SOME PROBLEMS WE SHOULD PAY FOR ONCE INSTEAD OF TWICE

VICTORIA - I figure my acquaintance Dave has cost you about $52,000 in
the past 12 months.

He is an often likable person, with a drug problem, undiagnosed fetal
alcohol spectrum disorder and the inevitably resulting series of bad
decisions.

I know of three hospital admissions. One was for a badly infected
hand, the kind that called for those expensive antibiotics, another
for a wrecked knee after a fall.

Dave bolted both those times, once with an IV still attached and once
with a pair of borrowed hospital crutches they're probably still
looking for. Figure nine days in total, say $13,000 by the time you
thrown in all the costs.

I can't guess at the ambulance and emergency costs, or the help from
clinics. An ER visit starts at about $120. Help from an ambulance crew
probably around $200. Add another $1,000.

And then there's the two fairly brief jail stays. Jail is cheaper than
hospital, but more than a hotel (understandably.) Figure another $12,500.

We aren't done yet. Dave sleeps on the street, or in shelters, or with
his few remaining absurdly tolerant friends. Say half the year in
shelters, at $70 a night -- $13,000.

There's more. Social agencies that provide needed support, police that
keep him moving -- say $5,000. And welfare, at $7,300 a year.

Add it all up, and you're at $52,000 a year, in piecemeal support for
a chaotic and often destructive life. (Dave is a real person, heavily
disguised.)

And that's not even counting the costs of having Dave wandering around
downtown, the kind of person that storekeepers don't want to see
outside their shops.

Victoria's Police Chief Paul Battershill says that 90 per cent of
property crime in the city is committed by addicts looking for drug
money. That's 8,500 crimes last year -- home break-ins, car thefts,
the crimes that undermine a community.

Consider the cost, to victims and in police resources devoted to
fighting a losing action against a problem that they can't solve.
Addiction is a mental and social problem, not a criminal one. All
police can do is minimize the damage when addicts do what it takes to
pay for drugs.

Battershill, an effective police chief, recognizes the reality. He has
championed the four pillar approach to drugs. Enforcement is important
in preventing open dealing and gang turf wars, but so are harm
reduction, prevention and treatment.

Leave out the intangible costs for now. Dave is going to cost the
taxpayers $52,000, and have a miserable year.

What he needs is a place to live, with someone there around the clock
to talk to him about choices. It would probably work fine with five
other people in the house.

And that could be provided for about $30,000 a year, including welfare
so Dave had some walking around money.

It seems a good investment. Dave could die any day. Failing that, he's
not going to move quickly to a smarter, better life in his current
circumstances. He might in stable surroundings.

Fiscally, it makes great sense to provide the help. Spend $30,000, not
$52,000.

So why not?

I started thinking about Dave because of an article by the
preternaturally clever Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker magazine.
Gladwell was looking at the power law, a variation of Pareto's Law.

To fix a problem, it suggests, you don't need to come up with a
solution that deals with everyone who might be affected. Target the
hard core, and things improve dramatically. (For them, and the
collective.)

But we struggle. Partly, I'm convinced, because we just don't think
people like Dave deserve it. Objectively, he probably doesn't,
especially because even if the help were there he'd mess up badly
sometimes. And how do we tell a single mother on social assistance --
just under $200 a week for housing and everything else -- that we're
willing to spend far more on Dave?

Still, it seems a clear choice. Spend $52,000 a year to pick up after
Dave in his chaotic march through life.

Or spend perhaps half that much to support him in decent circumstance,
and keep him mostly out of harm's way -- and of course, out of your
way as well.

You don't have to like it.

But the numbers don't lie. It makes more sense to catch him, and keep
him safe, than to pick up the pieces.