> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Goals spelled out for SM sobering center - URL: https://www.smdp.com/goals-spelled-out-for-sm-sobering-center/ - Published: 2005-01-14T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T06:00:24.000Z - Author: John Wood - Tags: Health, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness *Center to be modeled after program in San Diego* CITY HALL — It will cost only $200,000 a year to run a sobering center for public drunks in Santa Monica that, once built, is expected to save millions of dollars in emergency response and medical care. That’s the message Clare Foundation Executive Director Nicholas Vrataric delivered to city officials this week during a discussion of the proposed sobering center, which will be modeled after a similar program in San Diego. Officials at Clare, a nonprofit organization that assists drug and alcohol addicts, hope to run the center. Vrataric said the sobering center likely would serve about 1,500 public drunks a year by giving them a place to sober up and seek treatment without consuming police and fire resources, and clogging hospital emergency rooms. Backers of the center hope to reduce homelessness by helping chronic drunks get off the street permanently. “We do not see these people sober,” said Patricia Scanlan, a program manager at Clare. “This would be an incredible opportunity to place these men and women in treatment. It’s impossible to place someone who’s intoxicated into a treatment program. “These people want treatment,” she added. “They want help. No one wants to live on the street drunk, eating out of a trash can.” A site still needs to be chosen for the Santa Monica sobering center, though officials said the old jailhouse behind City Hall is currently being considered. While that search continues, the City Council on Tuesday voted to model the program after a similar one in San Diego. Public-safety and hospital workers in Santa Monica help between five and seven chronic drunks a day, according to a report prepared by city staffers. Ninety percent of those are homeless, and 20 percent have serious mental illnesses, according to the report, which indicates the fire department in 2003 responded to nearly 500 alcohol-related calls and police made more than 1,200 arrests for public drunkenness. The report acknowledges that overcrowding of Los Angeles jails means offenders rarely serve time. Under the sobering-center model, public drunks could choose to spend eight or nine hours “sobering up” rather than going to jail. The inebriates also would receive a brief counseling session and be encouraged to enroll in a treatment program for alcohol addiction. Vrataric said the center could be run for about $200,000 a year, much of which local hospitals would pay because of the resources that would be freed up. > “This is not something that’s a panacea.” “You’re just going to open up the opportunity of saving lives instead of having drunks on those beds, inebriates on those beds,” he said. > “You’re just going to open up the opportunity of saving lives instead of having drunks on those beds, inebriates on those beds.” — — NICHOLAS VRATARIC Executive director, Clare Foundation Julie Rusk, human services manager for City Hall, said other cities have found it often takes many visits to sobering centers before individuals with addictions make progress. A sobering center in Santa Barbara first opened with the rule that public drunks could only use the center three times before they would instead be taken to jail. Now, the center accepts up to 12 or 15 visits, Rusk said. “It can take that long,” added Rusk, who pointed to another sobering-center program that allows for five visits per month. “That doesn’t mean that that one time when it works and someone’s ready and the help’s there that it isn’t a really important connection … Still, officials are confident the sobering center will go a long way toward reducing homelessness in Santa Monica. The challenge, they said, will be to get neighboring communities to do their part. The sobering center “should not be an invitation to other communities to bring people to Santa Monica or to dump people, which unquestionably has been a problem for us in the past,” City Manager Susan McCarthy said. City Councilman Bob Holbrook said police officers in nearby cities often refer homeless people to Santa Monica. He added that sometimes officers even drop them off in the city. “Can our police department deal with the other agencies to try and get that to stop?” Holbrook asked. “Is this something that our law-enforcement people can deal with, or is this going to be something that we politically have to deal with, with political leaders in the other cities?” Santa Monica Police Department Deputy Chief Phil Sanchez said a multi-tiered approach is needed. He added it is very rare now for police departments to transport homeless people because of liability issues. Meanwhile, Rusk said the city will raise the issue at an upcoming meeting of regional city leaders. Rusk pointed to a new urgent-care facility being built on the Westside and said officials working on that project were interested in possibly integrating a sobering center. Though city officials have pointed to that center as a possible alternative to the sobering center in Santa Monica, City Councilman Bobby Shriver, who has championed the cause since being elected last November, said he hoped both centers would move forward. “It seems to me there are still a lot of people on the streets and in doorways,” Shriver said. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/011405-03_01-8.jpg) (Photo: Nicky Five Aces/Five Aces Photo) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 14, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/011405.pdf?ref=smdp.com)