Library Services for People Experiencing Homelessness

This is an group running mobile library services to people experiencing homelessness in London. Interestingly, it is run by the Quakers! It would be good to spend some time with them if I can get to the UK in 2022.    This is their URL:  https://quakersocialaction.org.uk/we-can-help/homelessness-housing/turn-corner/how-turn-corner

This was a great presentation by Rachel Williams about social work practices in libraries, particularly with regard to working with patrons who are experiencing homelessness. The presenter is Rachel Williams from Simmons University. These are the notes I took during the presentation: Rachel Williams - Professor at Simmons University rachel.williams@simmons.edu  Open to being contacted. New key term to consider apart from 'homeless' is 'unhoused'. One way to get library staff to talk about how they feel about working with people experiencing homelessness is to ask them to recount a time they have interacted with a person experiencing homelessness. Rachel referred to a lawsuit that would be interesting to look up - Richard Kreimer (USA) Idea: Look for mentions of 'equity of access' in library policies to see if they exist and what they say. Find: 'Invisible people' YouTube channel (Man interviews people experiencing homelessness) Find: Article by Provence ...

Nielssen, O. B., Stone, W., Jones, N. M., Challis, S., Nielssen, A., Elliott, G., ... & Large, M. M. (2018). Characteristics of people attending psychiatric clinics in inner Sydney homeless hostels .  Medical Journal of Australia ,  208 (4), 169-173. This research was mentioned during the podcast mentioned in an earlier post about rural and regional homelessness and mental health problems. I have tracked down this research and can see that it provides a study of people attending psychiatric clinics in inner Sydney homeless hostels. This is the abstract: Objective: To describe the characteristics of people attending mental health clinics at shelters for the homeless in inner city Sydney.  Design: Retrospective review of medical records of homeless hostel clinic attenders.  Setting: Mental health clinics located in three inner city homeless hostels.  Participants: Consecutive series of clinic attenders, 21 July 2008 e 31 December 2016.  Main outcome m...

This podcast is is from the Centre for Rural & Remote Mental Health and has guest speakers talking about homelessness in regional cities and in remote areas. Its focus is on NSW, but it will hild true for all parts of Australia.  The speakers are Tamara Pallos from Homelessness NSW, Penny Dordoy from Housing Plus, and Talie Star.  Talie currently facilitates the Domestic and Family Violence (DFV) Lived Experience Group with Homelessness NSW. One thing I learned from this is that there is a stream of people who leave psychiatric hospitals into homelessness. There were some stats mentioned that give a clue of the size of this. This could be used in an article about the characteristics of homelessness that libraries could be involved in.  One speaker (Penny?) mentioned that one of the greatest ways we can assist people experiencing homelessness is to give them connections back to their communities - to reduce their feelings of isolation and not belonging. Libraries could...

Cronin, B (2002). What a library is not. Library Journal v. 127 (19), p. 46 This short article is not research, but is rather an opinion piece that posits that libraries are not places that should be offering anything beyond very traditional library services. The author provides a definition of a library from a dictionary that he then goes on to agree with and argues against any other roles for libraries. The definition he uses is:   "a place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials...are kept for use but not for sale." He states that this definition is non-contentious. He goes on to elaborate in some strong language what a library is not: " A library is not a community masturbation center. A library is not a porn parlor. A library is not a refuge for the homeless. A library is not a place in which to defecate, fornicate, or micturate. A library is not a bathing facility. A library is not a dumping ground for latch-key children." He is not really...

    Wahler EA, Provence MA, Helling J, Williams MA. The Changing Role of Libraries: How Social Workers Can Help. Families in Society. 2020;101(1):34-43. doi: 10.1177/1044389419850707 This is an interesting study of social workers in libraries. It studies: How library staff think about theor roles as supporters of the psychosocial eneds of patrons What they believe are the library's responsibilities in this area  What are some program and policy recommendations for other libraries.  It provides a good lit review including some references to writers who state quite strongly that there is no place in libraries for supporting the psychosocial needs of users - that this is not the job of libraries at all. In particular a published 'commentary' by Ken Bikoff from Indiana University Bloomington who was of the strong belief that there was no role at all for libraries in moving beyond libraries as "a place in which literary, musical, artistics, or reference materials are kept...

I recieved an email from Donna Quinn from the School of Population and Global Health at the Uni WA about a program her group has evaluated. The program is a collaboration between a church based charity, St Pat's Community Support Centre, and the Fremantle Public Library where a community worker is placed in the Fremantle Library to provide services on behalf of St Pat's. This link:  https://www.home2health.org/fremantlelibraryconnect   provides some excellent stats and data about how many people have been helped by the service and what needs they were presenting with.  There is an interesting section that provides some information about why being based out of a library is more successful than being based out of St Pat's directly. Some great quotes from users of the service here:  https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f2a1e961ace4d22632eec49/t/61948e2c200eb6584120d238/1637125681749/Library+Connect+Snapshot+Oct+2021%5B35485%5D.pdf  Donna's email is:  donna....