Wednesday, July 12, 2000
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 7
Lawrence clears out squatters
City officials finish removing homeless group from river area
The Associated Press
LAWRENCE — City officials have finished removing a squatter camp near the Kansas River, delighting nearby residents and upsetting homeless advocates.
Homeless people had camped near the river in northern Lawrence for the last six years, setting up a small group of tepees. On April 6, the city notified the campers that they would have to leave, and the last tepee was removed on Friday.
No one was living at the site when the work was completed.
"The North Lawrence residents are really happy that this problem is resolved and we won't have a shantytown springing up on the river on the north side," said Ted Boyle, president of the North Lawrence Improvement Association.
But Saunny Scott, a Lawrence resident and advocate for the homeless, said city workers destroyed too much when they removed the last tepee.
"If they wanted to preserve that area, why did they do it in such a destructive way?" Scott asked. "I doubt this is kids doing vandalism. The city sent the bulldozers." Tom Wilkerson, assistant Parks and Recreation director, said his crew took about an hour to carefully clear the camp that once included five teepees.
"We didn't buildoze it. We took a front-end loader over and pulled all the stuff down, and separated all the disposable materials away from the wood," Wilkerson said. "We left all the wood on the site and took the rest away. There is no longer a tent or a tree house or any litter."
He said workers also removed a bench that a family of four who pioneered the camp would visit during the day. Those visits prompted residents to believe someone still lived in the camp.
Wilkerson said. city workers met with members of the homeless family before the removal and told them to take anything they wanted from the site, but they assured him anything left there could be taken down. Scott said she had been in contact with friends of the city after the remains of the camp were removed
Boyle said he had not seen the site since Friday, but was satisfied the homeless campers had been moved from his neighborhood.
"They had tried to keep the place ecologically pleasant, and the buldozing was exactly the opposite," she said. "They are kind of horrified and didn't want to talk to anybody. They moved on but were still trying to keep the site pleasant."
"I understand there are some squatters on the south side of the river too, and as far as the city of Lawrence goes, that doesn't look too good," he said. "But it's not on the north side. North Lawrence residents won't tolerate any squatters on the north side."
Rehab clinic debates drinking treatment
NEW YORK — The director of the Smithers clinic, the celebrity rehab center that treated celebrities such as Joan Kennedy, has quit in a dispute over his decision to adopt a program that allows patients to drink in moderation.
The Associated Press
The resignation of Dr. Alex DeLuca from the Smithers Addiction Treatment and Research Center comes amid a renewed debate over whether problem drinkers should be allowed to drink in controlled fashion or should abstain altogether.
Last month, Audrey Kishline, the founder of Moderation Management, a national organization that promotes moderate drinking for problem drinkers, pleaded guilty to causing a deadly drunken-driving accident in Washington state. She has renounced the movement.
DeLuca's decision to include Moderation Management as a treatment option at Smithers was first reported in last week's New York magazine. He told the magazine: "I humbly submit that this is the way
alcoholics should be treated."
DeLuca resigned Monday under pressure from St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center, which runs the clinic.
The hospital said in a statement that the Smithers center "has a long and proud tradition of treating alcoholism by advocating total abstinence. While we recognize there may be other alternatives in the treatment of this difficult disease, no change in our own program policy was ever approved."
"Since Dr. Alex DeLuca does not support the program philosophy, we have accepted his resignation as director of Smithers," the statement said.
DeLuca could not be reached for comment Tuesday. A call to the only Alex DeLuca listed in New York state was not returned.
In an interview in Tuesday's New York Times, DeLuca said he was not advocating that the Smithers center drop abstinence.
"I was only suggesting that you could engage people in a kinder, gentler manner rather than telling
them that they had to sign up for a goal of achieving abstinence from the beginning," he said.
The Smithers center, whose patients over the years have included writer John Cheever and baseball star Darryl Strawberry, was founded 30 years ago with a $10 million donation from philanthropist Robert Brinkley Smithers, who also started the Christopher D. Smithers Foundation.
The two organizations are no longer linked, and the dispute over controlled drinking has deepened a rift between the clinic and the foundation, which advocates total abstinence for alcoholics and drug addicts.
The foundation took out a fullpage ad in The New Times on Sunday noting that it is not associated with the clinic and that it believes "alcoholism is a disease that requires abstinence-based treatment, and that controlled drinking, under any name, whether it be 'modern management' or 'harm reduction,' is not possible where the disease of alcoholism exists."