Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force – SRRT/ALA

According to the Associated Press, the Porter County (Indiana) Public Library System has revised its access policies with respect to homeless people.

Changes were enacted May 10th in response to reported material losses worth $4,000, attributed to temporary shelter residents. Assistant director James Cline considers the new policies “fiscally responsible to the taxpayers.”

Homeless children will not be allowed to check out material from [the] northwestern Indiana library system, which also has limited adults living in shelters to taking out three books at a time …

The policy allows adults living in shelters to receive a renewable library card on a three-month basis. Children 17 and under who live in the shelters will not be eligible for a library card …

Rachel Jamieson, 26, and her three children have been living at Spring Valley [Shelter] the last week and a half as they seek permanent housing. She called the policy unfair.

“I don’t think we should be responsible for other people’s mistakes. It doesn’t mean everybody is like that,” she said.

While the educational rights of homeless children are well established, public libraries are not apparently governed by this legal framework (i.e. the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act).

The HHPTF encourages Porter County officials to review the work of groups like the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY) and study their materials.

A good place to start? “Homeless Education: An Introduction to the Issues” (PDF).

UPDATE: According to American Libraries, on June 21 the Porter County Library board voted to rescind its problematic access policy.

“Yes, we did jump and made conclusions,” board President Scott Falk said, according to the June 22 Gary Post-Tribune … Assistant Director James Cline, in turn, apologized to shelter representatives at the meeting for not consulting with them first.

After an impressive six-year run, Kathleen de la Peña McCook’s Community Building column in Reference and User Services Quarterly will be coming to an end.

The column—which Kathleen wrote, co-wrote, and edited—has routinely featured articles on the needs of low-income people and other socially excluded groups. With editorial changes at RUSQ, the journal is purportedly moving in new directions.

The HHPTF applauds Kathleen’s work and wishes her continued success in her professional pursuits. Among other recent projects, she authored Introduction to Public Librarianship and teaches a University of South Florida course titled “Librarians and Human Rights.”

RUSQ Community Building columns to date:

Volume 40, Number 1
“Librarians and Comprehensive Community Initiatives”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Volume 40, Number 2
“Service Integration and Libraries: Will 2-1-1 be the Catalyst for Renewal?”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Volume 40, Number 3
“Community Building and Latino Families”
Marcela Villagrán, Guest Columnist

Volume 40, Number 4
“Community Indicators, Genuine Progress, and the Gold Billion”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook and Kristen Brand, Guest Columnist

Volume 41, Number 1
“Collaboration Generates Synergy: Saint Paul Public Library, the College of St. Catherine, and the ‘Family Place’ Program”
Carol P. Johnson, Ginny Brodeen, Helen Humeston,
and Rebecca McGee, Guest Columnists

Volume 41, Number 2
“Authentic Discourse as a Means of Connection Between Public Library Services Responses and Community Building Initiatives”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Volume 41, Number 3
“Service to Day Laborers: A Job Libraries Have Left Undone”
Bruce Jensen, Guest Columnist

Volume 41, Number 4
“Cultural Heritage Institutions and Community Building”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook and Marla A. Jones, Guest Columnist

Volume 42, Number 1
“The African-American Research Library and Cultural Center
of the Broward County Library”
Henrietta M. Smith, Guest Columnist

Volume 42, Number 2
“Alaska Resources Library and Information Services: Building Community in the Forty-Ninth State”
Juli Braund-Allen and Daria O. Carle, Guest Columnists

Volume 42, Number 3
“Sustainable Communities and the Roles Libraries and Librarians Play”
Frederick W. Stoss, Guest Columnist

Volume 42, Number 4
“Using a Homeless Shelter as a Library Education Learning Laboratory: Incorporating Service-Learning in a Graduate-Level Information Sources and Services in the Social Sciences Course”
Lorna Peterson, Guest Columnist

Volume 43, Number 1
“Suppressing the Commons: Misconstrued Patriotism vs. a Psychology of Liberation”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Volume 43, Number 2
“Transformations of Librarianship in Support of Learning Communities”
Eino Sierppe, Guest Columnist

Volume 43, Number 3
“A Passion for Connection: Community Colleges Fulfill the Promise
of Cultural Institutions”
Carmine J. Bell, Guest Columnist

Volume 43, Number 4
“Community, Identity, and Literature”
Elaine Yontz, Guest Columnist

Volume 44, Number 1
“Public Libraries and People in Jail”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Volume 44, Number 2
“A Digital Library to Serve a Region: The Bioregion and First Nations Collections of the Southern Oregon Digital Archives”
Mary Jane Cedar Face and Deborah Hollens, Guest Columnists

Volume 44, Number 3
“The Homeless and Information Needs and Services”
Julie Hersberger, Guest Columnist

Volume 44, Number 4
“Building Lead-Free Communities”
Frederick W. Stoss, Guest Columnist

Volume 45, Number 1
“Human Rights and Librarians”
Kathleen de la Pena McCook and Katherine J. Phenix, Guest Columnist

Volume 45, Number 2
“Poverty, Poor People, and Our Priorities”
John Gehner, Guest Columnist

The National Institute for Literacy is one of four partners that sponsor America’s Literacy Directory, a searchable database of literacy programs available nationwide.

[ALD] is a web site that allows users to find local literacy providers in all 50 states and the U.S. territories. The ALD includes literacy programs for adults, children, and families. You can also search … for volunteer opportunities in your neighborhood.

By entering an address or a ZIP code, you can find detailed information about area literacy programs and the services they offer. You can also generate a map and driving directions for all programs listed … the ALD includes a directory of state and local hotlines and contacts.

Broken Beaks is a new children’s book written by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer. It tells the story of an injured sparrow that is befriended by a homeless man.

In the words of one reviewer:

“The image of the broken beak is well chosen, as it is a simple flaw, easily explained, but still mysterious. Something just snaps, and the bird’s life is never the same again. Watching this perfect bird become broken, dirty and homeless prepares us for the introduction of the man experiencing homelessness and allows the reader’s identification with the sparrow to easily empathize with the equally broken man. Broken Beaks is about the strength of the human spirit and is rich in detail and gentle simplicity.”

Lachenmeyer previously published The Outsider, an award-winning chronicle of his father’s struggles with schizophrenia and homelessness. Library Journal called it “highly recommended.”

Lachenmeyer also maintains the Web site Exile on Main Street, featuring information about mental health and homelessness.

The Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force announces two important additions to its Web site (www.hhptf.org).

The new Resources section compiles links to documents, publications, and tools in the following categories:

• featured links
• books
• children & families
• community building
• funding & grants
• law & public policy
• library services for poor people
• periodicals
• personal accounts
• research aids
• social exclusion
• statistics
• teaching aids

The new Organizations section features a variety of agencies, institutes, and nonprofits that assist low-income people and address poverty:

• featured links
• economic justice
• government
• homelessness & housing
• hunger
• law & public policy
• library & info science
• poverty research
• social exclusion

The task force welcomes feedback and invites resource tips. For more information, e-mail jgehner@hhptf.org.

The University Daily Kansan notes that students from the University of Kansas recently utilized the Lawrence Public Library as a survey site for local homeless people.

The survey, conducted under the social welfare class Advanced Communication and Advocacy Practice, focused on the options that Lawrence provides for the homeless …

Part of the reason why the survey was conducted was because [of] a report that named Lawrence the second “meanest city” to the homeless in the United States. The title was given in an annual survey, which was released in January 2006, conducted by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty …

The class … brings with them various items to give the homeless after they fill out the survey. Items include socks, batteries, radios, bus passes and water bottles.

At first the incentives were a concern because they wanted to give participants something they would use. “We wanted to give them choices and provide things that maybe the shelter doesn’t have for them,” [said] Krista Lee, [a] Topeka graduate student.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that a program in Escondido, Calif., is providing free books to local children in low-income families and isolating environments.

The book giveaway and project were part of Project Success, a collaboration between the Escondido Public Library and the Escondido Union School District. The program is designed for children in transitional living situations.

The program is funded in part by the district’s McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act grant, and the library’s Reading Is Fundamental fund …

The grant benefits children awaiting foster care placement, those whose families are sharing housing due to economic hardship and children whose families are living in hotels, motels, trailer parks or shelters.

Close to 50 percent of the homeless population in the country are families with children …

On April 23rd, The Daily Times of Salisbury, Maryland, published a piece by Monique Lewis titled “Homeless Are Welcome at Public Libraries.”

The article profiles the relationships between homeless patrons and library staff in Salisbury, Glen Burnie, Pocomoke City, and Baltimore City.

A sample:

A homeless person may need help with a job interview or is leaving a bad situation, and may simply need a bus schedule, said branch manager Kathryn Breithut of the Pocomoke Public Library.

A homeless woman who visited the library for two weeks got a job in Ocean City, she said. Another family found work and child care for their daughter after nearly two weeks, she said.

“There are probably more that are private and didn’t talk (about their successes),” she said. “My staff is very people oriented. They enjoy success stories and helping people whether they’re homeless or not.”

Miles M. Jackson, a University of Hawai’i-Manoa professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Library and Information Sciences, published a dandy commentary in March 2002. Jackson makes the case that libraries can transform lives—assuming they are properly funded.

His piece, titled “If You’re Young, Black, and Poor, a Library Offers Hope,” shows how libraries (and librarians) were instrumental to the development of authors August Wilson, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright.

In his essay, “The Ethics of Jim Crow,” published in 1937, [Richard Wright] describes how he devised a way to borrow books from the library. “It was almost impossible to get a book to read. It was assumed that after a Negro had imbibed what scanty schooling the state furnished, he had no further need for books. … One day, I mustered enough courage to ask one of the men to let me get books from the library in his name. Surprisingly, he consented. … Armed with a library card, I obtained books in the following manner. I would write a note addressed to the librarian and sign the name of the white supervisor. I would stand at the desk, with hat in hand looking as unbookish as possible. When I received the books I would take them home.” In this manner, Wright developed even deeper his passion for reading.

The Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago offers the report “New on the Shelf: Teens in the Library – Findings from the Evaluation of Public Libraries as Partners in Youth Development”

This study reports on findings from the Public Libraries as Partners in Youth Development (PLPYD) Initiative, a 4-year, 9-site initiative funded by the Wallace Foundation to develop innovative models for public libraries to provide high-quality educational enrichment and career development programs serving underserved low-income children and youth.

The evaluation reveals that public libraries can be a resource for youth in low-income communities. In addition to providing access to technology and a “safe” place to be during out-of-school hours, evaluation results indicate libraries can provide high-quality youth employment programs that include training in both specific job skills and more general personal and social skills.

Registration is required to access the key findings and final report. Hard copies can be obtained by calling Chapin Hall publications at 773-256-5213.

A related Web conference, “Teens in the Library,” was conducted May 5, 2005. The audio/PowerPoint presentations are freely available here.

More info about the PLPYD Initiative can be found via the Urban Libraries Council Web site here.