Northpinellas: Treatment center plans rankle officials

CLEARWATER -- The Pinellas-Pasco public defender wants to put a new drug and alcohol dry-out center in or around downtown, a plan that has riled city officials, who fear such a facility would undercut their efforts to kick-start redevelopment in the struggling business corridor.

They worry that downtown, already beset with a severe homeless problem, will become an even bigger magnet for troubled people.

"We don't want to just be known as the place to come for people who have issues like that," said Mayor Brian Aungst.

Public defender Bob Dillinger argues that locating a facility downtown is common sense. That's where the problem is, he said.

Among those Dillinger has approached for help is the Church of Scientology, which owns numerous downtown properties.

Dillinger said he needs a donated building to duplicate in North Pinellas the treatment services offered in St. Petersburg by Turning Point, an independently operated, government funded detox center.

Turning Point serves 3,000 people a year, and Dillinger said he figured to help roughly half that number with a new center in Clearwater.

He estimated the facility would cost $600,000 per year to operate and hopes to persuade state legislators to approve a traffic ticket surcharge of $6 to $10 to pay the bills.

The idea is to treat people with drug and alcohol problems, rather than send them to jail, said Dillinger.

"Any time they get involved with the police, they end up with a felony," he added. "It diverts people out of the criminal justice system and gets them the health care (they need)."

Dillinger has secured $1-million in federal funding to begin a similar program for the mentally ill, which he hopes to operate in the same location.

But his plan to hang a shingle in downtown Clearwater has rankled city officials, who chafe at not being consulted.

"We'd love to work with Mr. Dillinger. We haven't really had the opportunity," said Vice Mayor Whitney Gray. "Frankly, we kind of found out about this by accident."

Gray said she learned about the center when Dillinger announced his plan during a recent board meeting of the Clearwater Homless Intervention Project.

Several city officials said one property Dillinger targeted is a building owned by the Church of Scientology at 601 Grand Central St., a block east of Morton Plant Mease Hospital.

The building operates as a church mill, where workers make furniture and internal fixtures for the church's Flag Service Building under construction in downtown Clearwater.

The church is "definitely willing" to help Dillinger, church spokesman Ben Shaw said, but the mill may be off limits. "We need that building," he said.

Shaw said no specific properties have been discussed.

"He asked if our future plans freed up any building or part of a building that we could donate for an inebriate center," Shaw said. "We don't have a specific property in mind. But we're definitely looking into it."

Shaw said the church is committed to a solution.

"We're a player in the downtown," he said, "and it's a downtown problem."

City officials acknowledge the need for such a facility, but differ with Dillinger on where it should go.

The downtown and surrounding area should be ruled out, they say, in favor of an area farther away from residential neighborhoods.

The industrial corridor along Hercules Avenue is one such possibility.

But Dillinger said anything outside downtown doesn't serve the need.

"We have to have these facilities, where the street inebriate can walk to it, otherwise they don't get there," he said. "We're trying to find something that's appropriate."

The biggest hurdle to any location, he said, is overcoming "the NIMBYs and the CAVEs" -- acronyms for Not in My Back Yard and Citizens Against Virtually Everything.

Clearwater police Chief Sid Klein said officers will pick people up and drive them wherever necessary. He said Dillinger should keep hunting elsewhere for a building.

"Clearwater, in my opinion, has done more than its fair share with regard to being the north county repository for the homeless," he said. "Certainly we have our share of drunks, but there are resources where we can process drunks."

Klein said the more pressing need for Clearwater is transitional housing for the homeless.

Clearwater Homeless Intervention Project opened its shelter nearly five years ago, and virtually every bed has been filled since then, he said.

Aungst said he doesn't want the city to shoulder an unfair burden.

"I get upset when I hear that other municipalities are sending people to Clearwater," he said. "St. Pete and us have become the magnets and everybody has started shuffling the problem here. That's not a regional approach."

-- Jennifer Farrell can be reached at 445-4160 or farrell@sptimes.com ">farrell@sptimes.com .

Back to North Pinellas news

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

Special Links

Mary Jo Melone

Howard Troxler

From the Times
North Pinellas desks