Tenleytown Library homeless issue

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of keyboard warriors here whom I'm pretty sure have never done anything at all in the real world to help the homeless.

Many of us who have worked with the homeless are the ones making the case to institutionalize them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only gross people in this scenario is OP and her spawn. I am sick and tired of privileged people being so completely tone deaf. OP would rather these people freeze to death than find the only shelter they have in the city. They have nowhere else to go so save me your "offensive smell" and "gag" nonsense.

They have places to go. However, those places have more rules. The library is a free for all.

Including the homeless. They belong there just as much as OP.

No, actually, they do not.

The library serves a purpose. It is for browsing books, studying, accessing the internet if you don't have it at home, making copies, going to children's story time, etc.

It is not for hanging out, loitering, sleeping, harassing people and other things that many homeless people do there. So no, they do not have the "right" to be there to misuse the facility in this way.

No one was harassing Op or her spawn. Again, they have as much right to sit there as you do. You’d know that too if you weren’t a horrible person.

OP here -

My “spawn”? You’re hideous.

Harassment comes in different forms. Yes - intimidation by fear and extreme hygienic issues is a form of harassment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the child of immigrant parents who did not speak English and worked long hours, the public library was my refuge. I spent countless afternoons there reading, studying, doing my homework, and talking to librarians about books and newspapers. It was safe, clean, and welcoming place. That experience no longer exists for many children today, and its loss is a profound social failure.

Public libraries have been radically transformed, not by accident but by deliberate policy choices that elevate the demands of the severely mentally ill, drug-addicted, and chronically homeless over the rights of the working class, poor families, students, and children who rely on libraries the most. This is not a rant about people down on their luck. It is about repeated, unchecked behavior that would be unacceptable anywhere else: aggressive public ranting, overwhelming filth and odor, public nudity, people soiling themselves and then occupying furniture that others will later use, harassment of minors, and the routine conversion of restrooms into makeshift bathing, laundry facilities, and places to inject drugs. These conditions are continually tolerated while staff stand by powerless or unwilling to act.

The result is that law-abiding patrons are effectively displaced from a public institution. No one can concentrate and people do not feel safe. Students are driven away from one of the few remaining free spaces for learning. When libraries become hostile or frightening environments, it is the poorest and most vulnerable law-abiding users who pay the price.

Defenders of this status quo often cloak themselves in the language of compassion. Librarians and outside advocates dismiss legitimate concerns as intolerance. This is not empathy; it is abdication. Compassion does not require sacrificing standards of hygiene, safety, or basic decency, nor does it require turning libraries into de facto homeless shelters or psychiatric wards.

It is a travesty that today, those who disrupt, intimidate, and degrade public spaces are afforded more practical rights than children trying to do homework, immigrants trying to learn English, or students trying to escape chaos at home. When libraries abandon standards, they do not become more inclusive they become unusable. And society is immeasurably poorer for it.

I agree. The city provides shelters and many of the unhoused decline to use them...so they can take over and render unusable any space they want, to the detriment of a much greater number of others? That makes no sense and is also a waste of taxpayer funds. Re the Tenleytown library, I've also stopped using the compost collection station on that corner because of the harassment I've experienced each time I've gone.

You are not better or more important than the smelly homeless person. There is nothing wrong with them sitting there in the warm. The library is just as much for them as it is for you.

DP. The library is open to the public, true. But there are reasonable expectations of good hygiene and socially acceptable behavior at play, too. The PPP beautifully lays all of this out in her post, which you clearly ignore because you have no actual rebuttal and deep down, you know she's correct. Public libraries are for ALL of us, to include women and children - the very same people who are constantly harassed by mentally ill homeless people. But it's clear you couldn't care less about all of those other people who are now unable to use the library as it was intended.

The poster who thinks anyone in an any condition should be able to be in the library apparently does not care about children's safety.

+1 The kind of person who thinks everyone is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want -- rights with no rules or obligations to others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the child of immigrant parents who did not speak English and worked long hours, the public library was my refuge. I spent countless afternoons there reading, studying, doing my homework, and talking to librarians about books and newspapers. It was safe, clean, and welcoming place. That experience no longer exists for many children today, and its loss is a profound social failure.

Public libraries have been radically transformed, not by accident but by deliberate policy choices that elevate the demands of the severely mentally ill, drug-addicted, and chronically homeless over the rights of the working class, poor families, students, and children who rely on libraries the most. This is not a rant about people down on their luck. It is about repeated, unchecked behavior that would be unacceptable anywhere else: aggressive public ranting, overwhelming filth and odor, public nudity, people soiling themselves and then occupying furniture that others will later use, harassment of minors, and the routine conversion of restrooms into makeshift bathing, laundry facilities, and places to inject drugs. These conditions are continually tolerated while staff stand by powerless or unwilling to act.

The result is that law-abiding patrons are effectively displaced from a public institution. No one can concentrate and people do not feel safe. Students are driven away from one of the few remaining free spaces for learning. When libraries become hostile or frightening environments, it is the poorest and most vulnerable law-abiding users who pay the price.

Defenders of this status quo often cloak themselves in the language of compassion. Librarians and outside advocates dismiss legitimate concerns as intolerance. This is not empathy; it is abdication. Compassion does not require sacrificing standards of hygiene, safety, or basic decency, nor does it require turning libraries into de facto homeless shelters or psychiatric wards.

It is a travesty that today, those who disrupt, intimidate, and degrade public spaces are afforded more practical rights than children trying to do homework, immigrants trying to learn English, or students trying to escape chaos at home. When libraries abandon standards, they do not become more inclusive they become unusable. And society is immeasurably poorer for it.

I agree. The city provides shelters and many of the unhoused decline to use them...so they can take over and render unusable any space they want, to the detriment of a much greater number of others? That makes no sense and is also a waste of taxpayer funds. Re the Tenleytown library, I've also stopped using the compost collection station on that corner because of the harassment I've experienced each time I've gone.

You are not better or more important than the smelly homeless person. There is nothing wrong with them sitting there in the warm. The library is just as much for them as it is for you.

DP. The library is open to the public, true. But there are reasonable expectations of good hygiene and socially acceptable behavior at play, too. The PPP beautifully lays all of this out in her post, which you clearly ignore because you have no actual rebuttal and deep down, you know she's correct. Public libraries are for ALL of us, to include women and children - the very same people who are constantly harassed by mentally ill homeless people. But it's clear you couldn't care less about all of those other people who are now unable to use the library as it was intended.

The poster who thinks anyone in an any condition should be able to be in the library apparently does not care about children's safety.

+1 The kind of person who thinks everyone is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want -- rights with no rules or obligations to others.

Stop twisting my words and making stuff up. That is not what I said. I DID say that the homeless have every right to be in public spaces, just like OP and just like you. If they are sitting there trying to stay warm, there is NOTHING wrong with that. I never said they are allowed to do whatever they want. If you are bothered by the smell, check the books out and take them home, princess. I'd much rather that, than the homeless freeze to death.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only gross people in this scenario is OP and her spawn. I am sick and tired of privileged people being so completely tone deaf. OP would rather these people freeze to death than find the only shelter they have in the city. They have nowhere else to go so save me your "offensive smell" and "gag" nonsense.

They have places to go. However, those places have more rules. The library is a free for all.

Including the homeless. They belong there just as much as OP.

No, actually, they do not.

The library serves a purpose. It is for browsing books, studying, accessing the internet if you don't have it at home, making copies, going to children's story time, etc.

It is not for hanging out, loitering, sleeping, harassing people and other things that many homeless people do there. So no, they do not have the "right" to be there to misuse the facility in this way.

No one was harassing Op or her spawn. Again, they have as much right to sit there as you do. You’d know that too if you weren’t a horrible person.

OP here -

My “spawn”? You’re hideous.

Harassment comes in different forms. Yes - intimidation by fear and extreme hygienic issues is a form of harassment.

You are a horrible person and you are raising your spawn to be the same. I hope that smell follows you wherever you go today. Gag away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where else should homeless people be allowed to congregate? Can they take over buses? They'd be warm and get to see the city. What about the Hirschhorn? Our indoor pools are pretty warm. Can they gather at Wilson Pool? What about the emergency room at Children's National? What about the Takoma Rec Center? What about the Quad at Georgetown? Are the courthouses fair game?

Why wouldn’t they be able to use any of those facilities. They are allowed, just like you and me.

Rec centers have membership fees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where else should homeless people be allowed to congregate? Can they take over buses? They'd be warm and get to see the city. What about the Hirschhorn? Our indoor pools are pretty warm. Can they gather at Wilson Pool? What about the emergency room at Children's National? What about the Takoma Rec Center? What about the Quad at Georgetown? Are the courthouses fair game?

Why wouldn’t they be able to use any of those facilities. They are allowed, just like you and me.

Rec centers have membership fees.

Not the one in our DC neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the child of immigrant parents who did not speak English and worked long hours, the public library was my refuge. I spent countless afternoons there reading, studying, doing my homework, and talking to librarians about books and newspapers. It was safe, clean, and welcoming place. That experience no longer exists for many children today, and its loss is a profound social failure.

Public libraries have been radically transformed, not by accident but by deliberate policy choices that elevate the demands of the severely mentally ill, drug-addicted, and chronically homeless over the rights of the working class, poor families, students, and children who rely on libraries the most. This is not a rant about people down on their luck. It is about repeated, unchecked behavior that would be unacceptable anywhere else: aggressive public ranting, overwhelming filth and odor, public nudity, people soiling themselves and then occupying furniture that others will later use, harassment of minors, and the routine conversion of restrooms into makeshift bathing, laundry facilities, and places to inject drugs. These conditions are continually tolerated while staff stand by powerless or unwilling to act.

The result is that law-abiding patrons are effectively displaced from a public institution. No one can concentrate and people do not feel safe. Students are driven away from one of the few remaining free spaces for learning. When libraries become hostile or frightening environments, it is the poorest and most vulnerable law-abiding users who pay the price.

Defenders of this status quo often cloak themselves in the language of compassion. Librarians and outside advocates dismiss legitimate concerns as intolerance. This is not empathy; it is abdication. Compassion does not require sacrificing standards of hygiene, safety, or basic decency, nor does it require turning libraries into de facto homeless shelters or psychiatric wards.

It is a travesty that today, those who disrupt, intimidate, and degrade public spaces are afforded more practical rights than children trying to do homework, immigrants trying to learn English, or students trying to escape chaos at home. When libraries abandon standards, they do not become more inclusive they become unusable. And society is immeasurably poorer for it.

I agree. The city provides shelters and many of the unhoused decline to use them...so they can take over and render unusable any space they want, to the detriment of a much greater number of others? That makes no sense and is also a waste of taxpayer funds. Re the Tenleytown library, I've also stopped using the compost collection station on that corner because of the harassment I've experienced each time I've gone.

You are not better or more important than the smelly homeless person. There is nothing wrong with them sitting there in the warm. The library is just as much for them as it is for you.

DP. The library is open to the public, true. But there are reasonable expectations of good hygiene and socially acceptable behavior at play, too. The PPP beautifully lays all of this out in her post, which you clearly ignore because you have no actual rebuttal and deep down, you know she's correct. Public libraries are for ALL of us, to include women and children - the very same people who are constantly harassed by mentally ill homeless people. But it's clear you couldn't care less about all of those other people who are now unable to use the library as it was intended.

The poster who thinks anyone in an any condition should be able to be in the library apparently does not care about children's safety.

+1 The kind of person who thinks everyone is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want -- rights with no rules or obligations to others.

Stop twisting my words and making stuff up. That is not what I said. I DID say that the homeless have every right to be in public spaces, just like OP and just like you. If they are sitting there trying to stay warm, there is NOTHING wrong with that. I never said they are allowed to do whatever they want. If you are bothered by the smell, check the books out and take them home, princess. I'd much rather that, than the homeless freeze to death.

PP here. I've said before I'm not bothered by the smell. I AM concerned about those who are using drugs and alcohol (which many of them do) and the safety of children (which also should concern you, princess). I'm not twisting words. You're the one who thinks anyone has the right to hang out in any public space. Do you live in San Franciaco?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of keyboard warriors here whom I'm pretty sure have never done anything at all in the real world to help the homeless.

Many of us who have worked with the homeless are the ones making the case to institutionalize them.

+1

[Anonymous]

It's a pity because it used to be a nice library, especially for the family with young kids around there. I stopped going because of the homeless people. I'm hoping they won't migrate farther upward and become a problem at the Chevy Chase Library on CT ave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only gross people in this scenario is OP and her spawn. I am sick and tired of privileged people being so completely tone deaf. OP would rather these people freeze to death than find the only shelter they have in the city. They have nowhere else to go so save me your "offensive smell" and "gag" nonsense.

They have places to go. However, those places have more rules. The library is a free for all.

Including the homeless. They belong there just as much as OP.

No, actually, they do not.

The library serves a purpose. It is for browsing books, studying, accessing the internet if you don't have it at home, making copies, going to children's story time, etc.

It is not for hanging out, loitering, sleeping, harassing people and other things that many homeless people do there. So no, they do not have the "right" to be there to misuse the facility in this way.

No one was harassing Op or her spawn. Again, they have as much right to sit there as you do. You’d know that too if you weren’t a horrible person.

OP here -

My “spawn”? You’re hideous.

Harassment comes in different forms. Yes - intimidation by fear and extreme hygienic issues is a form of harassment.

You are a horrible person and you are raising your spawn to be the same. I hope that smell follows you wherever you go today. Gag away.

Right - I will teach my children to not have physical reactions to external stimulus.

Please post your address so I can post it at the Tenleytown Library so people know where they can congregate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where else should homeless people be allowed to congregate? Can they take over buses? They'd be warm and get to see the city. What about the Hirschhorn? Our indoor pools are pretty warm. Can they gather at Wilson Pool? What about the emergency room at Children's National? What about the Takoma Rec Center? What about the Quad at Georgetown? Are the courthouses fair game?

Why wouldn’t they be able to use any of those facilities. They are allowed, just like you and me.

I would be in favor of the homeless taking over the buses. If buses became known as nothing more than rolling homeless shelters, it would be a lot easier to get rid of the bus lanes.

[Anonymous]

Probably a pretty clean split in opinion on this thread between people who actually go to libraries and those who don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised to learn that homeless people have finally entered NW DC. The rest of us have been dealing with this issue for decades.

There have been homeless in upper NW and particularly in tenley and other neighborhoods for decades. I don't know what plane the OP rode in on, but this isn't new.

OP here -

I’ve actually been to so many libraries and lived in the city for almost 20 years.

What I said was that not many libraries have the setup that has a large vestibule that you enter that is large enough for people to sleep/stay and provides benches for no other reason than to loiter.

Cleveland Park has a normal small vestibule. As does Chevy Chase. Georgetown as well.

I, too, am a liberal. And I wish we had all the answers to help all the people. But the reality is we don’t but the answer shouldn’t be making families - or anyone really - endure the various behaviors and experiences I have seen and others have experienced as noted above.

I couldn’t allow my child to go to the Tenleytown library alone as I’d like to do living In a neighborhood with a library walking distance. I am too afraid of what she would see/experience and how they would handle it on her own. In most scenarios they would be defenseless and have no idea what to do if one of the individuals was having a mental episode or a medical emergency or if they even just tried to approach her. It could easily be a traumatic event.

And to those asking why I don’t visit other libraries to see how bad it is other places, I don’t think the social solution is admonish fears because it’s the same in other places. I don’t think it should be tolerated anywhere. But again, the Tenley library has a unique set up.

I was driving by yesterday and there were paramedics inside the vestibule. It’s not ok the level of trauma that a child could experience.

Is it okay the level of trauma the homeless are experiencing? It's not all about your child, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the child of immigrant parents who did not speak English and worked long hours, the public library was my refuge. I spent countless afternoons there reading, studying, doing my homework, and talking to librarians about books and newspapers. It was safe, clean, and welcoming place. That experience no longer exists for many children today, and its loss is a profound social failure.

Public libraries have been radically transformed, not by accident but by deliberate policy choices that elevate the demands of the severely mentally ill, drug-addicted, and chronically homeless over the rights of the working class, poor families, students, and children who rely on libraries the most. This is not a rant about people down on their luck. It is about repeated, unchecked behavior that would be unacceptable anywhere else: aggressive public ranting, overwhelming filth and odor, public nudity, people soiling themselves and then occupying furniture that others will later use, harassment of minors, and the routine conversion of restrooms into makeshift bathing, laundry facilities, and places to inject drugs. These conditions are continually tolerated while staff stand by powerless or unwilling to act.

The result is that law-abiding patrons are effectively displaced from a public institution. No one can concentrate and people do not feel safe. Students are driven away from one of the few remaining free spaces for learning. When libraries become hostile or frightening environments, it is the poorest and most vulnerable law-abiding users who pay the price.

Defenders of this status quo often cloak themselves in the language of compassion. Librarians and outside advocates dismiss legitimate concerns as intolerance. This is not empathy; it is abdication. Compassion does not require sacrificing standards of hygiene, safety, or basic decency, nor does it require turning libraries into de facto homeless shelters or psychiatric wards.

It is a travesty that today, those who disrupt, intimidate, and degrade public spaces are afforded more practical rights than children trying to do homework, immigrants trying to learn English, or students trying to escape chaos at home. When libraries abandon standards, they do not become more inclusive they become unusable. And society is immeasurably poorer for it.

I agree. The city provides shelters and many of the unhoused decline to use them...so they can take over and render unusable any space they want, to the detriment of a much greater number of others? That makes no sense and is also a waste of taxpayer funds. Re the Tenleytown library, I've also stopped using the compost collection station on that corner because of the harassment I've experienced each time I've gone.

You are not better or more important than the smelly homeless person. There is nothing wrong with them sitting there in the warm. The library is just as much for them as it is for you.

DP. The library is open to the public, true. But there are reasonable expectations of good hygiene and socially acceptable behavior at play, too. The PPP beautifully lays all of this out in her post, which you clearly ignore because you have no actual rebuttal and deep down, you know she's correct. Public libraries are for ALL of us, to include women and children - the very same people who are constantly harassed by mentally ill homeless people. But it's clear you couldn't care less about all of those other people who are now unable to use the library as it was intended.

The poster who thinks anyone in an any condition should be able to be in the library apparently does not care about children's safety.

+1 The kind of person who thinks everyone is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want -- rights with no rules or obligations to others.

Stop twisting my words and making stuff up. That is not what I said. I DID say that the homeless have every right to be in public spaces, just like OP and just like you. If they are sitting there trying to stay warm, there is NOTHING wrong with that. I never said they are allowed to do whatever they want. If you are bothered by the smell, check the books out and take them home, princess. I'd much rather that, than the homeless freeze to death.

PP here. I've said before I'm not bothered by the smell. I AM concerned about those who are using drugs and alcohol (which many of them do) and the safety of children (which also should concern you, princess). I'm not twisting words. You're the one who thinks anyone has the right to hang out in any public space. Do you live in San Franciaco?

And again, we are responding to OP's ridiculous whining about the smell. Not drugs or violence. If that actually happened, she would have received sympathy. Instead, she is whining that she got a whiff of a homeless person. Details matter, princess.