BERKELEY – Homeless people trying to enter drug recovery programs in Alameda County are being blocked by a simple rule: No detox, no treatment.

Most drug treatment programs will only take addicts who have previously completed detoxification, which rids their bodies of alcohol and drugs, but doing this is difficult because there is no detox facility in Alameda County.

“It’s a Catch-22,” said Maria Tabanado-Braun, who helps homeless addicts find treatment as East Bay Community Recovery Project’s intake coordinator. “Most programs won’t accept them if they don’t detox. And they can’t detox.”

Currently Alameda’s poor go through the detox process in jails, hospitals, or on the street alone, according to Tabanado-Braun. Only heroin addicts can get help at Berkeley’s Addiction Treatment Center and Oakland’s Fourteenth Street Clinic and Medical Group. New Leaf, the last detox facility in the county to treat all addictions, closed more than a year ago.

“The county hospitals are being overrun,” Tabanado-Braun said. “And once they detox, then where do they go? There’s no case manager there to keep them from relapsing.”

Since most recovery programs require their applicants to undergo detoxification before entering, some will lie about having the procedure.

Rachel Hulstein-Lowe, who runs the Recovery Project’s residential facility, said lying causes problems for treatment programs. Drug-addicted individuals need medical attention during the detox process. Alcohol withdrawal, for example, can cause psychosis, seizures, vomiting, and tremors.

With an inaccurate report, she said, “you can die.”

Berkeley’s Housing Commission is investigating opening a new facility in the city, although one clinic may not meet the demand.

“There should be like eight of them in Alameda County,” said Recovery Project Case Manager David Rages.

Residents keep detox facilities out because they don’t want them in their neighborhoods, according to Rages. He said local residents worry that a facility would attract drug addicts and increase the homeless problem.

“There’s a negative stigma about having a detox building in your community,” Rages said.

He also said detox is not regarded as a priority. People in West Oakland are surrounded by drugs, crime and homelessness and may feel other programs are needed far worse.

Erika Hultquist, another case manager for the project, said bringing a detox center back is not going to be easy.

“Now that it’s gone, it’s like it’s always been gone.”