Thunder Bay's managed alcohol program improving quality of life, saving money: report

Superior Morning7:01Managed Alcohol Program Works!

A new study indicates that a controversial social program in Thunder Bay, is working. Bernie Pauly is one of the researchers from the University of Victoria talks about Shelter House's managed alcohol program.

A Thunder Bay, Ont. program that helps homeless people with severe alcohol problems is both improving quality of lifefor participants, and reducing costs for emergency services, according to new research.

Shelter House Thunder Bay opened its managed alcohol program in 2012. The program provides housing, food, supports and regular doses of alcohol to 15 participants with serious and chronic problems related to alcohol.

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Over the course of about a year, researchers with the Centre for Addictions Research of B.C., at the University of Victoria, tracked those participants, measuring outcomes like health, and quality of life.

The findings were promising,said BerniePauly, a lead researcher on the study.

"Overall people who were in the managed alcohol program were doing better than people we were following who were still homeless in the community and not in a program," she said.

Participants reported fewer harms related to alcohol, were able to hold onto housing, and had much higher quality of life, she said.

Savings for emergency services

Interactions between participants, and emergency services were also "dramatically" reduced.

People in the managed alcohol program had 43 per cent fewer contacts with police, 70 per cent fewer detox admissions, 47 per cent fewer hospital admissions and spent 33 per cent less time in custody over the study period.

"So that resulted in a cost savings of $1.09 to $1.21 for every dollar invested," in the program, said Pauly.

"In this case we had the happy outcome of both improvements in health and quality of life, and saving costs," she said.

The pilot study of the Thunder Bay program is part of a larger national study of managed alcohol programs, that is still ongoing.