Libraries as homeless centers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It seems to me that policies that address mental illness, addiction, and homelessness would be a more effective and cost-effective use of public money than incarcerating people who are mentally ill, addicted, or homeless. And better for libraries, too.

I would be all for the "nice" approach to addressing the problem if there was evidence that it worked. As evidence to the contrary, I offer you San Francisco and Seattle.

Oh? What policies addressing mental illness, addiction, and homelessness have San Francisco and Seattle implemented?

You can read about it all online. Each city proudly has a wikipedia page documenting their homeless crisis. You'll be happy to know that everyone involved in producing those two disasters started out with good intentions and a desire to help people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They're *public* libraries. They serve *the public*.

I knew someone would pipe in with that.

Well it's true. NP here. How could you justify keeping the homeless out?

Haven't you been reading? The justification is based on the proposed Aesthetically and Aromatically Appealing Compliance Code (pronounced AAACK!!)



It's a new law that previous posters are trying to implement that would ban anybody who doesn't look or smell appealing from all public places.
Totally Constitutional (sarcasm).

Please add people who wear clothing washed in scented laundry detergent and dried with dryer sheets to the No Go list. They are as nauseating as those who haven't showered in months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It seems to me that policies that address mental illness, addiction, and homelessness would be a more effective and cost-effective use of public money than incarcerating people who are mentally ill, addicted, or homeless. And better for libraries, too.

I would be all for the "nice" approach to addressing the problem if there was evidence that it worked. As evidence to the contrary, I offer you San Francisco and Seattle.

Oh? What policies addressing mental illness, addiction, and homelessness have San Francisco and Seattle implemented?

You can read about it all online. Each city proudly has a wikipedia page documenting their homeless crisis. You'll be happy to know that everyone involved in producing those two disasters started out with good intentions and a desire to help people.

No, please don't tell me to read about it on Wikipedia. Tell me what policies they've implemented. You referred to them, so you must know about them.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps when you find someone’s child dead amongst the stacks, you’ll realize who the true vulnerable population is.

It’s inevitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps when you find someone’s child dead amongst the stacks, you’ll realize who the true vulnerable population is.

It’s inevitable.

Yes, death is indeed inevitable and it may surprise you to know that vulnerable children die every day outside libraries. You may find it even more surprising that they're killed by people besides the homeless.

Grandad is that you?
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/836677.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps when you find someone’s child dead amongst the stacks, you’ll realize who the true vulnerable population is.

It’s inevitable.

Yes, death is indeed inevitable and it may surprise you to know that vulnerable children die every day outside libraries. You may find it even more surprising that they're killed by people besides the homeless.

Grandad is that you?
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/836677.page

Nice red herring. Fact is, if you want people shooting up in library bathrooms and exposing themselves, do not be surprised when one of them escalates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps when you find someone’s child dead amongst the stacks, you’ll realize who the true vulnerable population is.

It’s inevitable.

Yes, death is indeed inevitable and it may surprise you to know that vulnerable children die every day outside libraries. You may find it even more surprising that they're killed by people besides the homeless.

Grandad is that you?
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/836677.page

Nice red herring. Fact is, if you want people shooting up in library bathrooms and exposing themselves, do not be surprised when one of them escalates.

Please opioid epidemic got people shooting up in public bathrooms everywhere and it's teachers out here exposing themselves to students in schools all over. Nothing surprises me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It seems to me that policies that address mental illness, addiction, and homelessness would be a more effective and cost-effective use of public money than incarcerating people who are mentally ill, addicted, or homeless. And better for libraries, too.

I would be all for the "nice" approach to addressing the problem if there was evidence that it worked. As evidence to the contrary, I offer you San Francisco and Seattle.

Oh? What policies addressing mental illness, addiction, and homelessness have San Francisco and Seattle implemented?

You can read about it all online. Each city proudly has a wikipedia page documenting their homeless crisis. You'll be happy to know that everyone involved in producing those two disasters started out with good intentions and a desire to help people.

No, please don't tell me to read about it on Wikipedia. Tell me what policies they've implemented. You referred to them, so you must know about them.

OK. San Francisco spends about $279 million annually through the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, hsh.sfgov.org, which runs numerous programs listed at that site. This is up from $180 million in 2012-13. Now if you don't want to read about it, you can google "San Francisco homeless images" to see what San Franciscans are experiencing as a result of all that spending.

[Anonymous]

They need to let people sleep in campgrounds or give them studio apartments or SOMETHING. No one should be homeless in this country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It seems to me that policies that address mental illness, addiction, and homelessness would be a more effective and cost-effective use of public money than incarcerating people who are mentally ill, addicted, or homeless. And better for libraries, too.

I would be all for the "nice" approach to addressing the problem if there was evidence that it worked. As evidence to the contrary, I offer you San Francisco and Seattle.

Oh? What policies addressing mental illness, addiction, and homelessness have San Francisco and Seattle implemented?

You can read about it all online. Each city proudly has a wikipedia page documenting their homeless crisis. You'll be happy to know that everyone involved in producing those two disasters started out with good intentions and a desire to help people.

No, please don't tell me to read about it on Wikipedia. Tell me what policies they've implemented. You referred to them, so you must know about them.

OK. San Francisco spends about $279 million annually through the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, hsh.sfgov.org, which runs numerous programs listed at that site. This is up from $180 million in 2012-13. Now if you don't want to read about it, you can google "San Francisco homeless images" to see what San Franciscans are experiencing as a result of all that spending.

OK, so San Francisco spends almost three hundred million dollars. That doesn't tell us anything about the policy, the effectiveness of the policy, or how much it would cost to put people in jail instead. It's like saying that the US spends a kajillion dollars on the military, and you can Google "war images" to see what people in the world are experiencing as a result of all that spending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They need to let people sleep in campgrounds or give them studio apartments or SOMETHING. No one should be homeless in this country.

This. They used to have old cheap hotels or rooming houses people could have a bedroom in and pay by the week. Plus there used to be large mental hospitals.

Libraries and other places with public bathrooms are already installing special lighting so people can't see their veins to prevent them from shooting up. If people are worried about this, you can help your local library and advocate to get it done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not follow the example of states that have been successful in combating homelessness? Indiana has the second lowest rate of chronic homelessness in the country, after Ohio. DC's rate was 38 times higher in 2018. That is 1 in 394 people compared to Indiana at 1 in 14,900. Indiana has a law against public intoxication that allows for jail time of up to 180 days. You could argue that this is too harsh. I would argue that it sends the message to people that there is a steep price to pay for throwing your life away to drugs, and the state will not sit idly by and watch you do it.

Incarcerating people suffering from homelessness or addiction is not "success". Indiana is not a model for ANY social policy. Their incarceration rate has increased dramatically over the past 40 years, as has their over representation of minority people in the prison population and under representation of whites.

Some other aspects of how totally horrible Indiana is:

- They charge a $5 copay for health services to people making $0.12 an hour for their labor. This means that their health outcomes are much worse than others.
- Their prison phone charges are among the highest in the country.
- Prisonpolicy.org rates Indiana's parole system an "F-" for fairness.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/IN.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need to let people sleep in campgrounds or give them studio apartments or SOMETHING. No one should be homeless in this country.

This. They used to have old cheap hotels or rooming houses people could have a bedroom in and pay by the week. Plus there used to be large mental hospitals.

Libraries and other places with public bathrooms are already installing special lighting so people can't see their veins to prevent them from shooting up. If people are worried about this, you can help your local library and advocate to get it done.

Here is my estimate of the number of addicts who didn't shoot up because of the special lighting in the bathroom that made their veins hard to find: zero.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not follow the example of states that have been successful in combating homelessness? Indiana has the second lowest rate of chronic homelessness in the country, after Ohio. DC's rate was 38 times higher in 2018. That is 1 in 394 people compared to Indiana at 1 in 14,900. Indiana has a law against public intoxication that allows for jail time of up to 180 days. You could argue that this is too harsh. I would argue that it sends the message to people that there is a steep price to pay for throwing your life away to drugs, and the state will not sit idly by and watch you do it.

Incarcerating people suffering from homelessness or addiction is not "success". Indiana is not a model for ANY social policy. Their incarceration rate has increased dramatically over the past 40 years, as has their over representation of minority people in the prison population and under representation of whites.

Some other aspects of how totally horrible Indiana is:

- They charge a $5 copay for health services to people making $0.12 an hour for their labor. This means that their health outcomes are much worse than others.
- Their prison phone charges are among the highest in the country.
- Prisonpolicy.org rates Indiana's parole system an "F-" for fairness.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/IN.html

They have one of the lowest rates of homelessness in the country, but that is negated by the fact that the phone charges in prison are too high. And a website gave them a bad grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They need to let people sleep in campgrounds or give them studio apartments or SOMETHING. No one should be homeless in this country.

What if the people who own the studio apartments don’t want to give the units to homeless?