The Wall Street Journal includes an article: “Libraries Are the New Front Line in America’s Mental-Health Crisis.”
Here are some excerpts:
When Michael Bare started working as a library assistant, he thought he would be helping with term papers or leading a book club. Instead, he spends most of his time assisting patrons in crisis with nowhere else to go.
“They just want someone to talk to,” said Bare, 37, who has worked for four years at the library in this city of 46,000 on the Ohio River where West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky meet.
Libraries are the new front line in America’s mental-health crisis. Librarians are helping more patrons in crisis, and many cities are hiring social workers to help them. About two-thirds of nearly 600 library workers surveyed by Urban Librarians Unite in 2022 said they had experienced violent or aggressive behavior from patrons.
One of the few indoor public spaces open to all comers, libraries are now the scene for all that ails a public scarred by the pandemic and an opioid epidemic. For staff, that means reversing overdoses in bathrooms; confronting patrons watching pornography; or defending against people brandishing guns, or a snake in a jar. Some people come to the library to sleep, get warm or use the bathroom. Others are looking for jobs, housing or just somewhere safe to read.
They don’t have anywhere else to go, and they don’t trust other places. I love being that place. But after a while, it’s taxing and wearing on you,” said Kevin King, head of community engagement at the Kalamazoo Public Library in Michigan.
The library is in the center of Kalamazoo, close to the hospital, bus-and-train station and mental-health agencies. When a homeless patron stops taking medication, security guards at the library give King a heads-up there could be trouble.
“We don’t kick people out,” said King, 51, who has worked at the library for 25 years. “We’ll say, ‘Today’s your day not to be in the library. Maybe come back in a couple of hours.’”
Every morning, a line forms of mostly homeless patrons waiting for the library to open at 9 a.m. Staff serve them doughnuts, fruit and coffee and ask what else they need.
“When there’s a lack of attention to mental-health services, places with open access like we have take on the brunt of it,” King said.
Kalamazoo’s library in 2019 started hiring peer navigators with experience of being homeless or using illicit drugs themselves, after a reference librarian didn’t know what to do when a developmentally disabled adult complained of being hungry.
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