Hamilton's Public Library is taking a proactive approach to dealing with the homeless, mentally ill and other vulnerable people who frequent the Central branch.
The main library branch is downtown, near many of the city's homeless and poorest neighbourhoods, and has many visitors with few other places to go during the day.
Rather than kicking out disruptive visitors, someone will now be around to assist them — and any other visitors needing social services. As of Tuesday, Central has a full-time community development worker walking around, chatting with patrons, initiating conversations and just milling about, ready to be used as a resource.
The service is a joint pilot project by Hamilton Library and Wesley Urban Ministries, funded out of the library's Special Gifts Fund. Costs are not to exceed $50,000.
The idea is for the outreach person to connect with vulnerable people in the library, says Daljit Garry, executive director of Wesley Urban Ministries.
"The person would be in the library to engage with them, chat with them and find out what's going on and then connect them with services, supports and health care," Garry said. "We have the expertise to help the hard to serve, the disenfranchised and the vulnerable populations."
If the library is not the appropriate place for a person at a particular time, the worker can get them to a place that is, she added.
The worker will also teach library staff how to approach and communicate with the vulnerable "so that it's positive, rather than saying you can't be in the library."
Garry believes the program can become self-sustaining because library staff will have been trained in techniques on how to talk to marginalized individuals, be more sensitive to their needs and more aware of the services available to them.
Chief librarian Paul Takala is happy about the pilot, saying their expertise till now has been "information, not what (social) programs are available.
"Our purpose is to connect people with the resources they need and to ensure they use library space in a way that doesn't infringe on other library users' space," he added. "We want people to feel comfortable."
He says Central, which gets 1.4 million visits a year, is a community beacon and a very safe place, but people may not feel that way if they are witnessing conflict or issues that can be prevented.
"We want to defuse situations before they happen."
Takala's report to the library board last September says the goal is to "help address the systemic issues and needs faced by some of the library visitors … whose unmet needs have, on occasion, led to challenging behaviours."
The pilot project shifts "challenging behaviours" from security issues to human needs issues, he said Tuesday.
The pilot is slated to run for six months, with an option to run another six.
Takala says there was no specific incident that led to the pilot. Similar programs have run in Edmonton, Halifax and at libraries in the United States.
from: TheSpec
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