Book Companion:
Library and
Information Center Management,
Seventh Edition
Is This a Public Library or a Refuge for the Homeless?
Not in many a year had Joseph Calenda, director of the Brydges Bay Public Library, felt so thoroughly fatigued. Heaving a sign of weariness, he slouched back in his chair, sat quite still, and stared vacantly at the tapestry gracing the wall of his office. His mind whirled back over the events of the past 36 or so hours.
"Oh," he groaned. "If only it had stayed nice." What Calenda was referring to was the change in the weather. After a long spell of flawless days and even-tempered nights, suddenly over the weekend it had turned freezing cold. Just after the library opened on Monday morning, a succession of five disheveled and shivering men and one woman made their way into the lobby, where they sat or stood waiting for the sun to warm the streets.
As library users passed through the 16 by 14 foot lobby, their nostrils were assailed by an unpleasant stench. Not a person came in but she or he made a comment to the staff about the homeless people occupying the foyer. "What're you going to do about them?" was the question on everyone's lips.
At a hastily convened meeting to discuss the situation, the director, assistant director, and four department heads decided to do nothing in the hope that the lobby occupants would leave when the sun exerted its influence. The staff was instructed to say that they were sure they would be leaving soon.
By noon everyone was gone, except for the woman. Wearing layers of external garments, her feet clumped in dirty rags, and all hunched over, she continued to stand by the door where she could keep an eye on a shopping cart weighted down with plastic bags and discarded possessions. At the front of the cart was a paper cup into which people could deposit coins or bills should they feel so inclined. When she was not watching her cart and casting furtive glances at people as they walked through the lobby, she communed audibly but quietly with her reflection in the glass door. She lingered there until four or so when she, too, left. Sighs of relief were heard throughout the library.
But Tuesday morning, even though the weather had taken a considerable turn for the better, the woman came back. The question for the staff this time was: "What're you going to do about the bag lady?"
Joseph Calenda passed the word along that everyone was to respond that they were sure that she would not stay long, and to ask people to be patient. Slowly, though, the awful suspicion dawned on him that the woman might begin spending part of every day in the lobby, or sitting on the two foot high cement wall by the entrance as she had done briefly on Monday afternoon. He pushed the thought away.
In the meantime, however, the chief custodian had taken it upon himself to suggest that the woman move along. All he got by way of an answer was a blank uncomprehending stare. He reported this to the director who had just had a visit from one library patron who stated that as a taxpaying citizen he had the right not to be exposed at the library's entrance to a person he found repugnant. If he wanted to see poverty and despair, the man said, he would watch a TV documentary. Another person complained to the assistant director that she was enraged at the sign of the homeless woman; she paid her taxes and deserved to be able to walk in and out of the library without having to look at or be looked at by "this menacing creature." The staff assuaged everyone as best they could, but clearly they were under a strain.
One irate user said that if they didn't call the police soon and have the woman removed he would do so. Joseph Calenda, felling now like a man trying to save his belongings from a fire, called his assistant director and department heads to his office. It was Tuesday, mid-afternoon. The woman had left for half an hour but was back, sitting on the wall.
The head of the reference department had done some research. She reported that the state laws covering "vagrancy", dating back to 1880, set forth that persons wandering abroad and begging or who go about from door to door or in public or private ways, areas to which the general public is invited, or in other public places for the purpose of begging or to receive alms, and who are not licensed..., shall be deemed vagrants and may be punished by imprisonment for not more than six months in the house of corrections." The reference head informed the group that a year or two ago, the ACLU of Northern California won a case in federal court striking down a California law prohibiting "accosting" for the purpose of begging. The judge rejected the reasoning of an earlier New York federal court decision upholding a ban on begging in the subway. The California courts stressed that charitable appeals for money, whether for oneself or other charities, involve a number of speech interests protected by the First Amendment.
While the merits of these finding were debated and suggestions that the police be called put forward, the assistant director Bridget O'Dea, sat in the background, saying not a word. Suddenly in a voice barely audible, she said: "Wouldn't it be nice if all the homeless people had the decency to starve or freeze to death in some obscure place where no one would ever see them?"
The room, which a moment before had been alive with discussion, was now quiet. All eyes turned in her direction.
Continued the assistant director, "I'm having a terrible time, as I am sure you all are, with this problem of the homeless. ' Call the police!' 'Call the police!' We don't care where they go, but get them away from our front door. A wealthy society such as ours should not sleep at night if we can't make some sacrifice to help those who can't help themselves. When we avoid direct efforts of caring towards individual human beings, when we make contribution to the needy only through charities and organizations, it seems we're just passing the buck."
Everywhere scowls and frowns were in evidence. "What're you suggesting, Bridget?" someone asked. "That we permit the woman to stay here as long as and as often as she wants? What about our obligation to our library users?"
Another staff member said, "I feel like a skunk for saying this, but shouldn't library use be restricted to those who pay for it? What I mean is, if the woman's homeless then she couldn't even get a library card because she'd have no address, and if she has no address she can't pay taxes. The library's a tax supported institution, isn't it?"
The room became a riot of argument as to what should be done about this situation. Suddenly the director knocked on the table and called for quiet. "Bridget," he said. "Are you suggesting we let the woman stay here as much as she wants?
Yes, I am. The woman is not doing any one any harm, and I think in light of the California court ruling we have no choice but to let her stay here. It is a first amendment and an ethical issue.
O'Dea's conclusion precipitated another animated discussion in which she found herself hopelessly in the minority. How long the discussion would have continued is problematical had it not been interrupted by the entry of the director's secretary.
"The Mayor just called," she announced to Calenda. "He says that someone has complained to him about the bag lady occupying the library lobby. He wants to know what you're going to do about her, and asked if you'd call him back when your meeting's over."
Hence it was that Joseph Calenda found himself sitting in his office staring vacantly at the tapestry gracing his office wall.
The City of Brydges Bay (pop. 164,000) is very much urban in character. It has problems with congestion, with crime, with diminishing financial resources. It has become a city where those who work don't live and those who live can't find much work. City workers, who are mainly middle and upper-income suburbanites, serve city residents, who are largely but not exclusively lower-income minorities. Fifteen point five percent of all city resident live below the poverty level, compared to 7.9 in the country as a whole.
Written by A.J. Anderson, Professor Emeritus, Simmons College GSLIS