[TurdF3rguson]

You will encounter homeless people in libraries, because it's one of the few public spaces that won't kick them out. Your reaction to that shouldn't be to hate and avoid libraries though. It should be to appreciate them more.

[arghnoname]

I don't go to libraries very often anymore because so often they're effectively homeless shelters. Should I not mind this? I don't know, 'should' is doing a lot here, but the truth is I used to love going to libraries, browsing books, and soak up the general scholastic atmosphere.

Homeless shelter just isn't that much fun for me. If I want to be virtuous and go to a soup kitchen or otherwise try to interact with and help homeless people, I'll just do that.

What people in general don't seem to realize by taking things that almost everyone likes (libraries, as one example) and requiring one to go through some virtue test to go is that in the end, public support for the good is going to collapse, it will lose funding, and then no one can have it.

I think we're going to lose libraries.

[II2II]

> I don't go to libraries very often anymore because so often they're effectively homeless shelters.

If someone doesn't go to the library because of homeless people, the problem is with the person who doesn't go to the library.

If someone doesn't go to the library because they are being harassed, the problem is with the library. Let the library know about specific incidents so they can handle it.

I'm not saying the situation is ideal. Yet plenty of homeless people go to the library to access the services they offer, or simply to have a safe place to read a book (even if the book part is incidental). If people sleeping in the library is disturbing, well, let's just say that library security would be kicking out a lot of university students in my area.

[petcat]

> Let the library know about specific incidents so they can handle it.

Library staff is not equipped to kick homeless people out for fear that it will cause a scene and possibly escalate to an aggressive situation. They will just call the police. So then the police will come and remove the person, but they will come back the next week, or maybe the next day. So then what happens? Call the police again? This time maybe they get charged with trespassing and put in jail? This goes on and on. The library is supposed to be a safe place but that also means that it is somewhat of a helpless place for staff and quiet citizens. And over time it slowly becomes more and more uncomfortable to the point that regular people just stop going.

It's nobody's "fault". It's just a tragedy of the circumstances.

[gadders]

Sounds safe: https://ciceroinstitute.org/news-media/more-than-50-of-homel...

"In 8 states, over 50% of unsheltered homeless individuals are registered sex offenders.

National average: ~13% when including those with “unknown addresses.” "

[duskwuff]

Buried lede: this is, in large part, a self-created problem. Many states set restrictions on where people who are registered sex offenders are allowed to live (e.g. disallowing them from living close to schools and day care centers), and those restrictions can make it much more difficult for these people to find housing.

(Anecdotally, I've heard of situations where these restrictions effectively ban sex offenders from living anywhere in a city, because the overlapping exclusion zones leave nothing uncovered.)

[gadders]

I could see that happening. This idea isn't perfect, but beats the alternatives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Village

[treis]

I would but mine smells really bad because of the homeless :(

[vasco]

The guy didn't said he hated it, you did. He just said he avoided it. I would too. The same way I wouldn't want to hang out at a homeless shelter (and why many homeless themselves avoid any places with many other homeless people).

[TurdF3rguson]

I would avoid homeless shelters because I have no reason to be there. But I won't avoid libraries because I do have a reason to be there, and I know there's no reason to be scared of interacting with homeless people.

They're just people and the library is for them too.

[vasco]

They're not just average people, they're people with a particular condition which is more than likely associated with mental health issues, lack of social skills and several times more likely to be dealing with an addiction problem than a normal person.

Plus all the trust issues of having lived in the street. Only someone who hasn't interacted a lot with the homeless would say they are just like everyone else. Even if the reason they became homeless was just random by the time they've been homeless for a couple of years they are a different person.

There's a reason many of the homeless avoid shelters, if you talked to one you'd know why, and it's not because the other guests are lovely kind people to be around.

[TurdF3rguson]

The bottom line is they have as much a right to be there as you do and you're free to ignore them or interact with them as much or as little as you want to.

[vasco]

That's not the bottom line, the law is the law nobody is arguing to kick anyone out. This thread was just about why someone might not want to go there and then being gaslighted that homeless people are somehow not a risk group in any way lol

[TurdF3rguson]

It's up to you to do your own assessment but I don't see any reason to be fearful.

These are regulars at that library who never caused enough disruption to be banned, and aren't dangerous enough to be in jail. They also have more to lose by getting banned than housed patrons.

[eudamoniac]

I hate and avoid homeless people. They're often in the library. Therefore...

I've had this idea for a business kicking around for awhile, basically a private library with membership fees. It would have all the accomodations you wish a library would have but that it can't have due to being public commons, like free coffee, private reading rooms, locker storage, and of course no vagrants.

[ceejayoz]

This sounds like a good way to discover being a dick isn’t unique to the homeless.