From Seattle writer and consultant Matt Rosenberg...

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The Wrong Medicine

June 07, 2004

Some bed-and-breakfasts offer a snifter of sherry in early evening, or port in front of the fireplace before bed. Nice touch. Seaton House hostel in downtown Toronto goes them one better: one glass of wine per hour from 8:30 a.m. to 11:45 p.m.

One catch, though. You've got to be a chronic street drunk to qualify.

Some say it's better than the alternative for these poor guys, namely Listerine, cleaners, rubbing alcohol, solvents or Chinese cooking wine. There's a little pub in the hostel called The Annex and the Fiddle, plus living quarters, and an infirmary funded by the Rotary Club. Staff from a Toronto hospital help out, too.

The hostel's proud to offer the equivalent of a "safe injection site" for clinical inebriates, and residents can stay for years.

Not much to crow about, absent a systemic effort to get these guys get back on their own two feet.

Eh?

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at June 7, 2004 04:29 PM


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Comments:

$30,000 a year to house these guys ! one was there from l966 until he died recently..Why isn't the liquor industry funding this? And isn't this the same setup being planned/built for the Seattle inebriates?

Eh?

Posted by: Lorna at June 7, 2004 06:21 PM

I'm movin' to Toronto! (Tiiiiiiny Bubbles!)

Posted by: richard craaneum at June 8, 2004 04:18 AM

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