What is your opinion about "wet-shelters" for housing chronic alcoholics?

I had never heard of it before. I found http://homelessness.change.org/blog/view/wet_shelt...

It sounds like it is doing some good.

I worked in an Abuse Shelter for families. There was no alcohol allowed on site but that was so that children would not find it & get alcohol poisoning if they drank it.

Unlike other shelters, our clients were allowed to drink off site. If they returned drunk, they were to keep it to themselves. Again, this rule was for the children. Since a lot of abuse began with being drunk, many children were terrified just to see someone drunk, thinking it's about to get rough in here.

About once every 2 years, there would be a problem in the shelter. Other than that, it was a decision of choice to quit drinking as a coping skill after clients had been receiving other tools for coping.

As long as people were working their program to become independent, they could stay as long as needed. Some drank but were still functionally when need be. It was like drinking on their day off.

I'd be interested to see how this works in the long run.

I think the success will depend on the shelter's mission statement & staff follow through.

I've seen clients fail b/c staff was not supportive, but continually judgmental. (Thankfully, this was not tolerated for long by management.)