Wapato's drinking problem

WAPATO, Wash. -- Each morning, Valerie Jolene Sampson scours the streets for enough aluminum cans to buy a 40-ounce bottle of beer.

Then she heads to her makeshift camp in a field at the northeastern edge of town. There, she drinks with friends out of sight of police and others.

"I really don't want it anymore, but I drink to take the pain away," said the mother of six whose husband is in prison for vehicular homicide due to drinking. "I don't know how to (quit) it."

Sampson, 46, is among a community of more than 50 homeless -- mostly Yakama tribal members -- in this rural town of roughly 4,555 residents on the Yakama reservation, where poverty is high and opportunity slim.

Not everyone in this transient circle is as discrete as Sampson. Dozens drink in public and panhandle outside downtown businesses.

City officials, police and business owners say it's a long-standing problem that has given the city a bad image.

"As soon as you cross the railroad tracks (into town), what do you see? A bunch of (people) passing around a 40," said Mayor pro tem Tony Guzman, "I mean, what kind of message does that send?"

Now, the city is taking a stiffer stance on the problem, making drinking in public a misdemeanor that could bring up to 90 days in jail and up to a $1,000 fine for each offense.

Previously, drinking in public or being caught with an open container here was just an infraction punishable only by tickets that largely went ignored.

The problem has contributed to the $4.7 million in unpaid fines and tickets the city has accumulated over the past several years.

Making drinking in public a misdemeanor will require offenders to face a municipal judge and possible jail time if they fail to pay the fine.

Past efforts to rid the area of the problem largely failed.

A decade ago, tribal leaders citing treaty rights attempted to ban alcohol entirely from the reservation, but it didn't legally hold in reservation towns such as Wapato and Toppenish, where non-Indians outnumber tribal members.

Some city officials have also labored with little success.

Last year, measures to restrict the sale of fortified beer and wine and to create an alcohol-free zone died due to a lack of support from the full Wapato City Council.

City officials and some business owners thought opening the Lower Valley's only homeless shelter here nearly two years ago would help curb the problem. But they now say it's luring homeless from other areas who only add to those wandering the streets drunk.

Wapato Pawn and Trade owner Andy Koch said he supports the shelter's efforts, but has seen an increase in homeless people panhandling outside his downtown store since it started.

"What happened is it's drawn in some very hard-core people and they seem to be the ones who are causing the problem," he said. "It's changed the character of the problem."

Police Chief Richard Sanchez said he hopes stiffer open-container laws passed in town just last week will make a difference.

"It's something to say, 'Hey, we're not playing games -- we're doing something about it," he said. "It's just that one time or another, you've got to stop crying wolf."

Life on the streets

A drive though this town that covers less than two square miles tells an alarming story.

One recent morning, more than a handful of men and women sat in a grassy area just south of Track Road passing around 40-ounce bottles of beer.

Across the street, two older men in worn clothes sat near another man sleeping shirtless in the dirt.

A few blocks away, a tall man with his hair pulled into a ponytail combed downtown storefronts asking for change.

And at a nearby convenience store, Sampson is handed a sack with two
40-ounce bottles.

She heads with a friend toward her camp.

"This is an everyday thing we do out here," she said.

She walks along a dirt trail through overgrown weeds, pointing out key drinking spots under trees. Thousands of empty 40-ounce beer bottles are strewn throughout the area.

At her camp, two mattresses and empty beer cans from the night before are strewn on the dirt. When police drive the homeless away from one spot, they move to another, she explained.

This has been her home for the past month.

"I usually keep it clean," she said as she unfolds a blanket over a mattress.

Life at the shelter

A few blocks to the south at the homeless shelter, Noah's Ark, a half-dozen men sleep off their morning binge on several donated couches.

In the kitchen, Anthony Wolfe cuts potatoes into wedges and slides them into a microwave.

A thin man in his 40s, his black hair is speckled with gray. A disarming smile emerges from his rough face as he pulls the wedges from the microwave.

He said he used to be a mill worker in White Swan before his wife died. After that, he said, it's been Skid Row.

"I had a life, but I gave up on life," he said. "Now, I'm just a drunk.

"When you're drunk, it's a hard life out here -- lot of fights, Indian on Indian fighting -- it's just crazy. This is the street life out here."

Shelter manager Becky Morrow describes the shelter as an offering of humanity rather than any solution.

"It's help to those who are on the streets -- to get them a shower, a place to stay off the streets and medical attention," she said. "But it's not a solution. It's a place for them to go until they figure out what they want. It's up to them."

Morrow is working on another shelter that would separate recovering alcoholics from the existing shelter's active alcholics.

But that will take some time. Meanwhile, there are plenty of painful stories.

Last year, 11 regulars at the shelter died and another five died this year, she said.

Causes of death range from exposure to untreated illnesses. One choked on his vomit.

Earlier this month, medics were called to treat one man who was mauled by a dog.

She said it wears on her at times.

"I just remember that this is their last hope," she said. "Their last step for help."

Is jail a solution?

Chief Sanchez said too often citations for drinking in public have gone ignored. His hope is that stiffer penalties for such offenses will lead to less public drinking and more paid fines.

"These people just say, 'well, nothing is going to happen,' " Sanchez said.

Nearly all of these offenders are jobless and have no way of paying fines or the daily cost of being housed at the municipal jail, Sanchez admits.

"At least we can see if they will be more responsive to jail time -- I don't know," he said. "I was just looking for something to put a little more emphasis on 'We mean business.'"

But it's not clear how much it will cost the city to house these nonpaying offenders.

Much of the city jail's revenue comes from fees it charges other communities to house their inmates.

Although City Council members unanimously approved making drinking in public a misdemeanor, some still wonder if it will work, said Mayor pro tem Guzman.

"My concern is if we have a chronic problem with a chronic group, how are we going to justify giving up our bed rentals to deadbeats that we already have a problem collecting from," he said.

But jail isn't the answer, said drug and alcohol counselor Joel Tannehill with Merit Resources Services.

Tannehill, who has been clean and sober the past 18 years following 20 years of addiction, suggests a drug court that would order offenders to begin taking action to recover.

"So the only way you stay out of jail is by following a structured recovery process," he said. "It forces you to do things that makes you feel better about yourself and gets you around people, a support group."

Sampson, who has been to alcohol treatment centers six times in the past three years, said she has a hard time dealing with being molested and raped as a child.

She said she plans to return to treatment sometime this month in hopes of being reunited with her children, who range in age from 10 to 23.

"Right now, I'm just choosing this for now until I get into treatment," she said. "It's a rough life for us out here. I never thought I'd be a homeless person."

* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 509-577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.

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