Sep 16, 2009, Vol: 16, No: 41
Three city-funded programs that offer the homeless or addicted a step off the street — and a way to stay out of jail — have gotten a thumbs up from a University of Washington researcher hired by the Seattle City Council to assess their performance.
The results were mixed in terms of reducing jail usage, but each of the programs — CO-STARS, GOTS and CURB — did show sufficient results to warrant continued city funding, says UW professor Steve Herbert. The fact that clients of CURB (Communities Uniting Rainier Beach, originally called Clean Dreams) had 11 percent more jail bookings after receiving treatment and housing, however, probably isn’t going to play well at council.
Nor is Herbert’s finding that the programs don’t reduce enough jail time to cover the cost of funding them, which some councilmembers may seize on to support the police department’s new Drug Market Initiative, which tries to shame drug dealers out of the business without offering immediate alternatives.
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