Amsterdam alcoholics paid in beer to clean streets

[Jazzy]

Amsterdam has come up with a controversial way to get alcoholics off the streets: Pay them beer to clean said streets.

AFP reports that the Rainbow Foundation Project, which is partially funded by the Dutch government, pays alcoholics 10 euros along with a half-packet of rolling tobacco and five cans of beer, for a full day's work.

Two beers are given out when the work day begins at 9 a.m., two are given with lunch and then participants are given a beer to take home after work. The workers' alcohol intake is monitored and recorded by a Rainbow Foundation employee, but they do sometimes rely on the workers to self-report how much they drank. The participants say that the beer they get as payment is lighter, containing only 5 percent alcohol, compared to the 11 or 12 percent brews they typically consume.

There are currently two groups of about 10 people who are employed by the project, and they work three days per week.

"This group of chronic alcoholics was causing a nuisance in Amsterdam's Oosterpark: fights, noise, disagreeable comments to women," Gerrie Holterman, who runs the Rainbow Foundation Project, told AFP. "The aim is to keep them occupied, to get them doing something so they no longer cause trouble at the park."

Full article

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Nebulous]

Smart idea!

 

[Sinon]

I just think it's a bit backwards to give alcoholics more alcohol, but meh.

 

[Nebulous]

I just think it's a bit backwards to give alcoholics more alcohol, but meh.

I suppose you are right, but they are going to be getting drunk regardless, so they might as well be productive while doing it.

 

[Evil Eye]

I just think it's a bit backwards to give alcoholics more alcohol, but meh.

Yeah... Seems like the city is abusing the situation a little.
Then again, it probably cost them enough to warrant a little abuse.

 

[Jazzy]

There are currently two groups of about 10 people who are employed by the project, and they work three days per week.

I guess the park is safe for three out of seven days a week.

 

[identityissues8]

If it works it works?

Free labor? Well pretty much free labor...

Pretty sure this would work out pretty expensive in the long run...