9 ms·

What is your proposed solution? How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? A literal smell test? How do people without homes "comple

What is your proposed solution? How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? A literal smell test? How do people without homes "completely destroy the purpose"? Are they stealing books? Breaking computers? Barricading the doors? Do you really believe that all people without homes have "given up on life"? Not a single one is "working hard and trying to excel in life"? Have you heard of working people without homes? Particularly in LA, SF, et al. where the cost of a home vastly exceeds the income of many people? Do you think education could be a productive method for reducing the number of people without homes?

irq11 9y ago
Rules. No sleeping. No drug use. No bathing in the restrooms. No shitting on anything. No violent or threatening behavior. Period. Then enforce those rules. One violation, and you're out. Two, and you're out for good. Librarians know who the troublemakers are. They just have no power to do anything about them. It's not illegal to be homeless, but that doesn't mean you should be allowed to do violent, illegal or disgusting things without consequence.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lebanon_tn 9y ago
  The library my spouse worked at was terrified of being sued (happened to a neighboring city) and they aren't allowed to touch unattended belongings.
  - learc83 9y ago
    Why are they so afraid of being sued? There are plenty of other public spaces that don't have a problem removing people for similar behavior. Most people maintaining public spaces view unattended bags as a public safety threat.
    - ethbro 9y ago
      Exactly. Coordinate with police and enforce the rules. Public spaces are created and maintained by enforcing liberal rules of access, not no rules of access.
      - jmcgough 9y ago
        Police have been so defanged in the bay that homeless people do whatever they want with impunity.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      It says right in the post why they were afraid of being sued.
      - learc83 9y ago
        And yet it doesn't make sense.
        emodendroket 9y ago
        What doesn't make sense? Someone else got sued for doing something similar and even if they ultimately prevailed it probably cost them a lot of money.
- zghst 9y ago
  They already have these rules in SF however the violators outweigh the amount of enforcers.
  - irq11 9y ago
    They have these rules, but they are rarely actually enforced. Point someone to a homeless person shooting up in public or bathing in the bathroom, and see what happens. If anything, there's a shrug and a sigh and some rent-a-cop is sent to harass. Almost never is the infraction met with punishment of any consequence. Start actually arresting or forcibly evicting people who behave this way. They'll stop coming around. San Francisco is particularly feckless in this regard.
    - ZenoArrow 9y ago
      > "Start actually arresting or forcibly evicting people who behave this way." This is one of those easy solutions that sounds practical on paper, but in reality doesn't hold up. Let's say SFPD go ahead and do what you suggest. What does that achieve? If they arrest people for shooting up, are you sending them to jail? For how long? Is that going to help them get clean when smack is probably easily attainable in prison anyway? When they're released, now not only are they homeless they've got a criminal record, good luck in the job market with that hanging over you. If they go down the other route and forcibly evict them, where do they get evicted to? All it does is shift the problem to another part of the country, who are probably just as resistant to dealing with it as SF. You have to treat the root causes of involuntary homelessness as if it's a societal disease. The threat of arresting people isn't a strong enough deterrent to break people out of their addictions, which should be clear by now, otherwise the war on drugs would already have been 'won'.
      - irq11 9y ago
        Are we to overlook all criminal behavior because enforcement might make people less employable, or just selectively ignore some laws that you don't agree with? Perspective! If someone is shooting up in the library, their future employability is of (at best) tertiary concern to me. The pressing matter is making sure they don't continue the behavior. We can't just stop enforcing laws because it might make lawbreakers break more laws. The city of SF actually did adopt a policy of forcing addicts into treatment by giving them an ultimatum of jail time for accumulated minor offenses. It worked, but was stopped when some bleeding-heart sued the city. I'm a liberal, but I consider that a tragedy. You can't cure addiction by arresting people, but you sure as hell can stop enabling it on a societal scale. And also, when I say "evict", I mean "evict them from the library". I don't care where they go to shoot up; watch porn; shit in the sink; sleep or harass people, but they can't do it in the library.
deleted 9y ago
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ericmcer 9y ago
I go to the SF library frequently and it is a gorgeous library, but it is absolutely full of homeless. I have seen needles on multiple occasions, almost always you will people hear screaming obscenities or just gibberish, and you guaranteed will at least smell some pretty nasty stuff on any trip in there. A couple days ago one of them threw themselves from the 5th story and landed in the atrium. He could very easily have killed someone in addition to himself. I have trouble rationalizing this romantic view of the homeless as these poor downtrodden, down on their luck people who just need a hand up, with the realities I see everyday of mentally ill, dangerous, and completely uncontrollable people. They definitely are not there to read. A few have developed the skill set necessary to direct the free access computers to porn sites. That being said I agree that homeless is not effective as a blanket term to describe anyone without a home, huge difference between someone living out of their car and showering at the gym, and a schizophrenic who hasn't bathed in 6 months.
- djur 9y ago
  > poor downtrodden, down on their luck people who just need a hand up... mentally ill, dangerous, and completely uncontrollable These aren't actually incompatible with each other. I would consider mental illness to be "down on one's luck", wouldn't you? > They definitely are not there to read. A few have developed the skill set necessary to direct the free access computers to porn sites. I don't know if this is what you intend, but language like this makes it sounds like you're discussing some sort of monkeys, not people. Of course they can use computers. Most homeless people weren't born homeless.
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    > "Of course they can use computers" I believe GP was referring to the skills to get around adult content blocks rather than general computer skills.
    - paulcole 9y ago
      At least here in Portland, OR, you have the option of filtered/unfiltered Internet when logging on to a library computer. Looks like SF libraries don't filter content: https://sfpl.org/?pg=2000004301 https://sfpl.org/?pg=2000004301
usrusr 9y ago
> How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? A literal smell test? By offering something that is even more attractive than a library to people who want the roof but not the books. One might even argue that it is undemocratic when funds for one public service (with a lot of popular support) were reappropriated for another, maybe less popular, one. Imagine (in Lennon's voice) the USAF going rogue to set up an NHS clone with money they were supposed to spend on new jets: laudable in a way yet unquestionably out of line. Not their decision to make.
rubber_duck 9y ago
>How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? A literal smell test ? Member only access where it's free to join but you ban people breaking rules ?
knodi123 9y ago
> What is your proposed solution? How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? We already limit library use to those who live within the library's community. Just require a library card to get in, too. Morals aside, the logistics would be simple. > How do people without homes "completely destroy the purpose"? Are they stealing books? Breaking computers? Barricading the doors? Shooting up heroin in the bathroom? Using the water fountains to wash up. Talking angrily to their schizophrenic delusions? Stinking to high heaven? Saying "completely destroy the purpose" is a bit of an exaggeration - but the mission of the library is hampered a bit if you make them defacto daytime homeless shelters. > Do you really believe that all people without homes have "given up on life"? He was exaggerating, but yes - many homeless have no reasonable expectation of improving their circumstances. > Do you think education could be a productive method for reducing the number of people without homes? Those who aren't mentally ill or completely socially maladjusted, sure. Of course, there's a difference between "education" and "just putting them in a building full of information and crossing your fingers". I don't say that all of your criticisms were wrong - but you went off the rails in the opposite extreme of the person you replied to. Any solution we come up with should acknowledge that libraries are vulnerable to the tragedy of the commons, and a great percentage of the homeless are not going to improve themselves without the aid of services that the library has no business providing.
- vacri 9y ago
  > We already limit library use to those who live within the library's community. "You have to be in the same physical location to use a building" is one of the softest restrictions in history. In order to borrow something, sure, you have to live nearby, but a library is more than a book loan service. For example, I was crossing the US and booking the hotel for the next night every morning. If the motel I was at didn't have working internet, I'd find a library and use theirs to make the booking. I was never blocked on account on not living nearby.
  - smokey_the_bear 9y ago
    That isn't even true in California, any resident of California can use any Californian library, and receive a library card to it. Which leads to an ongoing feuds between neighboring cities when one chooses not to have public libraries (see Piedmont, California)
RivieraKid 9y ago
> How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? By only making it free for students. > How do people without homes "completely destroy the purpose"? I wouldn't say it destroys the purpose, but it changes the atmosphere and environment of the place. I don't think people want to spend time with homeless and weird people around them. It sounds harsh but that's the truth.
- istjohn 9y ago
  More repulsive than "homeless and weird people" is heartless disgust for less fortunate neighbors absent any apparent concern for their well-being. I don't want to live in a society that solves the stench of poverty and untreated mental illness by corralling people into ghettos and homeless shelters. The only humane solution to the stench of human suffering in public libraries or anywhere else is to minister to the unmet needs. Give them medical treatment, showers, food and a bed.
  - ticviking 9y ago
    I have no problems with homeless and weird people. I do have a problem with them using the space in a way that actively prevents people from being patrons. I have more of a problem with the tacit assumption that this is some kind of stopgap "shelter" and that the unilateral non democratic appropriation of public spaces to provide a poor substitite is defensible.
derefr 9y ago
Proposed solution: give the homeless a (publicly-funded) place to be that fits their needs even better than a library does. In chemistry, when you have a both a product and a side-product dissolved in a liquid (say, water) and you want to purify the solution to have only the product, you don't try to take the side-product away directly; instead, you pour in another fluid with different viscosity that the side-product will prefer to its original solute, and then shake things up. After everything settles, the product is in one layer, the side-product is in the other, and you can now drain the layers into separate flasks and wash/evaporate/crystallize out your product. People, like chemicals, can't just be told what to do; you need to give them a place they prefer to be if you want any hope of them moving there.
anonacct37 9y ago
Look, instead of turning us into strawmen, try and understand. I love libraries. If someone is reading a book or a magazine or even surfing Facebook on a computer I don't care what they look like, smell like, or whether or not they go back to an apartment at the end of the day. My city has a beautiful library. They also have very liberal policies, afaik people aren't turned away. But those tables you'd like to read a magazine at? Full of people camped out, possessions spread around them, talking, dealing. Those isles of books? Now they are also beds. It's really an asshole move to assume that if anyone at any point doesn't want their library turned into a shelter, then they are heartless people who hate the poor and mentally ill. I want better health care in this country. I want better support for ensuring that everyone had a roof over their head. I also want to read a book in the library without being hassled or smelling excrement. Libraries should be open to everyone to use as libraries.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  > "I want better health care in this country. I want better support for ensuring that everyone had a roof over their head. I also want to read a book in the library without being hassled or smelling excrement." The first two should be seen as prerequisites for the third. The first one especially. Is it fair that libraries have inadvertently taken on the role of social care of the homeless? No, it's not. Should, as you put it, libraries be open to everyone to use as libraries? Yes, they should. However, the answer is not to shut the homeless out of yet another place, the answer is to push for cheaper, more comprehensive healthcare (i.e. single payer) so that we can address the problem head on.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    I heard a great name for this line of argument recently: "but first, the revolution!" I empathize, but this is destructive. Deciding we can't have [basic service that worked fine not long ago] until we have [complete change of heart about philosophical and policy questions at the core of people's political identities] will only run civilization into the ground.
    - 9y ago
Turing_Machine 9y ago
"What is your proposed solution?" Well, giving the homeless a better place to hang out would be one option. I don't think most of them are there to actually use the library as such (some might be, of course). As I understand it, many shelters kick them out during the daytime, so they wind up in the library or riding public transportation to get out of the weather instead.
ithought 9y ago
Planned communities that allow people to live with less effort and don't put arbitrary restrictions on them. And homeless push out the people who could be expanding their minds and imagination, trying to improve themselves and society. They sit there, charge their cell phones, watch youtube, sleep and shower. No, I don't think education helps. Technology should reduce the cost of living. We need better systems and societies where paying rent shouldn't require 20+ hours of work a week.
closeparen 9y ago
Provide actual, sufficient, high-quality homeless shelters and services, rather than leaving every other public space (libraries, transit, parks, etc.) as a poor stand-in.
cmurf 9y ago
The city should have public showers, and yes the library should have a smell test, but before even these two things the real problem with homelessness is we do not take mental health care issues seriously, as a society.

irq11 9y ago

Rules. No sleeping. No drug use. No bathing in the restrooms. No shitting on anything. No violent or threatening behavior. Period. Then enforce those rules. One violation, and you're out. Two, and you're out for good. Librarians know who the troublemakers are. They just have no power to do anything about them. It's not illegal to be homeless, but that doesn't mean you should be allowed to do violent, illegal or disgusting things without consequence.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
lebanon_tn 9y ago
The library my spouse worked at was terrified of being sued (happened to a neighboring city) and they aren't allowed to touch unattended belongings.
- learc83 9y ago
  Why are they so afraid of being sued? There are plenty of other public spaces that don't have a problem removing people for similar behavior. Most people maintaining public spaces view unattended bags as a public safety threat.
  - ethbro 9y ago
    Exactly. Coordinate with police and enforce the rules. Public spaces are created and maintained by enforcing liberal rules of access, not no rules of access.
    - jmcgough 9y ago
      Police have been so defanged in the bay that homeless people do whatever they want with impunity.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    It says right in the post why they were afraid of being sued.
    - learc83 9y ago
      And yet it doesn't make sense.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        What doesn't make sense? Someone else got sued for doing something similar and even if they ultimately prevailed it probably cost them a lot of money.
zghst 9y ago
They already have these rules in SF however the violators outweigh the amount of enforcers.
- irq11 9y ago
  They have these rules, but they are rarely actually enforced. Point someone to a homeless person shooting up in public or bathing in the bathroom, and see what happens. If anything, there's a shrug and a sigh and some rent-a-cop is sent to harass. Almost never is the infraction met with punishment of any consequence. Start actually arresting or forcibly evicting people who behave this way. They'll stop coming around. San Francisco is particularly feckless in this regard.
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    > "Start actually arresting or forcibly evicting people who behave this way." This is one of those easy solutions that sounds practical on paper, but in reality doesn't hold up. Let's say SFPD go ahead and do what you suggest. What does that achieve? If they arrest people for shooting up, are you sending them to jail? For how long? Is that going to help them get clean when smack is probably easily attainable in prison anyway? When they're released, now not only are they homeless they've got a criminal record, good luck in the job market with that hanging over you. If they go down the other route and forcibly evict them, where do they get evicted to? All it does is shift the problem to another part of the country, who are probably just as resistant to dealing with it as SF. You have to treat the root causes of involuntary homelessness as if it's a societal disease. The threat of arresting people isn't a strong enough deterrent to break people out of their addictions, which should be clear by now, otherwise the war on drugs would already have been 'won'.
    - irq11 9y ago
      Are we to overlook all criminal behavior because enforcement might make people less employable, or just selectively ignore some laws that you don't agree with? Perspective! If someone is shooting up in the library, their future employability is of (at best) tertiary concern to me. The pressing matter is making sure they don't continue the behavior. We can't just stop enforcing laws because it might make lawbreakers break more laws. The city of SF actually did adopt a policy of forcing addicts into treatment by giving them an ultimatum of jail time for accumulated minor offenses. It worked, but was stopped when some bleeding-heart sued the city. I'm a liberal, but I consider that a tragedy. You can't cure addiction by arresting people, but you sure as hell can stop enabling it on a societal scale. And also, when I say "evict", I mean "evict them from the library". I don't care where they go to shoot up; watch porn; shit in the sink; sleep or harass people, but they can't do it in the library.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ericmcer 9y ago

I go to the SF library frequently and it is a gorgeous library, but it is absolutely full of homeless. I have seen needles on multiple occasions, almost always you will people hear screaming obscenities or just gibberish, and you guaranteed will at least smell some pretty nasty stuff on any trip in there. A couple days ago one of them threw themselves from the 5th story and landed in the atrium. He could very easily have killed someone in addition to himself. I have trouble rationalizing this romantic view of the homeless as these poor downtrodden, down on their luck people who just need a hand up, with the realities I see everyday of mentally ill, dangerous, and completely uncontrollable people. They definitely are not there to read. A few have developed the skill set necessary to direct the free access computers to porn sites. That being said I agree that homeless is not effective as a blanket term to describe anyone without a home, huge difference between someone living out of their car and showering at the gym, and a schizophrenic who hasn't bathed in 6 months.

djur 9y ago
> poor downtrodden, down on their luck people who just need a hand up... mentally ill, dangerous, and completely uncontrollable These aren't actually incompatible with each other. I would consider mental illness to be "down on one's luck", wouldn't you? > They definitely are not there to read. A few have developed the skill set necessary to direct the free access computers to porn sites. I don't know if this is what you intend, but language like this makes it sounds like you're discussing some sort of monkeys, not people. Of course they can use computers. Most homeless people weren't born homeless.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  > "Of course they can use computers" I believe GP was referring to the skills to get around adult content blocks rather than general computer skills.
  - paulcole 9y ago
    At least here in Portland, OR, you have the option of filtered/unfiltered Internet when logging on to a library computer. Looks like SF libraries don't filter content: https://sfpl.org/?pg=2000004301 https://sfpl.org/?pg=2000004301

usrusr 9y ago

> How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? A literal smell test? By offering something that is even more attractive than a library to people who want the roof but not the books. One might even argue that it is undemocratic when funds for one public service (with a lot of popular support) were reappropriated for another, maybe less popular, one. Imagine (in Lennon's voice) the USAF going rogue to set up an NHS clone with money they were supposed to spend on new jets: laudable in a way yet unquestionably out of line. Not their decision to make.

rubber_duck 9y ago

>How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? A literal smell test ? Member only access where it's free to join but you ban people breaking rules ?

knodi123 9y ago

> What is your proposed solution? How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? We already limit library use to those who live within the library's community. Just require a library card to get in, too. Morals aside, the logistics would be simple. > How do people without homes "completely destroy the purpose"? Are they stealing books? Breaking computers? Barricading the doors? Shooting up heroin in the bathroom? Using the water fountains to wash up. Talking angrily to their schizophrenic delusions? Stinking to high heaven? Saying "completely destroy the purpose" is a bit of an exaggeration - but the mission of the library is hampered a bit if you make them defacto daytime homeless shelters. > Do you really believe that all people without homes have "given up on life"? He was exaggerating, but yes - many homeless have no reasonable expectation of improving their circumstances. > Do you think education could be a productive method for reducing the number of people without homes? Those who aren't mentally ill or completely socially maladjusted, sure. Of course, there's a difference between "education" and "just putting them in a building full of information and crossing your fingers". I don't say that all of your criticisms were wrong - but you went off the rails in the opposite extreme of the person you replied to. Any solution we come up with should acknowledge that libraries are vulnerable to the tragedy of the commons, and a great percentage of the homeless are not going to improve themselves without the aid of services that the library has no business providing.

vacri 9y ago
> We already limit library use to those who live within the library's community. "You have to be in the same physical location to use a building" is one of the softest restrictions in history. In order to borrow something, sure, you have to live nearby, but a library is more than a book loan service. For example, I was crossing the US and booking the hotel for the next night every morning. If the motel I was at didn't have working internet, I'd find a library and use theirs to make the booking. I was never blocked on account on not living nearby.
- smokey_the_bear 9y ago
  That isn't even true in California, any resident of California can use any Californian library, and receive a library card to it. Which leads to an ongoing feuds between neighboring cities when one chooses not to have public libraries (see Piedmont, California)

RivieraKid 9y ago

> How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? By only making it free for students. > How do people without homes "completely destroy the purpose"? I wouldn't say it destroys the purpose, but it changes the atmosphere and environment of the place. I don't think people want to spend time with homeless and weird people around them. It sounds harsh but that's the truth.

istjohn 9y ago
More repulsive than "homeless and weird people" is heartless disgust for less fortunate neighbors absent any apparent concern for their well-being. I don't want to live in a society that solves the stench of poverty and untreated mental illness by corralling people into ghettos and homeless shelters. The only humane solution to the stench of human suffering in public libraries or anywhere else is to minister to the unmet needs. Give them medical treatment, showers, food and a bed.
- ticviking 9y ago
  I have no problems with homeless and weird people. I do have a problem with them using the space in a way that actively prevents people from being patrons. I have more of a problem with the tacit assumption that this is some kind of stopgap "shelter" and that the unilateral non democratic appropriation of public spaces to provide a poor substitite is defensible.

derefr 9y ago

Proposed solution: give the homeless a (publicly-funded) place to be that fits their needs even better than a library does. In chemistry, when you have a both a product and a side-product dissolved in a liquid (say, water) and you want to purify the solution to have only the product, you don't try to take the side-product away directly; instead, you pour in another fluid with different viscosity that the side-product will prefer to its original solute, and then shake things up. After everything settles, the product is in one layer, the side-product is in the other, and you can now drain the layers into separate flasks and wash/evaporate/crystallize out your product. People, like chemicals, can't just be told what to do; you need to give them a place they prefer to be if you want any hope of them moving there.

anonacct37 9y ago

Look, instead of turning us into strawmen, try and understand. I love libraries. If someone is reading a book or a magazine or even surfing Facebook on a computer I don't care what they look like, smell like, or whether or not they go back to an apartment at the end of the day. My city has a beautiful library. They also have very liberal policies, afaik people aren't turned away. But those tables you'd like to read a magazine at? Full of people camped out, possessions spread around them, talking, dealing. Those isles of books? Now they are also beds. It's really an asshole move to assume that if anyone at any point doesn't want their library turned into a shelter, then they are heartless people who hate the poor and mentally ill. I want better health care in this country. I want better support for ensuring that everyone had a roof over their head. I also want to read a book in the library without being hassled or smelling excrement. Libraries should be open to everyone to use as libraries.

ZenoArrow 9y ago
> "I want better health care in this country. I want better support for ensuring that everyone had a roof over their head. I also want to read a book in the library without being hassled or smelling excrement." The first two should be seen as prerequisites for the third. The first one especially. Is it fair that libraries have inadvertently taken on the role of social care of the homeless? No, it's not. Should, as you put it, libraries be open to everyone to use as libraries? Yes, they should. However, the answer is not to shut the homeless out of yet another place, the answer is to push for cheaper, more comprehensive healthcare (i.e. single payer) so that we can address the problem head on.
- closeparen 9y ago
  I heard a great name for this line of argument recently: "but first, the revolution!" I empathize, but this is destructive. Deciding we can't have [basic service that worked fine not long ago] until we have [complete change of heart about philosophical and policy questions at the core of people's political identities] will only run civilization into the ground.
  - 9y ago

Turing_Machine 9y ago

"What is your proposed solution?" Well, giving the homeless a better place to hang out would be one option. I don't think most of them are there to actually use the library as such (some might be, of course). As I understand it, many shelters kick them out during the daytime, so they wind up in the library or riding public transportation to get out of the weather instead.

ithought 9y ago

Planned communities that allow people to live with less effort and don't put arbitrary restrictions on them. And homeless push out the people who could be expanding their minds and imagination, trying to improve themselves and society. They sit there, charge their cell phones, watch youtube, sleep and shower. No, I don't think education helps. Technology should reduce the cost of living. We need better systems and societies where paying rent shouldn't require 20+ hours of work a week.

closeparen 9y ago

Provide actual, sufficient, high-quality homeless shelters and services, rather than leaving every other public space (libraries, transit, parks, etc.) as a poor stand-in.

cmurf 9y ago

The city should have public showers, and yes the library should have a smell test, but before even these two things the real problem with homelessness is we do not take mental health care issues seriously, as a society.