Salvation Army Drug Detoxification Program to Close

The first stop for many on the road to sanity and sobriety is a detoxification center. For individuals and families in a crisis situation created by drug or alcohol use and abuse, a “detox” center provides an immediate source of hope and opportunity. For many the opening of the door to the “detox” center can be a matter of life or death.

America spends billions on law enforcement on the war on drugs, billions fighting a loosing proposition in Iraq and even $230 million for a bridge to nowhere in Alaska. But America doesn’t have $400,000 to keep open one of San Francisco’s best detoxification centers.

On October 1st, the Salvation Army Harbor Light Detoxification Center will close its doors to those who need the crisis care it provides. The twenty-four people who would have occupied the beds in the safe & clean environment provided by the Salvation Army will now have to search among a limited number of centers, many which do not provide the level of personalized services of Harbor Light. They will not receive the excellent and nutritional food or the personal and focused peer level counseling that it provided. They will not receive the help and services of a talented and caring staff of ten. Maybe they will just shake the night off on the streets and get up the next day with less hope and more desperation.

Program Director Captain Phil Smith of the Salvation Army hopes that the closure will only be temporary. “Costs have been rising rapidly and this has created a projected deficit for Harbor Light of between $400,000 to $500,000 for the fiscal year beginning October 1st,” he stated. Salvation Army receives no funding from the City of San Francisco for this program. There is hope that money can be found to re-open the “detox” center, but there is a fear that the contributions to the Katrina and Rita funds may actually cause a decrease in contributions and funding to existing programs and possibly cause a need for further decreases in Salvation Army services. It could be a “perfect storm” of charitable funding.

The Salvation Army began its services to indigents and alcoholics in San Francisco from a facility it opened on the Third Street “Skid Row” in 1885. In 1941, the San Francisco Salvation Army adopted the name “Harbor Light”. In 1978, Harbor Light opened a detoxification center. This program, which has served thousands over its twenty-seven year history, was also one of the first “detox” centers to serve the special needs of those with HIV/AIDS.

The Salvation Army substance abuse program has helped those most in need with the least resources to pay for it. Most have no job, no medical benefits and no place else to go but up. Many have multiple addictions. A growing number have less than a high school education and many have criminal records. According the Salvation Army’s website, the Harbor Light Detoxification offers a clean bed, good food and 5 to 10 days of cold-turkey sobriety-an opportunity to withdraw from drugs in a controlled environment. If addicts take the next step and are accepted into the long-term program, they have six months to a year to seriously address the issues of recovery. Not every person walks out the door never to drink again. The problems of addiction are more complicated, involving complex answers. But Harbor Light offers a holistic, nurturing, emotional and spiritual safety net, a safe home-base for people to dry out and—perhaps for the first time in a very long time—be told their lives are worth something.

Are the lives of those with serious addictions worth something? Apparently not, or the money and commitment would be there to continue this valuable program. For those in the depths of despair and for those who care about them, a source of hope and inspiration is now gone - just another saga in the history of a “great nation” which somehow can’t provide for the basic needs of its people.