[codehusker]

What is your proposed solution? How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? A literal smell test?

How do people without homes "completely destroy the purpose"? Are they stealing books? Breaking computers? Barricading the doors?

Do you really believe that all people without homes have "given up on life"? Not a single one is "working hard and trying to excel in life"? Have you heard of working people without homes? Particularly in LA, SF, et al. where the cost of a home vastly exceeds the income of many people?

Do you think education could be a productive method for reducing the number of people without homes?

[knodi123]

> What is your proposed solution? How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes?

We already limit library use to those who live within the library's community. Just require a library card to get in, too. Morals aside, the logistics would be simple.

> How do people without homes "completely destroy the purpose"? Are they stealing books? Breaking computers? Barricading the doors?

Shooting up heroin in the bathroom? Using the water fountains to wash up. Talking angrily to their schizophrenic delusions? Stinking to high heaven? Saying "completely destroy the purpose" is a bit of an exaggeration - but the mission of the library is hampered a bit if you make them defacto daytime homeless shelters.

> Do you really believe that all people without homes have "given up on life"?

He was exaggerating, but yes - many homeless have no reasonable expectation of improving their circumstances.

> Do you think education could be a productive method for reducing the number of people without homes?

Those who aren't mentally ill or completely socially maladjusted, sure. Of course, there's a difference between "education" and "just putting them in a building full of information and crossing your fingers".

I don't say that all of your criticisms were wrong - but you went off the rails in the opposite extreme of the person you replied to. Any solution we come up with should acknowledge that libraries are vulnerable to the tragedy of the commons, and a great percentage of the homeless are not going to improve themselves without the aid of services that the library has no business providing.

[vacri]

> We already limit library use to those who live within the library's community.

"You have to be in the same physical location to use a building" is one of the softest restrictions in history.

In order to borrow something, sure, you have to live nearby, but a library is more than a book loan service. For example, I was crossing the US and booking the hotel for the next night every morning. If the motel I was at didn't have working internet, I'd find a library and use theirs to make the booking. I was never blocked on account on not living nearby.

[smokey_the_bear]

That isn't even true in California, any resident of California can use any Californian library, and receive a library card to it. Which leads to an ongoing feuds between neighboring cities when one chooses not to have public libraries (see Piedmont, California)

[knodi123]

> In order to borrow something, sure, you have to live nearby,

The question was asked, how can we logistically enforce no homeless people. The answer is (new, non-existing policy here): restrict access to those who can borrow books. That's how we could do it, logistically.

[ericmcer]

I go to the SF library frequently and it is a gorgeous library, but it is absolutely full of homeless. I have seen needles on multiple occasions, almost always you will people hear screaming obscenities or just gibberish, and you guaranteed will at least smell some pretty nasty stuff on any trip in there.

A couple days ago one of them threw themselves from the 5th story and landed in the atrium. He could very easily have killed someone in addition to himself. I have trouble rationalizing this romantic view of the homeless as these poor downtrodden, down on their luck people who just need a hand up, with the realities I see everyday of mentally ill, dangerous, and completely uncontrollable people. They definitely are not there to read. A few have developed the skill set necessary to direct the free access computers to porn sites.

That being said I agree that homeless is not effective as a blanket term to describe anyone without a home, huge difference between someone living out of their car and showering at the gym, and a schizophrenic who hasn't bathed in 6 months.

[sedachv]

> I have trouble rationalizing this romantic view of the homeless as these poor downtrodden, down on their luck people who just need a hand up, with the realities I see everyday of mentally ill, dangerous, and completely uncontrollable people.

That is because this "romantic view" is a straw man you came up with so that you can rationalize writing a comment attacking the homeless and the mentally ill, instead of doing something constructive. Do you participate in the San Francisco Tenants Union? Are you doing anything to help SB562 (single-payer in California)? When was the last time you gave a homeless person change?

You can whine about homeless people all you want on HN but that says more about your inadequacies as a person than about the homeless. Until the lack of affordable access to housing and mental health services is resolved the homeless population in California will keep growing.

[hueving]

Affordable housing will do absolutely nothing for the type of homeless people OP is talking about (drug addicts and the mentally ill). They are homeless because they have no stability in their life and would not be able to hold a job to pay rent regardless of the cost.

The class of homeless you are referring to is people pushed out of their homes due to rising prices and their limited income. These people (in my experience) are not the ones going around screaming at people an not bathing for months. You would most likely not even know they are homeless.

You are not talking about the same groups of people so you are talking past each other and nothing productive will come of your exchange.

[huac]

Hence why the commenter you're replying to supports single payer healthcare, to address mental health issues and addiction.

And having affordable housing obviously creates some stability in a person's life.

[hueving]

Having affordable housing only creates stability if they actually pay the rent.

From what I've observed, the problematic homeless people primarily need health care or to be put in a mental institution (for the really unstable ones). Affordable housing would certainly be nice, but having that isn't going to do anything for the ones that piss on the floor or jump off the balcony of a public library because they wouldn't be able to pay (or want to pay) any price for housing.

[emodendroket]

But what's the point of the distinction here? Are we really going to argue that the best thing we can do with mentally unstable people who are unable to hold a job is throw them on the streets?

[Turing_Machine]

I don't think anyone is arguing that. "Throwing them on the streets" and "discouraging them from hanging out in the library unless they are actually using it" are two different things entirely.

[lenkite]

No,I don't want homeless kids from being discouraged from hanging out in the library just because they stink and make rich people uncomfortable. Just because some folks don't acknowledge the dark side of the USA, where is little/no support for your fellow citizens who fall off the train, doesn't mean you can grind them down even more.

[closeparen]

It is not ok to call someone inadequate as a person for wanting usable and pleasant public spaces. We are not morally obligated to enthusiastically embrace the reallocation of every public space for use as a homeless shelter.

Cities need to get homeless services right. They also need to get libraries, parks, and transit right.

[istjohn]

It's totally OK to call someone out for talking about people with mental illness like they were rats or cockroaches. I don't care what happens to sewer rats. I just want them out of my sight and mind. But when I see people who are sick or suffering, my first concern is with there well-being. I recognize that my own inconvenience or displeasure pales in significance to the human suffering I am witnessing.

[closeparen]

Letting public space rot like that is a deeply regressive policy.

You and I have access to private-sector alternatives. The working-class kid who wants a quiet place to do his homework, the guy on the edge of homeless desperately applying for jobs on the public computer, someone depending on the librarian to help them navigate the welfare bureaucracy... they don't.

You may not realize it, but a great many people on the low end of the socioeconomic ladder depend on libraries as quiet sanctuaries and as a window of access to the modern, networked, intellectual world. Shouted obscenities and excrement vapor in the air ruin it for them too.

You're right, we should be deeply concerned by such dramatic scenes of intense suffering and inhumanity. But if you're even slightly concerned, the last thing you want to do is let the environment deteriorate and fester undisturbed. The guy who might consider defecating on the floor deserves a peaceful and pleasant library, too. He's not going to get it if we let such things become normal there. The characteristics of the spaces we inhabit shape our moods and behaviors, and a library which could be mistaken for a skid row alleyway serves no one.

[djur]

> poor downtrodden, down on their luck people who just need a hand up... mentally ill, dangerous, and completely uncontrollable

These aren't actually incompatible with each other. I would consider mental illness to be "down on one's luck", wouldn't you?

> They definitely are not there to read. A few have developed the skill set necessary to direct the free access computers to porn sites.

I don't know if this is what you intend, but language like this makes it sounds like you're discussing some sort of monkeys, not people. Of course they can use computers. Most homeless people weren't born homeless.

[ZenoArrow]

> "Of course they can use computers"

I believe GP was referring to the skills to get around adult content blocks rather than general computer skills.

[paulcole]

At least here in Portland, OR, you have the option of filtered/unfiltered Internet when logging on to a library computer.

Looks like SF libraries don't filter content:

https://sfpl.org/?pg=2000004301

[emodendroket]

It doesn't seem like selecting unfiltered is a particular feat then.

[DrScump]

I don't know of any Bay Area library system that filters any adult content.

[ZenoArrow]

Maybe they should.

[khuey]

San Francisco's main library had to install industrial strength sewage grinders because "patrons" were flushing all sorts of things that don't belong and were clogging the pipes.

[istjohn]

Not to change the subject, but you know what really grinds my gears? The other day I took my wife out to dinner. We were enjoying a rare care-free night out, and then they sat this family at an adjacent table. The kids were well-behaved, but the youngest child--ugh. She had no hair, a hospital bracelet on her wrist, and bandages on her arms. We couldn't finish our dinner. Our evening was ruined. How are we supposed to enjoy ourselves while this child's pain is flaunted in front of our faces. I was so pissed off. I told the manager if they don't stop allowing these walking TV fundraiser trophies into their establishment I'll find somewhere else to spend my hard-earned money. I shouldn't have to cure cancer to enjoy my Friday night!

/sarcasm

[vacri]

> I have trouble rationalizing this romantic view of the homeless as these poor downtrodden, down on their luck people who just need a hand up, with the realities I see everyday of mentally ill, dangerous, and completely uncontrollable people.

Maybe you should see the demographic as being a little more complex rather than just throwing them all into the one bucket. Rather than 'find another term' to split the demographic itself ('homeless' is a pretty accurate description of 'doesn't have a home'), perhaps you should find a different term for the groups you want to specify.

[irq11]

Rules. No sleeping. No drug use. No bathing in the restrooms. No shitting on anything. No violent or threatening behavior. Period.

Then enforce those rules. One violation, and you're out. Two, and you're out for good.

Librarians know who the troublemakers are. They just have no power to do anything about them. It's not illegal to be homeless, but that doesn't mean you should be allowed to do violent, illegal or disgusting things without consequence.

[lebanon_tn]

The library my spouse worked at was terrified of being sued (happened to a neighboring city) and they aren't allowed to touch unattended belongings.

[learc83]

Why are they so afraid of being sued? There are plenty of other public spaces that don't have a problem removing people for similar behavior.

Most people maintaining public spaces view unattended bags as a public safety threat.

[ethbro]

Exactly. Coordinate with police and enforce the rules. Public spaces are created and maintained by enforcing liberal rules of access, not no rules of access.

[jmcgough]

Police have been so defanged in the bay that homeless people do whatever they want with impunity.

[emodendroket]

It says right in the post why they were afraid of being sued.

[learc83]

And yet it doesn't make sense.

[emodendroket]

What doesn't make sense? Someone else got sued for doing something similar and even if they ultimately prevailed it probably cost them a lot of money.

[zghst]

They already have these rules in SF however the violators outweigh the amount of enforcers.

[irq11]

They have these rules, but they are rarely actually enforced. Point someone to a homeless person shooting up in public or bathing in the bathroom, and see what happens.

If anything, there's a shrug and a sigh and some rent-a-cop is sent to harass. Almost never is the infraction met with punishment of any consequence.

Start actually arresting or forcibly evicting people who behave this way. They'll stop coming around. San Francisco is particularly feckless in this regard.

[ZenoArrow]

> "Start actually arresting or forcibly evicting people who behave this way."

This is one of those easy solutions that sounds practical on paper, but in reality doesn't hold up.

Let's say SFPD go ahead and do what you suggest. What does that achieve? If they arrest people for shooting up, are you sending them to jail? For how long? Is that going to help them get clean when smack is probably easily attainable in prison anyway? When they're released, now not only are they homeless they've got a criminal record, good luck in the job market with that hanging over you. If they go down the other route and forcibly evict them, where do they get evicted to? All it does is shift the problem to another part of the country, who are probably just as resistant to dealing with it as SF.

You have to treat the root causes of involuntary homelessness as if it's a societal disease. The threat of arresting people isn't a strong enough deterrent to break people out of their addictions, which should be clear by now, otherwise the war on drugs would already have been 'won'.

[irq11]

Are we to overlook all criminal behavior because enforcement might make people less employable, or just selectively ignore some laws that you don't agree with?

Perspective! If someone is shooting up in the library, their future employability is of (at best) tertiary concern to me. The pressing matter is making sure they don't continue the behavior. We can't just stop enforcing laws because it might make lawbreakers break more laws.

The city of SF actually did adopt a policy of forcing addicts into treatment by giving them an ultimatum of jail time for accumulated minor offenses. It worked, but was stopped when some bleeding-heart sued the city. I'm a liberal, but I consider that a tragedy. You can't cure addiction by arresting people, but you sure as hell can stop enabling it on a societal scale.

And also, when I say "evict", I mean "evict them from the library". I don't care where they go to shoot up; watch porn; shit in the sink; sleep or harass people, but they can't do it in the library.

[ZenoArrow]

> "Are we to overlook all criminal behavior because enforcement might make people less employable, or just selectively ignore some laws that you don't agree with?"

I'm suggesting we have to look at the problems holistically. Let's say someone breaks the law. The main aim of throwing someone in jail is to stop them committing more crime, correct? If jail time is going to be effective in doing so, that's fine, but if incarceration only leads to an increase in crime after the person has been released, was it worth it? Perhaps there are other ways of reducing the problem that we should consider instead.

> "The city of SF actually did adopt a policy of forcing addicts into treatment by giving them an ultimatum of jail time for accumulated minor offenses. It worked"

Do you have a link to an article showing the effectiveness of this approach in SF?

As for your other points, if someone is shitting in the sink, is the main problem that they're mentally deranged, or is the main problem that you have to witness it?

[ticviking]

What if our goal is to allow taxpayers to use public spaces?

What if by doing that people would become willing to invest in the programs that treat these kinds of problems?

[ZenoArrow]

> "What if by doing that people would become willing to invest in the programs that treat these kinds of problems?"

If that's the case, great, but the impression I'm getting from many people here is that it's 'not my problem'. I don't see much of the sympathy that would drive people to act on the behalf of others.

[derefr]

Proposed solution: give the homeless a (publicly-funded) place to be that fits their needs even better than a library does.

In chemistry, when you have a both a product and a side-product dissolved in a liquid (say, water) and you want to purify the solution to have only the product, you don't try to take the side-product away directly; instead, you pour in another fluid with different viscosity that the side-product will prefer to its original solute, and then shake things up. After everything settles, the product is in one layer, the side-product is in the other, and you can now drain the layers into separate flasks and wash/evaporate/crystallize out your product.

People, like chemicals, can't just be told what to do; you need to give them a place they prefer to be if you want any hope of them moving there.

[anonacct37]

Look, instead of turning us into strawmen, try and understand.

I love libraries. If someone is reading a book or a magazine or even surfing Facebook on a computer I don't care what they look like, smell like, or whether or not they go back to an apartment at the end of the day.

My city has a beautiful library. They also have very liberal policies, afaik people aren't turned away.

But those tables you'd like to read a magazine at? Full of people camped out, possessions spread around them, talking, dealing.

Those isles of books? Now they are also beds.

It's really an asshole move to assume that if anyone at any point doesn't want their library turned into a shelter, then they are heartless people who hate the poor and mentally ill.

I want better health care in this country. I want better support for ensuring that everyone had a roof over their head. I also want to read a book in the library without being hassled or smelling excrement.

Libraries should be open to everyone to use as libraries.

[ZenoArrow]

> "I want better health care in this country. I want better support for ensuring that everyone had a roof over their head. I also want to read a book in the library without being hassled or smelling excrement."

The first two should be seen as prerequisites for the third. The first one especially.

Is it fair that libraries have inadvertently taken on the role of social care of the homeless? No, it's not. Should, as you put it, libraries be open to everyone to use as libraries? Yes, they should. However, the answer is not to shut the homeless out of yet another place, the answer is to push for cheaper, more comprehensive healthcare (i.e. single payer) so that we can address the problem head on.

[closeparen]

I heard a great name for this line of argument recently: "but first, the revolution!"

I empathize, but this is destructive. Deciding we can't have [basic service that worked fine not long ago] until we have [complete change of heart about philosophical and policy questions at the core of people's political identities] will only run civilization into the ground.

[istjohn]

A civilization that needlessly allows homelessness and untreated illness is already run into the ground. It's morally bankrupt.

[closeparen]

What other services are you willing to abandon on the basis of that argument? Medicare? Public schools? Fire departments?

If a homeless encampment appears on a public transit mainline, should we shut down the city's transit system until poverty is eradicated worldwide?

Our civilization is certainly low, but it could fall a lot further.

[ZenoArrow]

The idea is to take a stand now. If you further marginalise those that already have almost nothing, where do you think that leads to? Are you ready to step over corpses on your way to work?

Societies are a bit like networks, they're only as strong as their weakest link.

[usrusr]

> How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? A literal smell test?

By offering something that is even more attractive than a library to people who want the roof but not the books.

One might even argue that it is undemocratic when funds for one public service (with a lot of popular support) were reappropriated for another, maybe less popular, one. Imagine (in Lennon's voice) the USAF going rogue to set up an NHS clone with money they were supposed to spend on new jets: laudable in a way yet unquestionably out of line. Not their decision to make.

[rubber_duck]

>How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? A literal smell test ?

Member only access where it's free to join but you ban people breaking rules ?

[RivieraKid]

> How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes?

By only making it free for students.

> How do people without homes "completely destroy the purpose"?

I wouldn't say it destroys the purpose, but it changes the atmosphere and environment of the place. I don't think people want to spend time with homeless and weird people around them. It sounds harsh but that's the truth.

[istjohn]

More repulsive than "homeless and weird people" is heartless disgust for less fortunate neighbors absent any apparent concern for their well-being.

I don't want to live in a society that solves the stench of poverty and untreated mental illness by corralling people into ghettos and homeless shelters. The only humane solution to the stench of human suffering in public libraries or anywhere else is to minister to the unmet needs. Give them medical treatment, showers, food and a bed.

[ticviking]

I have no problems with homeless and weird people.

I do have a problem with them using the space in a way that actively prevents people from being patrons. I have more of a problem with the tacit assumption that this is some kind of stopgap "shelter" and that the unilateral non democratic appropriation of public spaces to provide a poor substitite is defensible.

[ithought]

Planned communities that allow people to live with less effort and don't put arbitrary restrictions on them.

And homeless push out the people who could be expanding their minds and imagination, trying to improve themselves and society.

They sit there, charge their cell phones, watch youtube, sleep and shower.

No, I don't think education helps. Technology should reduce the cost of living. We need better systems and societies where paying rent shouldn't require 20+ hours of work a week.

[Turing_Machine]

"What is your proposed solution?"

Well, giving the homeless a better place to hang out would be one option. I don't think most of them are there to actually use the library as such (some might be, of course).

As I understand it, many shelters kick them out during the daytime, so they wind up in the library or riding public transportation to get out of the weather instead.

[cmurf]

The city should have public showers, and yes the library should have a smell test, but before even these two things the real problem with homelessness is we do not take mental health care issues seriously, as a society.

[closeparen]

Provide actual, sufficient, high-quality homeless shelters and services, rather than leaving every other public space (libraries, transit, parks, etc.) as a poor stand-in.