A Second Chance : Dependency: The Santa Monica-based CLARE Foundation tries to narrow gaps in the social services net for alcoholics and the homeless.
Lucie K. Scheuer has no problem relating to the alcoholics she serves.
Scheuer is the community relations coordinator for CLARE, one of the oldest and largest nonprofit alcohol rehabilitation programs of its kind in the greater Los Angeles area. But she didn’t always have her life so put together.
As a shy 16-year-old, she was smitten by the euphoria that booze brought her.
Drinking made her feel accepted by her peers, she said. In hindsight, however, the picture appears less positive. “I became the buffoon,” she recalled. “Their mascot.”
She went into journalism, following in her father’s footsteps, and got a job at the Los Angeles Times. But that didn’t help her problem. Soon, in an effort to “become one of the guys,” she was joining reporters at a bar near the office. “I started drinking my lunch,” Scheuer said. “I thought it was sophisticated.”
She knew something wasn’t right. For a long time she blamed her troubles on everything else in her life but alcohol. But after almost nine years of drinking, being sick and blacking out, Scheuer was ready to face her problem. She and a photographer friend decided to seek treatment through a 12-step program.
Learning that she suffered from a disease for which she wasn’t to blame was, in Scheuer’s words “the most freeing thing.”
After getting sober, Scheuer decided to dig deeper, taking classes in chemical dependency. And three years ago she got her job at CLARE--an acronym for Community Living for Alcoholics by Rehabilitation and Education.
Her story is a common one at CLARE, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last weekend.
The program was born from an idea conceived by Ken Schonlau, a social worker and recovering alcoholic. Distressed by the lack of services for alcoholics and the homeless in Santa Monica, Schonlau and a group of concerned citizens in 1971 opened a small storefront operation on Pico Boulevard that offered information and referrals to alcoholics and the poor.
From those modest quarters, the CLARE Foundation has grown into a nationally recognized agency that has its headquarters in Santa Monica and facilities in Santa Monica, Culver City and Venice. In addition to a West L.A.-based residency program for the deaf and hearing-impaired, the three main locations provide about 14 programs, including a Teen and Family Center.
In the past 20 years, thousands of destitute alcoholics and homeless in search of themselves as well as food, clothing and shelter have found a home in CLARE. “We help them rebuild their lives and their dignity,” Scheuer explained. About 1,500 people are served each year. Clients, who are charged according to the individual’s ability to pay, go to CLARE through a number of sources. The referrals also include CLARE from a 24-hour drug and alcohol hot line and CLARE’s own resource directory, which is distributed to various social service agencies and referral networks.
The drop-in Detoxification and Recovery Center, which sleeps nine men and nine women, has put thousands of lives back together through peer-oriented support and education. The center also provides residents with referrals to long-term programs, introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous and recovery planning, among other things.
The Adult Recovery Home Complex consists of a dormitory-style building that houses 20 residents, an apartment-style building that houses another 20 residents and a support facility.
Angel Flores, 27, is convalescing at the complex from a bout with viral hepatitis that was discovered when she checked into the detox center two months ago.
Flores has kind words for CLARE’s recovery approach and its focus on individual responsibility. “Before coming here, I didn’t have time to relax and reflect on my problem,” Flores said. She said that in other 12-step programs, people introduce themselves by saying: ‘Hi, my name is so and so and my problem is drugs or alcohol.’ But, “here you say, hi, . . . the problem is me.”
To help clients get to that point, Scheuer says, CLARE makes sure that they have food in their stomachs.
A free lunch, served from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday, is just one of the basic necessities provided through CARE’s Homeless Assistance Program, the Sober Inn. Formerly a neighborhood beach bar in Santa Monica, the Inn also shelters a dozen men at night and doubles as a center for the homeless. The facility also offers clients clean clothes, showers and referrals for needed services.
Drinking is a problem that cuts across all classes, said CLARE’s executive director, Alan Redhead, in part because of pressure in the media to be a social drinker. “I think usage penetrates the whole spectrum of society,” said Redhead, who also is a recovering alcoholic. “I wouldn’t say there is a higher tendency for any income level.” But he said that those without means or insurance just drop through the social services net into the abyss of homelessness, poverty and illness. Those are the people that CLARE tries to help get back into society.
CLARE has a small staff made up mostly of volunteers, many of whom are recovering alcoholics, said Deputy Director Susan Chacin. “As a general rule, they must have one or more years of sobriety,” she said. The work demands that they “are sober and sure of themselves.”
Although CLARE gets its fair share of kudos for the spirit of hope it feeds to thousands of needy clients, it also has a few detractors. Some people have expressed concern about the undesirable elements that come with homelessness and addiction. Cece Bradley, a member of the 10th Street Block Club in Santa Monica, says that she and others are offended by “people urinating in the streets and loitering.”
She acknowledged that CLARE has made an effort to keep the neighborhood clean by regularly sweeping the streets and installing a number of garbage cans, but said that those efforts cannot control crime and other problems. The Pico Neighborhood Assn. has written letters to the mayor and the city attorney’s office to ask for help in policing the area, said Bradley.
Chacin argues that her agency is not to blame for all the problems about which the neighbors are complaining and said that homelessness is becoming a widespread problem in Santa Monica. She does not believe that CLARE’s clients are the sole contributors to the undesirable elements that come with homelessness and alcoholism. “We are part of the problem but we also are part of the solution,” she said.
In response to the growing problem, the agency plans to develop even more programs, Chacin said. “Most of these will be rooted in Westside communities, she said. “We have a geographical identification to the area. We want to develop a dialogue with the community rather than have a master plan.”