San Francisco's Drunk Homeless

The city of San Francisco is slowly beginning to realize the futility in trying to cater to perpetually drunk vagrants. Some people question the judiciousness of funding the high cost of repeatedly having to ferry inebriated homeless people to emergency rooms via ambulance for treatment. Paramedics are picking up the same people off the streets, over and over, as much as five or more times per month.

Each trip ties up an ambulance and paramedic team which, coupled with the fees of an emergency room visit, costs up to $3,000. In the 18-month period between March 2004 and August 2005, over 3,800 trips were needed for just 362 hard-core juicers, a small portion of the total homeless that are only tracked because they show up at the emergency rooms four or more times monthly. Added all up, this small group of frequent-imbibers have cost the city an estimated $11.6 million over the 18 months. Prorated, the figure for just hauling them off the streets and taking them to the emergency rooms comes to over $32,000 per drunken derelict. As an aside, the city also pays the homeless a "general assistance" check which, by the way, is probably used to buy liquor.

An important consequence of having to repeatedly haul in drunks is that it ties up ambulances and emergency rooms, making them less available for 911 emergencies.

"They're taking away our availability to really respond to a Code 3 life-threatening emergency," said Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White, who oversees city paramedics.

Without a new approach, it seems that the current situation is destined to prevail. Attempts to rehabilitate the addicted have been magnanimous, extensive, and expensive, but results have been paltry. It's a never-ending cycle that San Francisco finds itself. The drunks are picked up, cleaned up, sobered up, and put back out on the streets where they immediately get drunk on liquor most likely bought with "general assistance" money.