With all respect to Tony Bennett, it’s fallen apart in San Francisco. It’s bad enough the city by the bay is overcrowded with tent cities of homeless people, it also has a program providing free beer, wine and vodka shots to San Francisco’s homeless alcoholics, at a cost per year of US$5 million of taxpayers’ money, Operated by the city’s Department of Public Health, the Managed Alcohol Program focuses on giving limited quantities of alcohol to prevent serious side effects of withdrawal. According to DailMail.com the booze is ladled out by nurses as part of the program, which has been in effect for four years, as a way of taking care of vulnerable homeless people. “Nurses assess patients and typically serve them the equivalent of 1-2 drinks between three and four times a day, handing out either 1.7 ounces of vodka or liquor (about a shot), five ounces of wine (1 glass) or 12 ounces of beer, about three-quarters of a pint,” reports DailyMail.com. As reported on FOX News, the program is designed to relieve the city's emergency services and is supported by ‘experts’ who say it can save lives, but one addict-turned-recovery advocate says it won’t accomplish its goal and only delays recovery for those who need it. "It's not a good idea, not when you consider the fact that, over the last four years, San Francisco spent $20 million to basically service a total of a couple of hundred people by giving them free vodka and beer,” Tom Wolf, founder of the Pacific Alliance for Prevention and Recovery, told the Fox & Friends First morning show. “For that amount of money, we could have funded 60 drug treatment beds instead." "You really have to ask, where's the recovery in all of this? What is the desired outcome of this program? They say it'll save money, but we just spent 20 million bucks over the last four years. You have to really ask, ‘is it saving money, and is it making a difference?’" Since it began in 2020, the program has doubled in size, reports DailyMail.com, adding “While at first there were 10 beds available for those suffering from alcoholism, there are now 20 beds available on the premises of a disused hotel in the Tenderloin District.” The San Francisco Chronicle said San Francisco’s department of health claims to have seen a drop in emergency room visits plus reduced hospital stays and emergency calls because of the program. Regardless, Wolf says the taxpayer money would be best used for treatment and sobriety programs. "What also accomplishes that goal is actually drug treatment," he said . "It may reduce those (emergency) calls and thereby save money but, again, we're spending $5 million a year to give people free alcohol." FOX said Wolf, a recovering heroin addict, once lived on the street, adding he believes a similar program targetting his addiction would have either kept him on the street or he would be dead by now. "I don't really see what the benefit is of all of this, and I'm glad it was exposed," he said
