PORTLAND – A decision by the city’s only shelter for alcoholics to charge its clients up to $5 a night has drawn criticism from Portland social service providers. Few, if any, clients have paid so far.

“These are street people who are at the lowest point you can possibly be,” said Gerald R. Cayer, Portland’s director of health and human services. “If you charge them even a dollar, it’s just another barrier preventing them from going down the road to recovery.”

Cayer said the city cannot order Milestone Foundation Inc. to drop its fee policy.

Milestone, which runs a 29-bed emergency shelter and a 15-bed detoxification center, announced last summer it planned to start charging the fees, which it said would help clients become sober and self-sufficient.

Paul McDonell, executive director of Milestone, said the agency will continue the policy.

“We’re trying to engage clients in a dialogue, to get them to look seriously at their lifestyle,” McDonnell said. “We want to do more than have clients come in, shower, clean their clothes and go back on the street.”

Clients know Milestone will not deny them access to a shelter bed even when they don’t pay, said McDonnell.

“We’re not willing to go that far,” McDonnell added. “We’ve taken the teeth out of the policy.”

Portland is experiencing an increase in the number of people living and sleeping outside. Estimates range from 25 to 50 people sleeping out each night, perhaps twice as many as a year or two ago.

More than 100 people per night are squeezing into another one of the city’s shelters, the Oxford Street Shelter. McDonnell said some people coming to Milestone have monthly incomes of up to $1,000 if they work as day laborers. By giving them a free place to stay, the shelter is enabling them to spend money on drinking, he said.

“That’s not something we want to encourage,” said McDonnell.