With meth arrests rising, California sobering center gets a new mission

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SAN JOSE, Calif. — Faced with a steady rise in methamphetamine-related arrests and citations in and around San Jose’s encampments, police and civic leaders are grappling with how to address what has become a growing public safety problem, and break a cycle that shuttles addicts between the streets and county jail beds but doesn’t address underlying issues of drug abuse and homelessness.

“For the portion of the unhoused community that suffers from meth use, releasing them back to encampments doesn’t only endanger the community as a whole, but the people in the encampments,” San Jose police Chief Eddie Garcia said. “We need something to keep the community safe and get individuals the help they need.”

In the absence of a more comprehensive expansion of drug treatment and mental health services, officials are exploring a short-term solution that will reconfigure the county’s existing “sobering center” to deal specifically with people arrested while under the influence of meth.

Under the one-year pilot program, the Mission Street Sobering Center — currently a drop-off spot for people arrested on suspicion of public intoxication — will make 10 of its 20 existing spaces available to meth users, provide them access to showers, food and clothing, as well as registered nurses and therapists. Nonviolent, nonfelony arrestees are eligible and have to consent to the program, which gives them just shy of 24 hours to sober up before they are referred to treatment and rehab services.

When it begins March 4, it will be among the country’s first sobering centers specifically addressing meth. In San Francisco, a meth-focused sobering center is expected to launch this spring in the city’s Tenderloin District.

County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who helped spearhead the revival of Mission Street in 2017, said expanding the services to meth users would add much-needed capacity for detox services as the county struggles to keep up with a steady increase in meth use and addiction. The center currently serves an average of 25 people each month with alcoholism resources, but county officials expect that number to rise given the prevalence of meth use in the area.

“We’re trying to stand up more beds for detox and sober living, and are doing it as fast as we can,” Chavez said. “It really is possible to strategically reuse the current sobering station and look at the way we use detox.”

Meth use has been on the rise in the Bay Area, and across the West, for the past decade, becoming a particularly intractable problem among some homeless populations.

“Everybody does it,” said Joseph Ayon, a self-described lifelong meth user who lives in an encampment in central San Jose. “I don’t know a person who doesn’t.”

On Wednesday, Ayon, 58, was arrested on burglary and theft warrants near the encampment, a few months after coming off an eight-month jail stint. He said he’s far from alone in turning to meth as a way to cope with life that hinges on day-to-day survival.

In the past, he said, he was referred to court-ordered drug treatment and housing, but a lack of capacity meant he never landed in a bed. Instead, he finished out his jail term and was back out on the street.

Statewide, overdoses from meth have now surpassed those from opioids. In Santa Clara County, a December report from the Behavioral Services Department found that 38% of the 3,405 people treated for substance abuse in the 2019 fiscal year listed meth as their drug of choice — more than any other substance, including alcohol, which ranked second at 28 percent.

As meth use has risen, it has posed a growing public safety problem, taxing police resources that were not designed to deal with the complicated ways that mental health, substance abuse and homelessness can intersect.

According to arrest data from San Jose police, between October and December last year, nearly 60% of the 83 narcotics-related street and encampment arrests and citations by the Street Crimes Unit involved meth. The arrests were often tied to other crimes like burglary — and officers say the numbers provide just a glimpse into the myriad crime and safety issues they witness when dealing with people high on meth.

Unit supervisor Sgt. Barry Torres said he understands better than most how much undiagnosed mental illness affects the behavior he sees in the field, and how meth has become what many turn to for relief. But the people he and his six officers encounter need far more help than police are qualified or authorized to give.

“We could take them to jail. We could cite them out, and get told, ‘Give me my ticket, now eff off,’ ” he said. “We’re doing our job, but we’re not helping them in any way.”

Freddy Sanchez, 40, said he has had past struggles with meth use and agrees that it’s a regular sight on the street. He currently lives in an encampment outside downtown San Jose.

“Lots of people rob to support their addiction. People are drowning, people are screaming at themselves,” Sanchez said. “Some people don’t hurt anyone but themselves.”

A sobering station could help a segment of people who don’t know where to go for help, he added.

“Clean clothes and a place to shower goes a long way. Some want out, and they can take the change,” he said. “People who lost housing, they don’t know how they got there. They think the world has given up on them.”

The scope of the meth problem dwarfs the county’s available resources. By the end of this month, the county, through contractors, will increase its total nonmedical detox beds to 28.

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San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said he shares the frustrations widely held by police and other officials.

“Our first responders, our police, our park rangers, have nowhere to call when they encounter someone having an episode as a result of meth use,” he said. “Right now their hands are tied when residents are reasonably complaining that their 8-year-old daughter is walking to school and dealing with the fear of seeing people high on meth in their neighborhood.”

But while a sobering station is a positive step, he said, it is “a band-aid” given the breadth of the issue posed by meth.

“There’s much more we need to do if there is the political will to address this challenge,” Liccardo said.

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“Jail is not the answer, but a noncustodial facility is not going to work unless the person wants to go,” Garcia said. “That puts my officers in a situation where they make an arrest and have someone get released from jail and back into the community, or bring someone to a sobering center and they end up walking out.”

As voter-approved housing projects take shape in San Jose and across the state, Garcia added, the meth addiction his officers encounter daily is a reminder that policymakers also need to address the other major noneconomic factors that drive homelessness.

“You can’t have this housing without dealing with the behaviors stemming from mental illness and drug addiction,” he said. “You can’t leave that out.”

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©2020 East Bay Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)

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