Wet Houses: A Solution or a Problem? Part One

Jan 12, 2012
Amanda Maxwell

Wet Houses providing a new way to drink alcohol? - Jek Bacarisas

Wet houses, as opposed to dry houses, started in 2006 in Seattle, Washington. While they keep our streets safer, they also bring up questions of humanity.

Nick Lott found himself homeless under a bridge after losing his job as a restaurant manager. The cause of his unemployment? A perpetual relationship with alcohol. As an alcoholic, Nick had “been in and out of detox centers 'at least 100’ times” according to a CNN article on March 11, 2011.

Eventually, Lott found himself at the doorstep of St. Anthony’s in St. Paul, Minnesota for a safe place to stay and continue to drink. St. Anthony, which is run by Catholic Charities, is one of several “wet houses” that exist in the United States. Five wet houses are located in Minnesota and more are being considered in Alaska, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. They provide late stage chronic alcoholics with a safe, comfortable place to stay for free. It is not a treatment program and in fact, alcoholics are neither encouraged or discouraged from drinking there.

What is a wet house?

Late stage chronic alcoholics go to the wet house for a free place to stay that is safe and not on the street. According to a July 2006 article in ABC news, the government was paying 1 million dollars for homeless alcoholics to live a place known as 1811 Eastlake in Seattle. Although this originally started out as an experimental housing arrangement, Eastlake became America’s first official wet house for chronic alcoholics.

Since that time, many states have considered and/or implimented wet houses.The previously cited CNN report stated that the majority of residents in wet houses have been recommended by the county after visiting treatment centers various times. Persons also can apply to live there of their own free will. As reported in the New York Times on April 26, 2011, the yearly cost for each resident at St. Anthony’s is $18,000, (including housing and feeding) which is paid for by Catholic Charities and the state.

These residents, as a Minnesota online newspaper, Twincities.com reported on July 9, 2011, will probably die at St. Anthony’s in a twelve by twelve cement room. Thus, the wet house has been coined a hospice for alcoholics.

How is a wet house different from a treatment center?

Unlike treatment or detox centers, wet houses do not have group hugs or programs. People are responsible for the choices they make. They are not allowed to drink in their rooms at St. Anthony, but are given a small patio where they can, according to CNN. For these men, alcohol isn’t a habit...it is who they are.

In fact Abnormal Psychology, a text by James Butcher, Susan Mineka, and Jill Hooley, states that alcohol dependence disorder (what we normally call alcoholism) involves a physical need to consume alcohol. Therefore, consumed alcohol becomes part of the person’s physiology. What this means is that a person will go to any length to get alcohol or money to buy alcohol because their bodies have developed a physical need for it.

Alcohol dependence also has major physical consequences which is why a nurse is on staff at St. Anthony’s. However, if residents become “really sick” according to Twincities.com, they go to the in-house hospice center. There are three to five resident deaths each year, and the residents are highly aware of that. Nick Lott stated that “People die here all the time.”

Why doesn’t St. Anthony’s have a treatment program to prevent those deaths?

Well, according to Ricky Isaac, a resident at St. Anthony to reporters at Twincities.com, “Those AA people make me sick. I hate hearing about other people’s problems. I have my own problems. If you want to quit, you quit on your own.”

Ricky doesn’t stand alone in this belief and he might have a point. As the Los Angeles Times mentioned on March 3, 2011, “While a 12-step program like AA may help an addict get and stay sober, it is hardly the only tool in the addiction recovery arsenal, and certain types of addictions may require more intensive treatment.” However, as the article mentioned, when more intensive treatment is offered, half of the people drop out. So, the wet houses are instead operated on the Mersey Harm Reduction Model that was created in 1985.

This model, as discussed in the International Journal of Drug Policy in 2010, was enacted to reduce harm with drug usage in the United Kingdom. Harm reduction is more about maintaining addictions rather than trying to treat them. Principles of harm reduction, as mentioned on the Harm Reduction Coalition’s website, last accessed September 12, 2011, include minimizing the addictive behaviors rather than ignoring the problem or condemning it, understanding that addictive behaviors are universal, and affirming rather than judging the person with addictive behavior. This is exactly what the wet house aims to do by providing its residents with the choice to drink or not.