Reply to Tenleytown Library homeless issue

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.

Why will tax-payers continue to fund libraries if they are de-facto homeless shelters? [/quote]

As a friend of mine said about the new wing of the AMNH, which is literally just a big hangout zone, not an education wing, there are no exhibits but just a big set of stadium seats  -
"It reflects the co-opting of public space for private use".
I think it reflects the breakdown of civic space and now has to be privatized.

People who used to hang out in the public park or the public areas outside of the museum now find refuge in the controlled space of the AMNH atrium. The uncontrollable behavior of the homeless and any number of free-spirited public malcontents now can be safely exempted by hanging out in the museum's atrium where there are security guards to shoo errant guests away.
The libraries have failed so now the museums step in to provide the space for meeting, sharing or reflection without foul odors and the possibility of harassment.
We reflexably assume taht nobody hangs out in public parks unless they have issues. Consider how we studiously calculate the danger levels of someone sitting on a public bench. Don't make eye contact but check out if there are lots of bags around them, are their clothes tattered, are they muttering to themselves, do they look like they are waiting for someone or treating it like their living room, are they way too comfortable on that bench... we spend more and more time unconsciously sizing up potential behavior problems with people loitering in public spaces than just a few years ago.
Aw shucks, why bother hanging out in the park when someone might harass you for money or just harass you in general, pay a small admission and hang out in the safe public zone of a museum.[/quote]

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