Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A) terrible, and my sympathy to the victim, the bystanders AND the librarians
B) Why do we allow libraries to be used as day shelters? [b]At the very least, clear them for after school hours. It is so unfair to these kids!Can the city not incentivize shelters to rotate some staying open by day? or, golly, OPEN day shelters?? Why do we only have one of these:[/b]

Downtown Day Services Center
The Center offers downtown day services to individuals experiencing homelessness. The Center utilizes a Housing First method to move individuals into housing by connecting them with supportive services.

The Center is operated by the DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) with support from the District of Columbia Department of Human Services and services from Pathways to Housing DC and HIPS.

Hours Open: Monday through Friday from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm; Saturday from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm

Meals: Daily from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm; during weekend lunch, hygiene items, and PPE are available at Vermont Avenue, NW while supplies last.

Services Available: Showers, laundry, restrooms, phone and computers, emergency clothing, vital records, medical, harm reduction, and housing guidance. Saturday services are available: Showers, laundry, and meals.

Restrooms & Showers
Laundry & Emergency Clothing
Phone Charging & Computers
The District Department of Employment Services
District Department of Health
District Department of Motor Vehicles
Economic Security Administration
Unity Health Care
Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless
For more information, contact 202-383-8810 or e-mail: Center@DowntownDC.org.

Are you suggesting not allowing certain people into a public library? How exactly are you going to check? What if they are homeless but not visibly so? Using a computer to apply for jobs?

Having more and better service centers that help them with all the services at that day center would be great. Put one of those in every ward?

You could not allow them to wheel all their belongings in. You could put time limits on bathrooms and blacklights so no one can find their veins to shoot up. You could station library police who could call in 311 wellness checks on any disturbed behavior. You could ask shelters and the city to not run vans and buses to the libraries in the mornings as I've heard they have done at times. Oh, imagine this--you could create options for the homeless: how about... reading rooms for the homeless with donuts, coffees and computers. They LOVE computer banks. You could have the vans run straight from the shelters to the reading rooms. Yes, it would take imagination and $. We seem to spend plenty of the latter on social issues, and completely lack the former.

I'm with you on making attractive other options that benefit them. But I can't get behind things that would hurt us all, like black lights in a bathroom. I can't imagine my kids going into a bathroom like that.

your child should only use the bathroom attached to the children's section. no adults are allowed in without a child. at least at mlk library. this heart breaking- that is such cosy library and there are kids from Rosevelt there all the time!

Anonymous wrote:The Silver Spring MD library goes so much further than any of the DC ones when it comes to the amount of space devoted to safe warm quiet seats for homeless people to stare into space. Several dozens last time we were there. The kids library has signs saying that you will have to relocate if you don’t have children. But the rest of the few floors of the library are as much of a shelter as a library at this point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Democrats won't do what needs to be done and ignore the problem.
Republicans only whine, blame and complain, they won't do what needs to be done either.

I travel a lot for work. Often I end up in "red" states and while I don't like a lot of their policies, particularly on guns and reproductive health, I've also found that whatever they are doing to deal with homeless has results. You see a lot fewer homeless on the streets there. I don't know if they lock them up, get them help, or ship them out, but the problem just isn't visually as widespread there.

My next business trip is downtown San Francisco.. Not looking forward to that. I'm embarrassed to take our foreign clients out for dinner around there, the situation is so bad.

Democratic homeless policies are similar to Covid policies. Democratic cities and states locked people down, limited freedoms, ruined businesses, kept kids out of school - did it actually help with Covid? Sure doesn’t seem like it.

Similar situation with the homeless. The democratic policies don’t do anything to actually address the problem. In fact their policies encourage homelessness

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Silver Spring MD library goes so much further than any of the DC ones when it comes to the amount of space devoted to safe warm quiet seats for homeless people to stare into space. Several dozens last time we were there. The kids library has signs saying that you will have to relocate if you don’t have children. But the rest of the few floors of the library are as much of a shelter as a library at this point.

Do we need libraries at this point? Everything is online. Convert them to all to shelters and retrain the staff.

Spoken like a true philistine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Silver Spring MD library goes so much further than any of the DC ones when it comes to the amount of space devoted to safe warm quiet seats for homeless people to stare into space. Several dozens last time we were there. The kids library has signs saying that you will have to relocate if you don’t have children. But the rest of the few floors of the library are as much of a shelter as a library at this point.

Do we need libraries at this point? Everything is online. Convert them to all to shelters and retrain the staff.

Anonymous wrote:The Silver Spring MD library goes so much further than any of the DC ones when it comes to the amount of space devoted to safe warm quiet seats for homeless people to stare into space. Several dozens last time we were there. The kids library has signs saying that you will have to relocate if you don’t have children. But the rest of the few floors of the library are as much of a shelter as a library at this point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why was there no description of the assailant in the linked article? It says witnesses held him/them. Was this random or targeted?

It was targeted. There is a link to a tweet containing the police report in this thread.

The stabber claims the deceased sold him bad drugs that caused him to OD. He had previously burned the tent of the deceased and there was a recent tent fire near the metro. Then he stabbed him.

The dynamics of drug use, dealing, mental illness and violence/criminal behavior have generally been recognized as significant in the population of those who choose to live outside and use, for self medication of mental illness or otherwise. Current street drugs can trigger mental illness or cause brain damage, see The Atlantic article on current versions of meth. Others who are unhoused use shelters and comply with rules or have families or acquaintances willing to allow them to couch surf.

Previously, courts would incentivize treatment or rehab by trading off sentences for misdemeanors. Now that so much has been decriminalized, there is not the same carrot available, nor are those who commit crimes held as often as in the past. That provided a time of drying out and stabilization that could have led to insight re: treatment. Now the cycle has fewer points of possible change.

Anyone who looks at MPD releases re: arrests will see how many involve the unhoused. Living in tent smoking meth does not automatically make you Mr. Rogers. Many violent crimes are caused by unhoused people in one or more categories of addiction, mental illness or past violent & criminal behavior. Many are involved in the drug trade. The myth of Housing First has pushed the propaganda that sticking people from tents or Union Station into apartments in NW will transform the core issues. Treatment for mental illness or addiction is voluntary. Advocates wax poetic about the "communities" the same ones in which many homeless are raped, killed and OD. Homeless Inc is big money for SO many, but it makes it off the back of human misery, it's cruel. There are also huge public safety issues. It works only for those who financially profit off of it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A) terrible, and my sympathy to the victim, the bystanders AND the librarians
B) Why do we allow libraries to be used as day shelters? [b]At the very least, clear them for after school hours. It is so unfair to these kids!Can the city not incentivize shelters to rotate some staying open by day? or, golly, OPEN day shelters?? Why do we only have one of these:[/b]

Downtown Day Services Center
The Center offers downtown day services to individuals experiencing homelessness. The Center utilizes a Housing First method to move individuals into housing by connecting them with supportive services.

The Center is operated by the DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) with support from the District of Columbia Department of Human Services and services from Pathways to Housing DC and HIPS.

Hours Open: Monday through Friday from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm; Saturday from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm

Meals: Daily from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm; during weekend lunch, hygiene items, and PPE are available at Vermont Avenue, NW while supplies last.

Services Available: Showers, laundry, restrooms, phone and computers, emergency clothing, vital records, medical, harm reduction, and housing guidance. Saturday services are available: Showers, laundry, and meals.

Restrooms & Showers
Laundry & Emergency Clothing
Phone Charging & Computers
The District Department of Employment Services
District Department of Health
District Department of Motor Vehicles
Economic Security Administration
Unity Health Care
Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless
For more information, contact 202-383-8810 or e-mail: Center@DowntownDC.org.

Are you suggesting not allowing certain people into a public library? How exactly are you going to check? What if they are homeless but not visibly so? Using a computer to apply for jobs?

Having more and better service centers that help them with all the services at that day center would be great. Put one of those in every ward?

You could not allow them to wheel all their belongings in. You could put time limits on bathrooms and blacklights so no one can find their veins to shoot up. You could station library police who could call in 311 wellness checks on any disturbed behavior. You could ask shelters and the city to not run vans and buses to the libraries in the mornings as I've heard they have done at times. Oh, imagine this--you could create options for the homeless: how about... reading rooms for the homeless with donuts, coffees and computers. They LOVE computer banks. You could have the vans run straight from the shelters to the reading rooms. Yes, it would take imagination and $. We seem to spend plenty of the latter on social issues, and completely lack the former.

I'm with you on making attractive other options that benefit them. But I can't get behind things that would hurt us all, like black lights in a bathroom. I can't imagine my kids going into a bathroom like that.

your child should only use the bathroom attached to the children's section. no adults are allowed in without a child. at least at mlk library. this heart breaking- that is such cosy library and there are kids from Rosevelt there all the time!

MLK library was across the street from my office. I used to go all the time until I noticed I was alone with 10-20 homeless men, staring at me, while I looked for books on the second floor. I stopped using the library because I felt unsafe.

Anonymous wrote:Last evening a man was stabbed to death inside the Petworth library.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/man-fatally-stabbed-at-petworth-library-police-say/ar-AA189TuV

A father tweeted that it happened right next to his young kids at the computers. Thread here https://twitter.com/jamesmsalt/status/1631453458027929601

There has been an uptick in violence in that immediate area, we need to press the Council and mayor to step up re: safety. So many families live in the neighborhood, when using the library after dinner is not safe, something needs to change.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Democrats won't do what needs to be done and ignore the problem.
Republicans only whine, blame and complain, they won't do what needs to be done either.

I travel a lot for work. Often I end up in "red" states and while I don't like a lot of their policies, particularly on guns and reproductive health, I've also found that whatever they are doing to deal with homeless has results. You see a lot fewer homeless on the streets there. I don't know if they lock them up, get them help, or ship them out, but the problem just isn't visually as widespread there.

My next business trip is downtown San Francisco.. Not looking forward to that. I'm embarrassed to take our foreign clients out for dinner around there, the situation is so bad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So disturbed by this. Why do the shelters close down during the day? This shouldn't be the job of libraries and librarians.

It has been like that since the late 80s in every city I have lived in. Libraries, often w/o any security are defacto shelters for addicts and the mentally ill.

This is true. I worked in a library as a teen and numerous men exposed themselves to us. If you want to see half naked me, the library is the place to be. After a while, I started rating them on a scale of 1-10. Usually a -1. It’s the ugliest people running around exposing themselves. You’re never like, “Yeah!”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So disturbed by this. Why do the shelters close down during the day? This shouldn't be the job of libraries and librarians.

It has been like that since the late 80s in every city I have lived in. Libraries, often w/o any security are defacto shelters for addicts and the mentally ill.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Democrats won't do what needs to be done and ignore the problem.
Republicans only whine, blame and complain, they won't do what needs to be done either.

I travel a lot for work. Often I end up in "red" states and while I don't like a lot of their policies, particularly on guns and reproductive health, I've also found that whatever they are doing to deal with homeless has results. You see a lot fewer homeless on the streets there. I don't know if they lock them up, get them help, or ship them out, but the problem just isn't visually as widespread there.

My next business trip is downtown San Francisco.. Not looking forward to that. I'm embarrassed to take our foreign clients out for dinner around there, the situation is so bad.