Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force – SRRT/ALA

The following commentary was posted to the PUBLIB list on 8/2/07 by John Gehner. His viewpoints are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of the HHPTF or SRRT.

Librarian Charlotte Glover of the Ketchikan (Alaska) Public Library wrote the following in a letter to American Libraries (May 2007) regarding Second Life:

I’m finding it hard to believe that any youth services librarian has time to serve virtual patrons. For those who have free time, you could mentor a child through Big Brothers Big Sisters, become a reading buddy at a local school, select books for a youth detention center, volunteer at a woefully understaffed school library, raise money for First Book, or read stories at a local women’s shelter. All of these activities would have a greater impact on literacy. They might, in fact, change someone’s life instead of providing just a fun diversion.

Last year, 85% of Illinois counties experienced an increase in poverty.

I haven’t yet looked how the other 49 states compare. But it’s disappointing at times to think that some of the best and brightest information professionals are devoting their substantial talents to the denizens of a virtual world founded on leisure time rather than a real world with millions of people struggling for a Better Life every day.

I’m thankful that Jessamyn West and others keep us focused on the digital divide.

At my public library, we offer an Internet lab as well as wireless service. Well-heeled patrons who can afford laptops enjoy unlimited wi-fi usage and quick downloads.

Patrons who cannot afford laptops are limited to one hour of Internet access per day—with two extra 15 minute sessions when the lab is not busy—and are hampered by bandwidth (simultaneously shared by staff and patrons) when the lab is busy.

There are always some who insist that it isn’t our task to correct this sort of inequity and argue that anyone can obtain what they want if only they will work a little harder on their own. But substantial evidence suggests otherwise.

Unlike Karen Schneider, I don’t find it relevant at all whether there are generational differences between librarians who communicate on listservs or blogs or between two tin cans and a length of string.

What matters more to me is whether librarians—particularly the brave, brave souls who advocate so strongly for implementation of 2.0 tools—routinely seek input from library users and NON-users in their communities (and not just on technology issues).

Do we accept that, for all the supposed conversatin’, so many groups are not invited to be part of The Conversation?

Kathleen de la Pena McCook posed this question again and again with her Reference & User Services Quarterly “Community Building” column, until its end in 2006.

I simply don’t see enough people challenging the 2.0 cheerleaders to connect the platitudes about “conversation” to practical and broad community-building projects of the sort covered by McCook or underway in countries that recognize the problem of social exclusion. See, for example, Welcome to Your Library.

Annette DeFaveri writes,

Feeling unwelcome and alienated from the library is not limited to society’s most marginalized groups. For many working class adults the library is as foreign an institution as a university or museum. Even relatively well-off working class people may not have a tradition of library use and so may feel that their lives, their values, and their concerns are not reflected in the culture of the library. What they do feel is the library’s culture of authority and deference. The library is not seen as an organization that facilitates the acquisition of information or one that promotes life-long learning. For them the library’s culture mystifies information and the process of acquiring information.

I remain mystified by the volume of reporting on Second Life in the library press. In the end, what I would really like to see is the Library 2.0 equivalent of the PlayPump.

Respectfully,

John Gehner, Coordinator
Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force – SRRT/ALA

By Peter Dreier at TomPaine.com:

For at least a few days in July, the nation’s media paid attention to the plight of the 37 million Americans living in poverty. That’s because presidential candidate John Edwards brought them to New Orleans, rural Kentucky and Mississippi, inner city Cleveland and other places on his three-day, eight-state 1800 mile poverty tour …

Most reporters couldn’t resist mentioning that despite his background as the son of a millworker, Edwards is now a millionaire who lives in a 28,000 square foot house in North Carolina. Nor can they seem to avoid poking fun at Edwards’ biggest mistake during the campaign so far—the $400 haircut …

Few of the news stories mentioned that Edwards made his millions as a trial lawyer representing ordinary people against large corporations. And only a handful of stories pointed out that the two 20th century politicians most identified with helping the poor—Franklin Roosevelt and Bobby Kennedy—were born to great wealth …

Even those who disagree with Edwards’ progressive views are at least engaging in a debate about what the U.S. should do about so much poverty and economic insecurity in the midst of so much affluence. Even if Edwards doesn’t capture the Democratic nomination or the White House, that alone is an important victory.

If you are attending the 2007 ALA Annual Conference in Washington D.C., please consider attending this program, sponsored by the HHPTF and ALA’s Office for Literacy and Outreach Services:

Serving Low-Income People Effectively:
Ideas and Practices for Libraries

Sunday, June 24, 2007
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Doubletree Washington Hotel / Room: Terrace West
1515 Rhode Island Avenue NW (near Scott Circle)

Scheduled speakers:

Laurel Weir, Policy Director
National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
www.nlchp.org

Helen Carpenter, Project Coordinator
Welcome To Your Library, London Libraries Development Agency
www.welcometoyourlibrary.org.uk

Mary Kanani
Institute for Children and Poverty
www.icpny.org

The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law has compiled a list of twelve “opportunities for action that all antipoverty advocates can take on both the federal and state levels in 2007.”

The State of Poverty is America’s most populous state—37 million people. For many living in poverty, opportunity is limited, mobility is restricted, and the road to prosperity is blocked.

The fundamental causes of poverty are economic and structural, but through legal advocacy and policy development we can change the state and lead the way to economic success for all.

The organization has produced a policy booklet (PDF) with background and direction for the following actions:

1. Strengthen the Legal Foundation for Civil Rights and Racial Justice

2. Establish Affordable Quality Health Care for All

3. Guarantee Economic Safety for People with Employment Challenges

4. Invest in the Public Good Through Fair Budget and Tax Policies

5. Expand Low-Income Housing in Economically Diverse Communities

6. Create Redemptive Opportunities for People with Criminal Records

7. Increase Economic Mobility Through Lifelong Education

8. Link Economic Development to Workforce Development Opportunities

9. Advance Low-Wage Workers by Making Work Pay

10. Build and Protect Assets for Financial Stability and Growth

11. Protect Access to the American Dream for Immigrants and Refugees

12. Ensure Economic Opportunity and Safety for Women and Girls

What can your library do to advance this agenda and to assist low-income and vulnerable groups?

April 23-29 is Cover the Uninsured Week 2007.

Now in its fifth year, Cover the Uninsured Week brings together business owners, union members, educators, students, patients, physicians, nurses, faith leaders and their congregants, and organizations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to demand that our nation’s leaders find solutions for the nearly 45 million Americans living without health insurance. What started in 2003 as a week-long effort to raise awareness has become a nationwide movement to make sure that this issue is a top national priority. Each year, Cover the Uninsured Week gains momentum as thousands of people organize events and activities on behalf of America’s uninsured.

The event’s site contains a map of nationwide events, facts and figures, state profiles, news and updates, and more.

An article by Chip Ward, the recently retired assistant director of the Salt Lake City Public Library System, has stirred public and professional discussion.

An abridged version of “What They Didn’t Teach Us in Library School: The Public Library as an Asylum for the Homeless” appeared in the L.A. Times (4/1/07). The complete article is available via Tomdispatch.com. NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” (4/2/07) interviewed the author, and so did LibVibe (4/5/07).

Ward describes the frustrations of library staff who interact with people living on the extreme edge of homelessness—“street people” suffering profound physical and mental health problems, who never manage to escape their circumstances.

His workplace anecdotes no doubt resonate with many librarians, particularly the profiles of “peculiar” patrons.

Ophelia sits by the fireplace and mumbles softly, smiling and gesturing at no one in particular. She gazes out the large window through the two pairs of glasses she wears, one windshield-sized pair over a smaller set perched precariously on her small nose. Perhaps four lenses help her see the invisible other she is addressing. When her “nobody there” conversation disturbs the reader seated beside her, Ophelia turns, chuckles at the woman’s discomfort, and explains, “Don’t mind me, I’m dead. It’s okay. I’ve been dead for some time now.” She pauses, then adds reassuringly, “It’s not so bad. You get used to it.”

The author ably identifies the inadequacies of our existing social safety net and the double standards we embrace.

Our condemnation of transient-style alcoholism is both hypocritical and snobbish. If you are unhappy and caught without a prescription in America, you self-medicate. Depressed lawyers do it with fine scotch. An unemployed trucker might turn to beer or meth. Anxiety-ridden teachers or waitresses might smoke pot or order just one more margarita. Indigent people who want relief from their demons drink whatever is available and affordable or swallow whatever pills come their way.

Ward shows that librarians are not the only ones eager for better answers to the “archipelago of despair.”

Paramedics are caught in the middle of this dark carnival of confusion and neglect. In the winter, when the transient population of the library increases dramatically, we call them almost every day. Once, when I apologized to a paramedic for calling twice, he responded, “Hey, no need to explain or apologize.” He swept his arm towards the other paramedics, surrounding a portable gurney on which they would soon carry a disoriented old man complaining of dizziness to the emergency room. “Look at us,” he said, “we’re the mobile homeless clinic. This is what we do. All day long, day after day, and mostly for the same people over and over.”

He also rightly notes that jails and prisons now house significant numbers of the mentally ill due to our nation’s pathetic healthcare system and the lack of affordable housing.

The cost of keeping a mentally-ill person in jail is not cheap. In Utah, it turns out to be the yearly equivalent of tuition at an Ivy League college. For that kind of taxpayer money, we could get our mentally ill off the streets and into stable housing environments with enough leftover for the kinds of support services most of them need to stay off the street.

Again, the right thing to do for them may also be the most practical choice for us. We could solve the problem for less than it costs to manage it. In the meanwhile, they will cycle between the jail and the library. Is it any wonder that they crave a calm and entertaining environment after weeks, months, or years of fear and noise in jail? From a taxpayer’s perspective, however, it seems cheaper to warehouse them in the library, between stints in jail—or simply to pay no attention to where they are at all.

Overall, Ward’s piece is well-informed and points to new strategies like Housing First, which prioritizes stable housing first and support services second.

Readers must remain alert to the fact that he is describing a small segment of the homeless population. The behavior and descriptions here can easily reinforce certain stereotypes that do not apply to the majority of homeless individuals.

To date, too much library literature has focused complaint on Ward’s “street people” and too little has addressed how libraries can thoughtfully serve all low-income people.

What are libraries doing for those who do not create such sensational portraits, who are otherwise indistinguishable from anyone else, but who nonetheless struggle with poverty and social exclusion?

What kind of relationships do we have with community agencies that serve low-income people? What input do we seek directly from low-income people and how do we collaborate with them?

And outside the library, what are we doing to prompt community change and to create a more humane world?

Ward’s closing paragraphs bear close scrutiny:

The belief that we are responsible for each other’s social, economic, and political well-being, that we will care for our weakest members compassionately, should be the keystone in the moral architecture of a democratic culture …

We will let Ophelia and the others stay with us and we will be firm but kind. We will wait for America to wake up and deal with its Ophelias directly, deliberately, and compassionately. In the meantime, our patrons will continue to complain about her and the others who seek shelter with us. Yes, we know, we say to them; we hear you loud and clear. Be patient, please, we are doing the best we can. Are you?

Second Life is preoccupying a lot of librarians right now. Perhaps we could do more to help fellow citizens obtain a Better Life.

And also …

If you’ve read this far, check out artist Peter Bagge’s take on homeless people, “Bums”: www.reason.com/news/show/119487.html

It was just reported by the AP that paroled sex offenders were forced to live under a bridge in Miami. One of the men had “trouble charging the GPS tracking device he is required to wear [because] there are no power outlets nearby.”

National Book Award-winning novelist William T. Vollmann has published a compelling book on poverty, titled simply Poor People (Ecco/HarperCollins), with interviews he conducted all around the world.

Writing in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (3/11/07), National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) president John Freeman compares Vollman’s project to James Agee’s and Walker Evans’ study of white sharecroppers in 1936:

By eschewing the usual social-science observations, Vollmann has written a book of enormous power—one that honors the magnitude of each story it records. “For me,” Vollmann writes, “poverty is not mere deprivation; for people may possess fewer things than I and be richer; poverty is wretchedness. It must then be an experience more than an economic state. It therefore remains somewhat immeasurable.”

Chuck Leddy, another NBCC member, writes the following in The Christian Science Monitor (3/13/07):

Throughout the book, Vollmann ruminates deeply on the manifold causes and consequences of poverty, and on what obligation individuals and nations have toward the poor. He considers the role of the United Nations, and the widely lauded idea of “more aid, better directed,” but remains skeptical about slogans …

Poor People enlightens, posing important questions and putting a human face on the socioeconomic statistics.

Through the federal government’s Lifeline and Link-Up programs, low-income people can obtain discounts on monthly phone service as well as installation.

The federal standards require consumers to either (1) have total household income that does not exceed 135% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines, or (2) participate in at least one of the following assistance programs:

Medicaid; Food Stamps; Supplemental Security Income (SSI); Federal Public Housing Assistance (Section 8); Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP); Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF); The National School Lunch Program’s “Free Lunch” Program

More information, including state-specific info, is available through www.lifelinesupport.org.

See also: www.usac.org/li

As the HHPTF has documented, U.S. libraries have been slow to adopt the social-exclusion framework for public service. See, for example, the “Open to All?” research, conducted in Great Britain.

Librarians who are seeking community-building models can benefit tremendously from projects launched in Great Britain and Canada.

Through national campaigns, these countries promote relationships between library staff and traditionally excluded groups. The resulting collaborations create more useful programs and services and more cohesive communities.

Canada’s Working Together Project has launched a new Web site: www.librariesincommunities.ca. Though portions are still under development, the site promises info on best practices, outreach toolkits, and more.

The Working Together Project has two main objectives.

The first objective is to use a community development approach to build connections and relationships in the community. These connections facilitate a better understanding of what socially excluded communities want and need from public libraries …

The second objective is to identify and investigate systemic barriers to library use. Many socially excluded people see and feel barriers that may not be evident to librarians and library staff.

The WTP is coordinated by LJ “Mover & Shaker” Annette DeFaveri and directed by her colleague Sandra Singh. DeFaveri authored the must-read article “Breaking Barriers: Libraries and Socially Excluded Communities” [pdf].

Helen Carpenter, Project Coordinator with the London Libraries Development Agency, has helped launch Welcome to Your Library, featuring a Website for improving access for refugees and asylum seekers: www.welcometoyourlibrary.org.uk. The site offers resources applicable to all socially-excluded groups, including practical advice, case studies, research reports, and more.

Welcome To Your Library (WTYL) is a project to increase opportunities for active engagement and participation by refugee communities in public library service planning and delivery. By doing so, WTYL aims to improve access to and quality of public library services for everyone.

A primary component of the social-exclusion framework is an understanding that there are many people in society who have no say in decision-making and have no access to power structures.

Exclusion is not merely a condition suffered by a passive victim but rather a deliberate (if uninformed) act performed by an authority. Social isolation doesn’t merely exist—it is created and perpetuated.

For a detailed yet accessible primer on social exclusion, read John Pateman’s 2005 keynote address from the Vancouver Public Library Staff Conference: “Tackling Social Exclusion in Libraries” [pdf].

The following commentary was posted by Isabel Espinal on the Progressive Librarians Guild list (12/06/06) as part of a discussion about service to low-income people, particularly African American and Latino families. It is reprinted here, with minor edits and with her permission.

How can librarians respond [to poverty]? Good question. I thought of just a few things. Maybe others can think of more:

1. Strengthen the libraries in communities where poor African American and Latino families live.

My thoughts on this come from my experience in public libraries in such communities years ago, but also my recent experience at the University of Massachusetts Learning Commons.

From my experience working in public libraries in Connecticut, it seemed that libraries in poor neighborhoods were often the least well funded and the most vulnerable to be cut. Sometimes the reasoning was low circulation—sort of saying those people don’t read so why waste money on libraries there. The logic seemed crazy to me because to me those are the libraries that are most needed. They should be the last to be cut.

Well-to-do people (who abound in Connecticut) and even middle class people can afford to buy their own books and computers. Poor people can’t. When I worked in Connecticut (and I’m not saying all Connecticut libraries do this nor that they still do this), I got frustrated with the model that rewarded libraries with high circulation by giving them more resources, while punishing libraries with low circulation.

I also was frustrated because the staffing model that was in place in many libraries made it difficult to get out of the vicious cycle. There was not enough, if any, staffing for outreach work, which is time-intensive work.

It seemed libraries too often just sat there waiting for people to come in who oftentimes did not know the library even existed, nor that it had anything relevant, nor that it would welcome them. Or the library just wasn’t open when working people were not working. So no wonder there was low circulation.

In poor communities, and in all communities, the library has a special role as a place. I work at a university now that has a very successful Learning Commons. It’s interesting in many ways but one thing that strikes me is the turn around in the thinking of some librarians who a few years ago thought we needed to think of all users as remote users and downplay our investment in the library as a physical place.

Well, that day might be coming, but right now one thing the Learning Commons is telling us is that it’s still important to invest in places that people can go to to access resources. Not only that but to expand the hours—we are now open 24 hours five of the days of the week. And circulation has gone up by 84% since the Learning Commons opened.

So what does this have to do with poor people and specifically poor African American and Latino people? Well, I think it would be great if three were Learning Commons in libraries in every poor Latino and African American community.

2. People who are not poor are not well informed about poverty and are often deliberately misinformed by certain politicians.

I think libraries can play a role in providing information about poverty and poor people to everyone, but especially in a context of informing citizens whose votes will affect policies that can alleviate, eliminate, or on the other hand reproduce and even extend poverty.

I think libraries in affluent and middle class communities can do a lot to bridge the information and misinformation gap. And this can take on a more active approach than just collection development, which is important.

But there could be displays around certain dates—I know that Kathleen de la Peña McCook’s blogs like A Librarian at the Kitchen Table highlights various observance days that libraries can participate in.

Human Rights Day, December 10, is a perfect example with its logo this year [2006]: “Fighting Poverty: A Matter of Obligation not Charity.” Libraries can also make it a point to invite speakers and authors who address issues of poverty and in particular of race, culture, and poverty. From all angles.

The policy angles are important, but I think for many white (and even non-white) middle class people, they need to hear stories of what it’s like to be poor and black or Latino in America—they have no idea. So library book discussion groups would also be a venue for addressing these issues.

3. What are the information and library needs of poor black and Latino people?

These need to be asked, explored, and addressed. They need to be a priority for libraries.

Isabel Espinal