Is it illegal for public libraries to ban homeless and drug addicts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There should be separate libraries for the homeless and addicts. Maybe we can just donate some books to the shelters and they can create a library bookshelf for them

New rule:

People who literally don't have a clue about the topic simply should not post.

Shelters are not open during the day. Libraries are open during the day. Unemployed homeless people need a place to be during the day, so they often frequent libraries. Putting books in shelters will not address the underlying issue that homeless people need a place to be during the day.

The solution would be to keep shelters open during the dsy.

Wrong.

Nobody wants to be in a shelter. Have you ever been in one?

Well, now nobody wants to be at the library.

In my neighborhood the library serves as a sort of refuge for low-income children. Many of these children likely come from bad home situations. The library provides snacks, meals and educational activities. The majority of these children come to the library without a guardian. Kids only need to be nine and up to be alone and those under eight only need to be supervised by a child aged thirteen and up. Would anyone on here want their nine year-old to be around a bunch of drug addicts or mentally ill people? Why are we putting the rights of the homeless above the safety and well being of children? These people ruin the library for everyone, not just the UMC. They ruin the parks for everyone. I've seen grown men urinating in broad daylight next to the playground. I do feel sorry for the very small percentage of the homeless population who truly just need a helping hand. We should definitely help those people. However, most of these people are mentally ill and should be institutionalized or they are drug addicts who made a very conscious choice to start using drugs in the first place. Providing free housing is not going to solve either of these problems.

I agree completely and marvel at those who insist the rights of mentally ill homeless people to hang out at the library among families and children supersedes the rights of those families and children to peacefully read or work at the library without feeling threatened or harassed.

Mostly a case of NIMBY, I’d say. As someone said upthread, those people should offer the use of their own spaces for the homeless to destroy instead, but they won’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I agree completely and marvel at those who insist the rights of mentally ill homeless people to hang out at the library among families and children supersedes the rights of those families and children to peacefully read or work at the library without feeling threatened or harassed.

Everyone has the right to be at the library without feeling threatened or harassed. That includes "families and children" who are themselves "mentally ill homeless people."

Libraries can and should be controlling for behavior that threatens or harasses, not for the housing or mental health status of patrons. Here are examples of how that could be done:

You can and should kicked out of the library for:
-using drugs in the bathroom; this includes shooting up heroin *and* sneaking a smoke or a vape away from your preschooler who doesn't know you smoke or vape
-urinating or defecating in inappropriate places
-behaving towards others in ways that are objectively menacing; this includes following people around leering but it doesn't include the act of being in public while unkempt.
-overstaying your time at the computer and refusing to leave

You cannot and should not get kicked out of the library or refused computer time for:
-being homeless
-being a drug addict
-being mentally ill
-being someone who is "not what [someone else] wants to see when they go to the library"
-looking too much like other people who are also using the computers

There is no obligation, in a free society, to be who or what someone else wants to see as a condition of admission to a public accommodation. Jesus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Homeless and addicts taking over both urban and often even suburban libraries around the country doesn't feel organic. I'm convinced library leadership cater to street vermin to prop up library usage numbers, to keep their jobs, and gravy train of funding coming in.

This is beyond ignorant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I agree completely and marvel at those who insist the rights of mentally ill homeless people to hang out at the library among families and children supersedes the rights of those families and children to peacefully read or work at the library without feeling threatened or harassed.

Mentally ill people with homes are okay though? I have suffered from clinical depression, and found valuable resources at the library. Thankfully I was not homeless. Should I have been excluded?

Way to deliberately miss the point.

Not at all. Its a way to tease out the real point. Is it mental illness that is the problem? Is it residential status? Is it certain behaviors? Is it that you have managed in your mind to dehumanize certain others?

I am trying very hard not to wish that you some day suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, and learn the other side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I agree completely and marvel at those who insist the rights of mentally ill homeless people to hang out at the library among families and children supersedes the rights of those families and children to peacefully read or work at the library without feeling threatened or harassed.

Everyone has the right to be at the library without feeling threatened or harassed. That includes "families and children" who are themselves "mentally ill homeless people."

Libraries can and should be controlling for behavior that threatens or harasses, not for the housing or mental health status of patrons. Here are examples of how that could be done:

You can and should kicked out of the library for:
-using drugs in the bathroom; this includes shooting up heroin *and* sneaking a smoke or a vape away from your preschooler who doesn't know you smoke or vape
-urinating or defecating in inappropriate places
-behaving towards others in ways that are objectively menacing; this includes following people around leering but it doesn't include the act of being in public while unkempt.
-overstaying your time at the computer and refusing to leave

You cannot and should not get kicked out of the library or refused computer time for:
-being homeless
-being a drug addict
-being mentally ill
-being someone who is "not what [someone else] wants to see when they go to the library"
-looking too much like other people who are also using the computers

There is no obligation, in a free society, to be who or what someone else wants to see as a condition of admission to a public accommodation. Jesus.

I am not a Christian myself, but I read your last line as a very proper invocation of Christian ethics, and not just an exclamation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Mostly a case of NIMBY, I’d say. As someone said upthread, those people should offer the use of their own spaces for the homeless to destroy instead, but they won’t.

I don't offer my own space for well dressed white mommies with well dressed white children to peruse my book collection or sit on my coach. So I am not discriminating against the homeless, just against anyone who is not a personal friend of mine. That is the difference between a public place and a private place.

Could we have a law to exclude stupid people from libraries?

[Anonymous]

Twice I've seen people masturbating in the open at libraries. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I agree completely and marvel at those who insist the rights of mentally ill homeless people to hang out at the library among families and children supersedes the rights of those families and children to peacefully read or work at the library without feeling threatened or harassed.

Mentally ill people with homes are okay though? I have suffered from clinical depression, and found valuable resources at the library. Thankfully I was not homeless. Should I have been excluded?

Way to deliberately miss the point.

Not at all. Its a way to tease out the real point. Is it mental illness that is the problem? Is it residential status? Is it certain behaviors? Is it that you have managed in your mind to dehumanize certain others?

I am trying very hard not to wish that you some day suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, and learn the other side.

A paranoid schizophrenic should be institutionalized and not wandering around families and unsupervised children at the local library. I have personally known two schizophrenics in my lifetime - one blew his head off with a shotgun and the other broke a bottle over a stranger's head for no reason. The second person person was a woman I had worried about and reported to social services. I was repeatedly told by others that she was ill but harmless. There is no way to tell who among the mentally ill might harm themselves or others. I think it would be far more compassionate to institutionalize these people and provide treatment, meals and proper bathroom facilities.

[Anonymous]

I use public libraries constantly, as do my children. Most of the daily users are people without internet at home, so low income but not homeless. There are some homeless people, on occasion, but I've seldom noticed a problem. The security guy seems to keep a lid on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Mostly a case of NIMBY, I’d say. As someone said upthread, those people should offer the use of their own spaces for the homeless to destroy instead, but they won’t.

I don't offer my own space for well dressed white mommies with well dressed white children to peruse my book collection or sit on my coach. So I am not discriminating against the homeless, just against anyone who is not a personal friend of mine. That is the difference between a public place and a private place.

Could we have a law to exclude stupid people from libraries?

The poster was referring to public spaces similar to libraries - building lobbies, museums, federal buildings. Those places somehow stay clear of homeless. Wonder how many of the posters on this thread have contacted the managers at the buildings where they work or live for condos and apartments and asked that homeless be allowed to congregate in the lobbies or other unused spaces during the day? I'm guessing zero. How many anti-poverty non-profits are there in downtown DC? I don't know of any (beyond dedicated shelters) that invite homeless to hang out there during the day - why do we think that is? If non-profits won't accommodate the homeless, why do we expect librarians and families who visit libraries to do so?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I use public libraries constantly, as do my children. Most of the daily users are people without internet at home, so low income but not homeless. There are some homeless people, on occasion, but I've seldom noticed a problem. The security guy seems to keep a lid on it.

I don't know where you live but we don't have security guards at our urban library.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I agree completely and marvel at those who insist the rights of mentally ill homeless people to hang out at the library among families and children supersedes the rights of those families and children to peacefully read or work at the library without feeling threatened or harassed.

Mentally ill people with homes are okay though? I have suffered from clinical depression, and found valuable resources at the library. Thankfully I was not homeless. Should I have been excluded?

Way to deliberately miss the point.

Not at all. Its a way to tease out the real point. Is it mental illness that is the problem? Is it residential status? Is it certain behaviors? Is it that you have managed in your mind to dehumanize certain others?

I am trying very hard not to wish that you some day suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, and learn the other side.

A paranoid schizophrenic should be institutionalized and not wandering around families and unsupervised children at the local library. I have personally known two schizophrenics in my lifetime - one blew his head off with a shotgun and the other broke a bottle over a stranger's head for no reason. The second person person was a woman I had worried about and reported to social services. I was repeatedly told by others that she was ill but harmless. There is no way to tell who among the mentally ill might harm themselves or others. I think it would be far more compassionate to institutionalize these people and provide treatment, meals and proper bathroom facilities.

More ignorance. The vast majority of people with mental illness, including paranoid schizophrenics, live relatively normal lives managing their illness at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I use public libraries constantly, as do my children. Most of the daily users are people without internet at home, so low income but not homeless. There are some homeless people, on occasion, but I've seldom noticed a problem. The security guy seems to keep a lid on it.

+1

At my local library, people, including the homeless, get kicked out for bad behavior. I have noticed homeless people but rarely a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I agree completely and marvel at those who insist the rights of mentally ill homeless people to hang out at the library among families and children supersedes the rights of those families and children to peacefully read or work at the library without feeling threatened or harassed.

Mentally ill people with homes are okay though? I have suffered from clinical depression, and found valuable resources at the library. Thankfully I was not homeless. Should I have been excluded?

When you were in your clinical depression did you stop bathing for several months, mumble obscenities under your breath at other patrons, talk out loud to the air, leer at young girls, reek of smoke and alcohol and urinate in the stairwell? Or did you show up at the library and search the internet and browse the stacks, albeit very sadly?

[Anonymous]

Was it always like this? As a child and young teen I was always in the library (usually Chevy Chase, Wheaton, or Tenleytown) and I don't remember anything like this. Is it because I was in the children's room or oblivious?