Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force – SRRT/ALA

The University of Illinois’ News Bureau recently interviewed Barry Ackerson, associate dean and director of the master’s program in the School of Social Work.

Ackerson responds to questions colored by the recent survey published in Public Libraries. The survey suggested librarians were overwhelmingly concerned about mentally ill patrons.

What is your reaction to policies such as those at public libraries that seem to exclude homeless or mentally ill patrons?

I have some very strong feelings about them, but I’m not an unbiased person. My late wife, to whom I was married for 30 years, was an academic librarian, so I have some feelings for the issues that librarians contend with …

If someone is simply wearing old, tattered clothes and hasn’t bathed recently, I firmly believe that people in our society need to respect that that person has a right to live in our community. If they’re bothering other people, it’s a different issue. …

But what if they make other people uneasy or scare other patrons away from public spaces?

… We need to have some very vigorous services because some of these people have been in and out of our systems for a long time, and the services we currently have aren’t meeting their needs.

I’m an advocate of community outreach programs and assertive community treatment. I think social workers and mental health professionals shouldn’t do all of our jobs sitting behind our desks.

Read the whole piece.

As long as we keep defining them as homeless they won’t according to two recent feature articles in Public Libraries: “Aiming High, Reaching Out, and Doing Good” and “Problems Associated with Mentally Ill Individuals in Public Libraries.” You can infer a lot about these articles given their titles. The first was written by a reference librarian, Linda Tashbook, the other by three mental health professionals, who advocate that mental health professionals should provide consulting services to public libraries. The librarian tells us that homeless people can be our best patrons considering their informational needs: law, justice, and citizenship, and that they, more than anyone, can appreciate the public library as a bastion of democracy. Tashbook writes, “Reaching out to prospective and present yet disconnected homeless patrons with legal information engages their interest and also helps to reduce their disenfranchisement; they can’t be completely distinct from society if a venerable institution like the library knows about the facts of their existence and acknowledges that they have legal rights applicable to that existence.” The mental health professionals state that there is a pandemic of problematic individuals threatening the future of public libraries, but they base their argument on faulty logic and a flawed survey. Their solution for libraries with homeless patrons is for them to “identify the 10 percent of problematic individuals and ensure they receive treatment for their psychiatric disorders. This can be done in a number of ways, including through the use assisted outpatient treatment (AOT), which requires such individuals to follow a treatment plan (including in some jurisdictions taking medication) as a condition for living in the community.” Since when is the library a place to keep the community out of? Wouldn’t that be taking the public out of public libraries?

William Julius Wilson has authored a new book titled More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City.

In early March, The New York Times Book Review carried Richard Thompson Ford’s positive review:

[Wilson] argues that the legacy of racism and changes in the economy matter more than the dysfunctional culture of the ghetto. And he rejects the argument that the black poor are responsible for their predicament, insisting that an aggressive public policy response is necessary to break the cycle of poverty …

[T]he law’s arm is not long enough to reach bigotry that occurred in the past, nor can it get a grip on the economic and demographic changes that have hollowed out America’s inner cities. The urban poor need remedies that judges cannot order: public and private investment to create jobs that pay a living wage, training to help them learn new skills and understand the job market, and most of all a chance to move into racially and economically integrated neighborhoods where there are better opportunities and healthier cultural norms.

They likewise need a new generation of librarians to tackle these issues with other community partners.

Sudhir Venkatesh at Salon.com also praised the book:

Critics will complain that Wilson himself has little to offer in terms of policy recommendations. But More Than Just Race contains some clues as to where he may be headed. He emphasizes the advantages of “race neutral” programs. Wilson knows that Americans and their elected leaders are more likely to support initiatives that are not identified with poor blacks. And in this economy, there is no shortage of disadvantaged Americans—white or black—who require employment assistance and supportive services.

He is also partial to addressing joblessness first, despite his insistence that culture matters (and that behaviors don’t change as quickly as policymakers wish). Wilson repeatedly points to the benefits that jobs programs and vocational training have on the cultural front. Stated somewhat crudely, increasing employment will reduce the number of people who might promote or even condone deviant behavior. Change might not occur overnight, and it may not be wholesale, but it will take place.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter proposed closing Charles Durham Library (as well as other libraries in poorer Philadelphia communities) but this plan continues to face community opposition. See full article.

See the online petition.

“One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation, at a cost to the states of $47 billion in 2008, according to a new study. Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance, based on state and federal data. Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending, which quadrupled in the past two decades, according to the report Monday by the Pew Center on the States, the first breakdown of spending in confinement and supervision in the past seven years.”

See the full article.

“In December, when Project ACT, a social service program for homeless students run by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, asked a group of homeless parents what they wanted for Christmas, the parents responded with wish lists worthy of Little Dorrit: toilet paper, bleach, paper towels, food.”

This story, along with others, appears in the article, “Hope for the Homeless: With homeless rates at record highs, America needs a bold new housing policy” (The Nation, Feb. 9, 2009).

224,000 students are homeless in California.
In Boston, homeless families number 3,870.
9,700 homeless families seek shelter in New York City every night.

“The number of Americans who say their lives are a struggle climbed steeply last year from less than half the population to nearly six in 10 people, a vast Gallup poll showed Friday.”

“US unemployment jumped to a 16-year high of 7.2 percent as a deepening recession pushed employers to shed a massive 524,000 jobs in December, capping the worst annual performance since 1945.”

Berkeley Public Library’s controversial RFID checkout system was bought out by 3M in 2008. 3M refused to sign the standard City of Berkeley forms requiring that they will not, for the life of the contract, work for nuclear weapons or do business with oppressive states (as defined by the City of Berkeley). The Peace and Justice Commission denied a waiver for 3M. The final decision rests with the Berkeley City Council.

Graphic novels are a suitable medium for illustrating cold, hard facts. They can literally put a face on morbid, impersonal economic reality. Lois Ahrens understands this and perfects the medium well in the graphic novel, The Real Cost of Prisons Comix. This collective work, part of the Real Cost of Prisons Project, which initially began with the work of economists, reveals the human cost of the prison industry, where 2.3 million people a day are locked up in our nation’s prisons. The work is in three parts, “Prison Town,” “Prisoners of the War on Drugs,” and “Prisoners of a Hard Life.” “Prison Town” details the economic incentives behind mandatory sentencing guidelines and describes how the prison industry thrives in rural America, driving out local businesses and eroding community. “Prisoners of the War on Drugs” relates how racism, sexism, and classism fuels the prison industry. “Prisoners of a Hard Life” provides personal stories of women prisoners and their children. The illustrations, all in stark black and white, are paired beautifully with the text. Each section ends with reader responses, from community organizers to academics to prisoners and there is a glossary of terms used in the book. The series is designed as an educational tool for anyone who is interested or affected, which given current statistics, is one in every 32 Americans.

Edward Robinson-El, the new manager of D.C.’s West End Library, welcomes everyone in the library, including homeless people, but some West End Friends are not as hospitable. The issue has so divided this community that some feel it would be better to close the library for a time. See the West End Library Friends customer survey.

Care to comment? Email the DC Library: commentssuggestions.dcpl@dc.gov

or The West End Library Friends group:
westendlibraryfriends@yahoo.com