A new and experimental program in Amsterdam is paying alcoholics, who would usually sit around public parks all day, to pick-up litter in exchange for beer, food and 10 euros, according to the Associated Press.
A small nonprofit group called Rainbow Group Foundation started the pilot program as a way to help keep alcoholics and drug addicts in the area busy after a group of about 50 noisy and disorderly alcoholics had been annoying other park goers for years, the AP reported.
In response to resident's complaints, Amsterdam East district mayor Fatima Elatik began trying numerous solutions to get the alcoholics out of the park, spending almost a million euros a year, according to the AP. The city tried adding more police patrols and even banned alcohol in the park, but residents complained because the measure prevented family barbeques and picnics.
Rainbow Group's idea is to simply lure the alcoholics out of the parks by giving them free beers, an idea Elatik said was very hard for politicians to accept, the AP reported.
"'So you are giving alcohol?'" Elatik said was the question her colleagues would ask, the AP reported. "No, I am giving people a sense of perspective, even a sense of belonging. A sense of feeling that they are OK and that we need them and that we validate them and we don't ostracize our people, because these are people that live in our district."
Elatik could not give an exact amount of how much the Rainbow program costs, but said it is "definitely less than 100,000 euros," the AP reported.
The program consists of two groups with 10 men each who are required to work three days a week beginning at 9 a.m., the AP reported. The men are given two beers to begin the day, then they work a morning shift, have lunch and drink two more beers and finish their day with an afternoon shift.
A final beer is given as well and the men receive a pay out of 10 euros, according to the AP. The total daily pay is 19 euros paid with a mix of beer, tobacco and food plus the 10 euros given to each men at the end of the day.
According to Floor van Bakkum from the Jellinek clinic, a top treatment facility in Amsterdam, said though she has a "few reservations" about the Rainbow program, she "approves of it in general," the AP reported.
"The Rainbow group tries to make it as easy as possible (for alcoholics) to live their lives and that they make as little as possible nuisances to the environment they are living in," van Bakkum said, according to the AP. "I think it is good that they are doing this."
Jellinek clinic is considered one of the top addiction treatment clinics in Amsterdam and are also known for trying different approaches to treating alcoholism, the AP reported.
Gerrie Holterman, Rainbow group's leader, said though the group is providing these alcoholics with beer in exchange for work, their ultimate goal is to help them stop drinking and readjust them into mainstream society, the AP reported.
The work-for-beer program is just the first step in that process, and Holterman says "this is a start to go toward other projects and maybe another kind of job," according to the AP.
"I think now that we are only successful when we get them to drink less during the day and give them something to think about what they want to do with their lives," Holterman said, according to the AP.
Holterman noted that only one participant was able to move on from the program and into a normal life and that some participants have dropped out because they were not able to meet the time demands, the AP reported. She added that there is a waiting list of candidates who are interested in the program.
One of the programs participants, Karel Slinger, said though his alcoholism is not under control, "things have changed for the better," according to the AP.
"Yes, of course in the park it is nice weather and you just drink a lot of beer," Slinger, who is 50-years-old, said about his old life, the AP reported. "Now you come here and you are occupied and you have something to do. I can't just sit still. I want something to do."
