America's War On Drugs Has Failed. This Program Might Be The Solution.

For more than 20 years, Kevin* lived in a parking garage in downtown Seattle. Homeless and addicted to crack, he had been arrested dozens of times for trespassing, drug activity and low-level property crimes.

“He was a fixture in the neighborhood,” Lisa Daugaard, a Seattle-based public defender familiar with Kevin’s case, told The Huffington Post. “Everyone thought he would die in that garage.”

Then, three years ago, authorities decided to try something different. Instead of arresting Kevin and sending him to jail as they had done so many times before,...