this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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Just for transparency's sake before I go into this, my wife is second from the top at the library.
The library here really did have to remove benches outside in a couple of places (in part) because of homeless people. Not because they were sleeping on them, there are other places outside the library where the homeless can sleep and the library does what it can to help the local homeless community.
Unfortunately, some (far, far from most) of the local homeless around the library were either very publicly using drugs or getting so fucked up on those drugs (or possibly just having a really bad mental illness episode) that they were harassing people and scaring kids. So when it came time to replace all of the benches since they got too old, they decided that they would not replace some of them.
There was definitely a big outcry about how the library was being anti-homeless, but it was nuts because there were people on the other side still complaining about how the library always stinks because they let the homeless people in there. I may be biased because of my wife, but I'm also a regular patron and I'm pretty much on their side on this one. It was becoming a huge issue and they really didn't want to keep getting the cops involved because they rightfully don't trust what the cops might do with the homeless and only end up calling them as a last resort.
Society has absolutely failed those people though. There is no question about that. But at some point, the library had to draw a line at how accommodating they could be.
Biggest drug dealers in America - the Sackler family - weren't worth our time to punish. So some guy who washed out on Percocets and can only afford Fentanyl shouldn't have a place to sit.
In America you have two options -
The very idea of housing, treatment, and rehabilitation is too socialist to consider.
I didn't say being publicly intoxicated, I said publicly using drugs. As in they were shooting up while kids were being taken to storytime past them on the way to the library.
The library allows homeless people to be inside it from open to close. They give them free internet. They give them free help filling out necessary government forms. They hang around just to chat. They allow homeless people to sleep outside all around the building. They are literally building a shower and a washer/dryer facility in the new auxiliary library free for anyone to use.
In America, your local public library does more to help homeless people than anything you have probably done yourself, but I guess since they haven't personally solved the problem, they're the worst of the oppressors.
We have a solution for this as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervised_injection_site
Proven highly effective for reducing crime, mitigating the need for emergency response, curtailing disease spread, and channeling addicts to rehabilitation clinics
But because it comes off as permissive and benevolent, rather than punitive and prohibitionary it remains Haram in much of the US.
It's a public service staffed with dozens of people. Of course a single person isn't going to do more in spare time than a team of people doing the work professionally.
But that doesn't excuse the rest of the state for tearing out local infrastructure as a means of tormenting the homeless.
"I did two good things so I have permission to do one bad thing" isn't sounds public policy.
From my initial post:
NIMBY City, USA.
If only they had somewhere to go other than a Library...
Read. They literally still sleep outside the library. The library has not driven them away. They took away benches so that they weren't shooting up in front of toddlers going into the library.
As I told someone else- homeless people can be in the library from open to close. They can sleep on library property. They have free access to all library services including free internet, help accessing all kinds of government aid, and just having someone to talk to them if they're lonely. In another branch, the library is putting in a shower and a washer/dryer for anyone to use for free.
But yes, they took away a few benches because of problem people rather than calling the cops.
What have you done to help the homeless?
As I said, if they had somewhere else to go to safely use, they wouldn't be doing it on library benches. That's who the NIMBY comment was directed toward, the councilmen or whoever that vote to remove those benches, but are almost certainly against having the actual solution because NIMBY.
Instead, just complain about how they smell or whatever, and shuffle them around somewhere else.
The thing is that you can give people every resource and they still will go where they feel like it. Whether because they don't care or because they lack the mental facilities to make reasonable decisions due to mental health issues. There may not be a very good and safe answer for dealing with some folks.
Absolutely should give the resources, but be aware that won't ensure they use those resources instead of doing things a way that is unsafe and/or unfairly inflicting problems on folks.
If only we had some real life data to see if things like safe injection sites work................ oh well I guess we'll just have to make assumptions instead.
He laid out that that sort of accommodation is available, just that some people will still fail to avail themselves of it.
It may be even mostly working around his library, but that doesn't mean there still are people falling to use those facilities.
Are we talking about homelessness or about people walking?
Why is it a library's job to facilitate drug use?
Maybe you are amalgamating all of the replies to your comment into one user, but I don't know why you're so aggressive... I don't think I attacked you in any way.
I'm not sure why you are taking what I said so personal... Are you a councilman?
Edit: Damn that was a quick edit, I could have sworn your comment was much different when I replied. Now mine just looks like nonsense.
To reply to your edited comment: I literally said they should have somewhere else to do it.
Why is it a library’s job to facilitate drug use?
Please go back and look at my initial reply, I literally said the opposite.
This was what you said:
It was a library decision. The decision was because they were doing it in front of kids.
Libraries are funded by taxpayers. The library was getting complaints about kids walking past homeless people on the benches near the entrance shooting up and smoking meth. They were asked to leave multiple times, but they would just come back. So, there are three options here:
Call the cops. They didn't want to do that for reasons I think should be obvious.
Just let them keep doing it. This seems to be your preferred option and it's a good way to get a library shut down via tax referendum.
Remove some of the benches.
But sure, they could have just gotten shut down and then there would be almost no free services for the homeless at all. That would be a possibility.
I think what Prole is saying is that it shouldn't fall to the library in the first place. The city should be responsible for finding a solution. I don't think their comment was opposed to your actions (although I also initially interpreted it that way).
Yes. Well mostly yes.
It was a bit of both. Mostly the former, but I did take umbrage with the part about people complaining that they smell and are a nuisance and "maybe I'm bias because my wife, but I tend to agree" or whatever it was. So I guess I purposefully made it open to being interpreted as having both meanings if one so chooses. I figured they'd only take it personal if they themselves were a NIMBYs — a self-report of sorts.
But yes mostly what you said.
My initial comment:
So I should just ignore the comment after that?
No? What about my comments conflict in any way? I'm just saying that they should have somewhere safe to do it so the library is never a necessary option to begin with. But there aren't because NIMBYs prevent that shit from happening.
Perhaps I'm overgeneralizing, and your specific situation is different.