected from Madison shelters in winter 2003 for being intoxicated, died of frostbite overnight. One year later, in March 2004, another intoxicated homeless man died of hypothermia.
Fuller cites statistics saying approximately 23 percent of Madison's homeless suffer from substance abuse, though others see a much higher rate-as much as 50 percent. Though homeless advocates insist that the perception of a link between alcohol abuse and homelessness is largely a stereotype, Fuller says the problem still must be addressed.
""Although homeless people who are addicted to alcohol are a minority, they are a significant minority whose needs have yet to be addressed by Madison's emergency shelter system,"" Fuller said. ""There are no shelters in Madison who will pick up homeless who are intoxicated.""
Schooler, Fuller and members of the Homeless Coalition and the Madison Warming Center Campaign met with Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz Wednesday to propose the wet shelter be added to the next budget cycle. Cieslewicz denied the request because of limited funding, but offered a discretionary $15,000 to the coalition. The mayor's office said Wednesday that Cieslewicz would work with homeless activists to address future challenges. The wet shelter idea is not dead either-Fuller said proponents of the shelter would likely propose it to the City Council for the 2006 budget cycle.
""The mayor keeps saying there isn't enough money available,"" Fuller said, ""[but] $300,000 would be a drop in the bucket and would go a long way in offering a holistic approach to homelessness in Madison.""
The Homeless Coalition will most likely propose the $15,000 be used for increased access to busing and ID cards for homeless people to get jobs.
Sparby, who has not yet heard of the wet shelter proposal, has a much more personal approach to solving problems associated with homelessness.
""I would like to see a vacant home-which there are plenty of them around here-and give them to the homeless, to redo the home,"" Sparby said. ""Homeless people have talent.\
