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On Thursday 28 February 2002 08:16 pm, Michael Hohmann wrote:
> [On Thursday, February 28, 2002 12:36 AM, Phyllis Kahn wrote: ]
> > A good homeless shelter place is the Library. Is this being considered
> > in the new design?
> I don't think city residents passed a new library referendum thinking it
> would double as a homeless shelter! What is the position of the Library
> Board, management and staff; and most importantly library users,
> regarding such arrangements? How about the City Council and County
> Commissioners?
Exactly. While I'm certain I don't mind the homeless using the library for
its normal purposes, it is no substitute for any serious shelter
solutions. Librarians are not trained social workers. Not that they're
incapable, but had they wanted to run shelters they would have gotten
different jobs.
The plans for the next library should not be somehow encouraging its use
as a homeless shelter. If housing our homeless population is a priority
(which I hope it is), a specific agency to that purpose should be getting
funding to provide a shelter in downtown. This should not be slipped into
the library's mission.
Many of the activities a shelter would be good for-- eating, drinking,
sleeping, loitering-- are all prohibited by library rules. As a patron of
the downtown library I don't mind that there are chess games in that one
section, but the library certainly doesn't need added strain of more
people who are using it only as a shelter.
Besides, about half of the homeless in the state of Minnesota are children
(some 10% of whom are runaways or turned out of their homes)... are they
really welcome at the library and in downtown during the day? Shouldn't we
be doing our best to make sure those that can be are in schools or in a
learning environment at a shelter? Wouldn't sending expose them to all
sorts of new problems, least of which being a risk of getting picked up by
the police for truancy?
Finally, while the library is closed on Sundays, I hear it is still
sometimes quite chilly on that day in spite of the homeless having one
less place to go.
Instead of rolling expanded shelter space into the new library, how about
throwing that into the new stadium it looks like we'll be paying for
against our express wishes? Eh? Homeless access to the locker rooms in the
off-season? Just make sure they have places to sit and the locker room
already has temporary storage for personal belongings, showers... well,
you get the idea.
- -Michael Libby, Cleveland/North Mpls
- --
______Michael_C_Libby__{_x_(at)_ichimunki_(dot)_com_}______
| "even monkeys fall from trees" : "saru mo ki kara ochiru" |
|____ public key at http://www.ichimunki.com/public.key ____|
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