Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force – SRRT/ALA

The May/June 2006 issue of MotherJones compiled some interesting facts illustrating gross extremes between the Haves and the Have-Nots:

If the $5.15 hourly minimum wage had risen at the same rate as CEO compensation since 1990, it would now stand at $23.03.

A minimum wage employee who works 40 hours a week for 51 weeks a year goes home with $10,506 before taxes.

The $17,530 earned by the average Wal-Mart employee last year was $1,820 below the poverty line for a family of 4.

5 of America’s 10 richest people are Wal-Mart heirs.

A follow-up piece in the July/August 2006 issue of the magazine further illustrates the inequality and disadvantages poor people confront:

51% of the uninsured are $2,000 or more in medical debt. 16% owe at least $10,000.

Inner-city grocery stores sell milk for 43% more than suburban supermarkets.

In Chicago’s poorest areas, the ratio of check-cashing outlets to banks is 10-to-1.

In 2003, the IRS estimated it “protected” $3.1 billion of revenue by cracking down on EITC [Earned Income Tax Credit] filings. Half of all audits are now conducted on taxpayers earning less than $25,000.

The IRS, incidentally, has been involved in an ongoing FOIA-related lawsuit. The agency has resisted public scrutiny of its statistical information. See, for example:

http://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/latest/current/ http://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/latest/147/

We’ve just added a “Basic Needs” category to our Resources area. Librarians and low-income people can use the compiled links to find:

• community services referral
• child care
• food assistance
• health care
• legal help
• mental health care
• substance abuse treatment
• and more!

Does your library Web site contain information tailored to the needs of low-income people? Are you looking for examples? Try the New York Public Library’s Community Information page.

The Santa Cruz Public Libraries system has managed a Community Information Database (CID) since 1990. Some context on how it was created:

[The CID] was first developed in 1987. The database was a cooperative effort between five public agencies: Santa Cruz County Human Resources Agency, Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency, United Way, Watsonville Public Library, and the Santa Cruz City-County Library. Funding was provided through a Library Services and Construction Act grant. The goal was to develop a comprehensive database of human service resources available to people in Santa Cruz County.

Who is collecting and distributing information like this in your area? And how can your library play a part?

For potential answers to these questions, consult Information Behavior in Everyday Contexts (IBEC), a research program of The Information School at the University of Washington:

http://ibec.ischool.washington.edu

A U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecast has been circulating online of late and lists “The 10 Occupations with the Largest Job Growth, 2004-14.”

It will surprise few people that primarily low-wage jobs are identified, ranging from retail salespersons and janitors to home health aides.

For a quick look at the difference a living wage could make for low-wage earners in your area, try the Living Wage Calculator, created by the Poverty in America project at Penn State.

So what’s up with Congress and its reticence in raising the federal minimum wage? A diarist at DailyKos.com describes “caging,” the method by which honest debates about income and family expenses are stifled.

He cites Beth Shulman and her book The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans and Their Families:

Caging is a way to defeat policy proposals on an entire set of related issues by designing public discourse in a way that makes sure that those issues never get raised …

[P]eople who insist that all people work jobs—any jobs—in order to support their families, must surely also argue that anyone who follows their advice and works full time … should be able to feed his or, more often, her family, right? …

[W]hat happened to the discussions of minimum wage increases, about mandatory livable wages, about guaranteed health insurance? Where are they? You’ll find them, of course, in the cage, right where they know you won’t look.

In 2004, MotherJones interviewed Shulman about her research:

MJ.com: You write that low pay is only one of the problems low-wage workers face.

Beth Shulman: Low-wage workers don’t only make a low wage. Low wage jobs are the least likely to provide health insurance, sick leave, family leave, vacations, pensions. And they’re the most likely to be part time, give fewer hours and less flexibility. They’re often the most hazardous jobs. Low-wage workers get the least training and the least opportunity for advancement if there’s a ladder, which often there isn’t. There’s a whole group of characteristics that make these jobs so difficult. The largest costs for workers and their families are housing, medical expenses, and child-care. It makes life extraordinarily difficult for them.

MJ.com: Have things gotten worse for low-wage workers?

Beth Shulman: The data I looked at were from the best of times, and low-wage workers have been hit disproportionately hard in the downturn. The Bush administration has been disastrous for these workers, from the tax cuts that largely benefit the wealthy, to cuts in essential programs like health insurance for children. We’re going in the opposite direction from the one we need to go.

Information professionals can learn more about economic justice (and thriving state-based campaigns) from advocacy groups like ACORN, the Center for Community Change, Change to Win, the Economic Policy Institute, United for a Fair Economy, the Universal Living Wage Campaign, and many others.

American Libraries Online reported the positive news that Worcester (Mass.) Public Library has implemented a new policy to ensure equal access for homeless patrons and others without permanent address.

Worcester Head Librarian Penelope Johnson said in the Telegram and Gazette that everyone who has a library card will be treated equally; they can take out two items during their first visit and up to 50 thereafter. Homeless patrons or patrons living in shelters will be mailed a postcard, which they can bring back with them to the library as proof that they can receive mail.

As the article indicates, the lawsuit filed against the library has not yet been resolved. And despite the library’s insistence about poor book return rates among low-income patrons, no borrowing statistics have ever been made public.

The policy change is not so much a “win” for homeless people—who should not have been discriminated against in the first place—but more a case study of the disconnect between a library and the needs of low-income citizens.

Las Vegas, Orlando, and other cities have made it difficult, even illegal, to give food to homeless people in public places. Tulin Ozdeger, an attorney with the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, is critical of such punitive ordinances:

The latest trend of restricting groups that share food with homeless people is truly baffling. Clear gaps exist between the needs of homeless and poor people and federal, state, and local government efforts to deal with homelessness. Instead of embracing private efforts to fill those gaps, cities are now trying to punish those private actors for their good deeds … Instead of wasting law enforcement resources on enforcing these laws … cities should be looking for more constructive ways to grapple with the real challenges facing them. Removing a crucial food source … will not solve the problem. Jailing a homeless person for sleeping or resting in a public space will not make that person go away.

In Steamboat Springs, Colo., two men were recently sentenced to six months in prison for removing food from a garbage can:

Giles Charle, 24, of Sumersworth, N.H., and David Siller, 27, of Wayne, Pa., … were on their way to the Rainbow Family’s annual gathering when they were arrested in June and charged with felony burglary and misdemeanor theft. Authorities said they took five cucumbers, four or five apricots, two bundles of asparagus spears and a handful of cherries from a garbage can at Sweet Pea Produce. The two pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespassing Wednesday and the felony charge was dropped.

Hunger is increasing in the United States. According to America’s Second Harvest, food is the second-largest family expense and the use of emergency food assistance is growing:

America’s Second Harvest / The Nation’s Food Bank Network provides emergency food assistance to more than 25 million Americans—including nearly 9 million children (36.4%) and 3 million seniors (10%)—annually. Since 2001, the number of clients the America’s Second Harvest Network serves annually has increased by 8 percent … 70% of client households served are food insecure, meaning they do not know where they will find their next meal. 33% of these households are experiencing hunger, meaning they are completely without a source of food.

In June 2002, the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University published “The Consequences of Hunger and Food Insecurity for Children: Evidence from Recent Scientific Studies.” The report (PDF) notes, among other things:

Even moderate nutritional vulnerability, the kind often seen among 13 million high-risk children in the U.S., can impede cognitive development and impair their capacities over a lifetime. For youngsters whose natural abilities and talents are diminished, the cost is obvious. But the cost also extends to our nation in terms of higher rates of school failure, poorer returns on our
educational investments, and weakened workforce productivity when children reach the age of employment.

How can libraries address hunger? Many sponsor “Food for Fines” drives (which a simple Google search will reveal). In 2001, Amy Ford detailed the Williamsburg (Va.) Regional Library’s efforts in “Food for Fines Drives: Positive PR That Works!”:

We made our Food for Fines system very simple: For each nonperishable food item a patron brings in, we waive the accrued fines on one overdue item, no matter whether it is 5 cents or $15 … We benefit by getting back some late and lost books. Plus we get our delinquent patrons to come back. Many of them feel bad about owing money to the library that they can’t pay back … they do come back, and they feel good about doing something meaningful for their community in the process. We also gain respect from other community entities, which are continually amazed at the countless ways that the library contributes to the public good. Our local nonprofits and charities are very grateful for the help they receive from us. Staff morale improves, and now circulation staff receive far fewer complaints about fines.

On September 9, the St. Paul Public Library celebrates the grand opening of its Rondo Community Outreach Library.

The unique facility, which features three floors of mixed-income housing, will serve an ethnically diverse population, including many recent immigrants and low-income families. Rondo’s collection includes

an expanded Black history collection with original Rondo Oral History recordings; a Southeast Asian history and culture area; more adult learner and language learning materials with over 500 titles in Spanish, a large selection of Somali music and in-depth resources for English Language Learners; [and more].

The name Rondo memorializes St. Paul’s Rondo Avenue and its legendary African-American neighborhood, displaced and destroyed by the construction of Interstate 94 in the 1960s.

In the 1930s, Rondo Avenue was at the heart of St. Paul’s largest Black neighborhood. African-Americans whose families had lived in Minnesota for decades and others who were just arriving from the South made up a vibrant, vital community that was in many ways independent of the white society around it.

Three Rondo resources worth noting:

• Voices of Rondo: Oral Histories of Saint Paul’s Historic Black Community, published by Hand in Hand Productions, won a 2006 Minnesota Book Award.

• A Rondo Days Celebration is held every year during the third week of July.

• Macalaster College’s Civic Engagement Center provides a “Rondo & Surroundings Self-Guided Tour” (PDF).

ALA Policy 61—Library Services for the Poor was adopted in 1990. It promotes, among other things, “the removal of all barriers to library and information services, particularly fees and overdue charges.”

This spring, The Christian Science Monitor published an article titled “Is the Lifting of Library Fines Long Overdue?”. Writer Marilyn Gardner observes,

As libraries face competition from the Internet, Amazon, and bookstores, some are looking for ways to be more customer-friendly. At the same time, book-lovers point to Netflix and Blockbuster, which have eliminated fines for overdue movie rentals, and suggest that libraries do the same. Yet tight municipal budgets are making many libraries more dependent than ever on revenue from fines—so dependent that some even hire collection agencies.

Librarian.net’s Jessamyn West and readers of her site share anecdotes that illustrate the variety of issues at stake, not least of which is a patron’s ability to pay fines. West writes,

I did outreach for a public library and found that, almost without exception, the teens I met who did not come to the library stayed away because they believed they had huge fines and were, in some way, no longer welcome. Our library fines were steep—twenty cents per day for books with no grace period, one dollar per day for DVDs and videos—and once you hit five dollars you could no longer check out materials or use the library computers …

Members of the PUBLIB list have been discussing these matters of late, with a particular interest in how fees and fines—and the language used to describe them—impact a library’s public image.

Bill Crowley, a library-science professor at Dominican University, made explicit his concerns about low-income patrons in a post titled “Fines, Counterproductive Service, and Problematic PR.” His post is reprinted here with permission:

The cheerful march to raise fines may be well received in wealthy communities but have any of the libraries involved actually studied the potential impact on discouraging use by those on, near, or below the poverty line?

Before continuing the discussion I would suggest going to [www.laurabushfoundation.org] (which hosts the presentations from Laura Bush’s White House Conference on School Libraries) and clicking to “The Role of School Libraries in Elementary and Secondary Education” [PDF] by Dr. Susan Neuman (former) Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education United States Department of Education.

Do not let the title fool you. The presentation is actually devoted to comparing public library use by children in Philadelphia’s middle class and poor neighborhoods. The account of how the fear of fines and lost book charges affects borrowing in poor neighborhoods is discouraging. In-building use seems to be unaffected.

So, before one happily raises fines outside of wealthy communities, one might want to consider how poor kids or adults can “work off” the fines and keep both their self-respect and ability to borrow library books.

Here, I should note that prior to teaching in a graduate program I had 23 years of real life experience in public, state, and cooperative libraries, including stints in public relations.

Susan Neuman’s brief (six-page) paper, which Crowley cites, provides research findings that no doubt apply to many other cities—evidence that should prompt improved service to low-income populations.

Despite similarities in budget allocations, there were striking differences in the quality of school libraries in schools across [Philadelphia]. Children in poor areas had mediocre to poor libraries, no librarian on site; further the libraries were often closed during the week, compared to those in middle-class schools in the same city … School library funds were designated as discretionary to be used for computers if the instructional leader chose to do so. Thus, many of these schools in poor areas had no libraries, but computer labs, often empty of anything but the technology itself.

Finally, Martina Kominiarek at Bucks County (Penn.) Free Library contributed an equally well-informed PUBLIB post on fines, which you can read here.

Every two years, the Economic Policy Institute releases a Labor Day study that “sums up the problems and challenges facing American working families” and “examine[s] the impact of the economy on the living standards of the American people.” The State of Working America 2006/2007 is now available. A fact sheet sample:

The United States bills itself as the land of opportunity, where someone from the humblest roots can, with grit and determination, climb the economic ladder. Some even say that concern about growing inequality between the top and bottom of the income pyramid is misplaced because of our high income mobility. In a chapter new to this edition [EPI] finds that rags-to-riches stories, despite their wide appeal, are the exception, not the rule, and that for most people in America today, where you end up is increasingly a function of where you started out.

Our colleague AV forwarded Robert Reich’s biting commentary, “How to Reduce Urban Poverty Without Really Trying” (Aug. 30, 2006):

It’s an old story, really. Areas of any town or city where the infrastructure is most ignored—like [New Orleans’] Industrial Canal levee that burst on the morning of August 29 a year ago—have the lowest property values. So that’s where the poor live. When there’s a flood or a leak of toxic wastes or any other calamity, these places are the first to become uninhabitable. Which means, the poor often have to leave. Then the political and moral question is whether anyone cares enough to help them return and rebuild.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of “welfare reform,” enacted by President Bill Clinton in 1996. Robert Scheer, however, believes that “Clinton Ended Welfare, Not Poverty” (Aug. 30, 2006):

The ex-president gloats over the large decrease in the number of welfare recipients as if he is unaware of the five-year limit and other new restrictions which made it inevitable. Nor does he seem bothered that nobody … assess[es] how the families on Aid to Families with Dependent Children fared after they left welfare. The truth is we know very little about [their fate], 70% of whom are children, because there is no systematic monitoring program … The best estimates … indicate that at least a million welfare recipients have neither jobs nor benefits … For those who found jobs, a great many became mired in minimum-wage jobs—sometimes more than one—that barely cover the child-care and other costs they incurred by working outside the home.

YouTube hosts a variety of videos featuring homeless people.

Some clips are sophomoric, exploitative, and cruel. Others represent earnest attempts to document life on the street and to capture first-person stories. (Note to well-meaning auteurs: please dispense with the saccharine background music.)

The site includes two clever, 30-second scenarios: “Box” and “Scaffold.” Original high-def versions are available on the New York Coalition for the Homeless homepage.

CFTH offers substantial information for anti-poverty advocates and publishes an annual Resource Guide for low-income New Yorkers, including a searchable electronic version. Check it out!

“Katrina: One Year Later” offers an archive of articles assembled by The Times- Picayune in New Orleans. The site features reporting from last year’s catastrophe, current analysis of rebuilding efforts, photos, and stories of the storm’s victims. A related site, Katrina’s Lives Lost, contains tributes and obituaries:

Joan died Aug. 31, the day after the floodwater rose. “It was probably about 105 degrees in the attic,” her sister Gerry said. “The man at St. Gabriel (morgue) said it appears that she died of hyperthermia. It got too hot; she was exhausted by it.” [Her husband] Don stayed in the house another three or four days, until he saw a neighbor’s son going by in a paddleboat, Gerry said. “Don came to the front door and said, ‘Get me some help. My wife is in here and she’s dead. Please get the Coast Guard to come get her.’” Workers lifted Joan’s body out of the attic on Sept. 17.

Adolph Reed Jr., whose many family members reside in New Orleans, writes a scathing critique of the disaster, “When Government Shrugs: Lessons of Katrina” via AlterNet:

The fetish of “efficient” government—code for public policy that is designed to serve the narrow interests of business and the affluent—is the ultimate cause of the city’s devastation. Remember that the city survived the hurricane. It flooded because the levees failed. The levees on the 17th Street and London Avenue canals failed because, in the words of the Independent Levee Investigation Team, “safety was exchanged for efficiency and reduced costs.” This was the result of federal underfunding, the Corps of Engineers’ skimping, state and local officials’ temporizing, and a lack of adequate government oversight—or, in neoliberal parlance, cutting government red tape.

Jill Leovy, of the LA Times, profiles the security staff at Los Angeles Central Library in “By the Book, With Footnotes” (Aug. 13, 2006). Like most mainstream reporting on homeless people in libraries, the article does not mention if the library is working in any capacity with local social-service agencies or advocating for day-shelter funding. One photo caption is particularly ironic: “Keeping up appearances is part of the unwritten code that lets different people mix comfortably in the library.”

“Some patrons will say, ‘Isn’t there any way to keep these homeless out of the building? They are so dirty,’ etc., etc.,” [Security Officer William] Morris said. In response to such queries, “I try not to be sarcastic,” he said. But he thinks, “I’d rather have them than you.” Many library staff have similar, complicated views. They complain about regulars—“a vortex of madness,” one called the situation—then defend them in the next breath. They are protective of the library atmosphere but even more protective of the principle of access. In fact, whatever the rules are on paper, it’s clear that library security officers essentially enforce what one librarian called “almost a compromise” between staff and the homeless.

Earlier this year, Springfield, Ill., city alderman Joe Bartolomucci proposed banning homeless people from the Lincoln Library plaza. Mayor Tim Davlin refused to support the proposal. The State Journal-Register interviewed some of the homeless individuals who use the library and sleep outside:

“People wonder how you end up in this situation and what can be done to help it,” [Tim Hawker] said last week … his back against the brick wall near the south doors of the main library, Seventh Street and Capitol Avenue. “People say ‘get a job’—but getting employment is more than just getting a job. To get employment, you have to have transportation, a phone number, somewhere to put your things … How do you get here? You’re single. You work minimum wage. You live at a poverty level, and you can’t save any money. So there’s no net to fall in when something happens. And down you fall again.” … Most of those who stay at the library actually are avid readers, Hawker said.

Despite repeated e-mails to ALA staff members, a Web page titled “America’s Libraries and the Homeless” remains buried in the ALA site. We’d like to see this page included in the links list under “PIO Fact Sheets.” The document offers examples of how

[m]any librarians play a leadership role in addressing the problem of homelessness in their communities by working in cooperation with other agencies and by providing direct services such as special reading collections in shelters for the homeless, literacy programs and information and referral services.