• Godnroc@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If libraries were open late they would be filled with homeless people looking for a safe, warm place.

    What I’m saying is we need safe warm places for the homeless AND libraries to be open late.

    • spudwart@spudwart.com
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      1 year ago

      Truthfully, putting the homeless in a safe warm place that enables them to have access to a library at night sounds like a smart combo.

      • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        My local library has security guards because people keep shooting up heroin in the bathrooms.

        This would exacerbate that

        • oatscoop@midwest.social
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          1 year ago

          We should absolutely have safe housing for homeless people with UBI and transitional programs. We should also offer mental health and substance abuse treatment – and in extreme cases humane involuntary treatment for people that are a danger to themselves and others.

          And none of this should take place in shared, public spaces for the safety and dignity of everyone involved. This is a failure of society and needs to be treated as such. Placing the burden on individuals isn’t the solution. Expecting public spaces designed for other uses to pick the slack of a broken societal safety net is insane.

          • Emerald@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            humane involuntary treatment

            You can’t have humane involuntary treatment. In cases where somebody is threatening someone else, I would say involuntary treatment is called for. But we shouldn’t decide when its okay to imprison people for exercising their bodily autonomy.

        • BURN@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Almost nowhere in Seattle offers public bathrooms anymore because of this. It’s a massive problem that still doesn’t have a solution

          • Uranium3006@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            we know the solution. it’s building a shit ton of cheap housing and handing it out to people and charging them 30% of the income, not counting the first $20k. it’s just rich psychopaths who run the country would rather profit off of prison and let them die instead.

        • ClarkDoom@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Same. The homeless population has unfortunately made libraries where I live pretty dangerous places and I can only imagine how much worse that would be if they were open all night. My city doesn’t seem to care at all about people shooting up and ruining public spaces.

      • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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        1 year ago

        Homeless people usually don’t have the peace of mind required for reading books, they are kinda busy surviving.

      • FederatedSaint@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, nothing against that idea in theory, but in practice, places like that end up full of urine-soaked drug addicts that are high on meth, making it an extremely unattractive place to hang out and socialize.

        Denver’s Union station downtown is a perfect example. It’s a “public private” space that tries to stay open late on weekends to cater to the crowd but ends up being a hellhole.

        • Smoogs@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          places like that end up full of urine-soaked drug addicts that are high on meth,

          You’re putting all homeless into a box. Not all are homeless because they are addicts. Some are legitimately forgotten by the system and for different reasons lost job/domestic abuse/no fam/disability/health issue/financial issues. And even at that : addiction is also a symptom of a shit society. Not the same issue as what causes other homeless people but there can be more than one problem in a poorly designed system that comes up with the same result of being homeless.

          Society built on capitalistic ideals for more than just survival as a goal has an extremely narrow scope for who it is interested in serving.

          • FederatedSaint@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You’re putting all homeless into a box.

            With the exception of your first sentence (me putting homeless people in a box, which I’m not sure if you’re making a pun or not), all of other the things you said are correct and I agree with. The things you said and the things I said are not mutually exclusive.

            In other words, not all homeless are the same, not all are drug addicts, and society should do better at preventing homelessness, and you might still have a late-night library filled with urine-soaked drug addicts.

          • cricket97@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You’re putting all homeless into a box. Not all are homeless because they are addicts.

            Are we not allowed to make generalizations at all? I promise you if you open a homeless center in any major city you will find out very quick that psycho behavior comes with homeless people at scale. It’s a guarantee that you will have meth addicts ruin whatever infrastructure you provide them. It doesn’t matter that there are some good homeless people when you are almost guaranteed to face the bad ones.

          • Uranium3006@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            also more homeless drug addicts started after they became homeless, not before. being on the street like that deteriorates your mental health. the longer we let this go unaddressed the worse it gets.

      • beefcat@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        except I’m not likely to spend much time in my local library if it is constantly filled with homeless people.

    • Rosco
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      1 year ago

      Crazy idea : let’s use churches to accommodate homeless people since you can find them fucking everywhere, surely they’re not used after 8pm, and that’s basically the point of them in the first place, no?

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        As much as I despise organized religion they aren’t fully to blame for the situation. Some of them have really made an effort.

        Religion even at its very very best can’t do that job. That is why we need the government.

        • Smoogs@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          As much as I despise organized religion they aren’t fully to blame for the situation.

          They are if they don’t pay the taxes that would have been used to help with situations such as this.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Most churches can’t keep the lights on. For every LDS or RCC there are a thousand places on the verge of bankruptcy. Every atheist I know makes a big deal about the big players but not one has shown me the raw the numbers that proves that if they paid corporate tax rates it would be mean more than a few more cruise missiles used to blow up weddings in Pakistan.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Government can’t do that job either. We already have homeless shelters. I don’t know why people talk like this is a new idea. We have homeless shelters in our society. They’re government funded in some cases, or church-funded in other cases.

          We still have homeless people. We do provide free shelter and food to people. And we still have people sleeping on the street.

          • BURN@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The governments barely do anything, in general not putting more than a token effort into helping.

            There’s never enough support for the increasing number of homeless people.

          • cricket97@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You aren’t allowed to do drugs in homeless shelters which is why a lot of homeless people don’t use them.

            • Uranium3006@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              we need places to accommodate them. like how restaurants used to have smoking sections. there should also be access to drug abuse healthcare with no mandate and allow long term residency in shelters, including the ability to receive mail and use it as a legal address for ID documents and employment. if we did all that we could see a fraction of them, perhaps even a large fraction, eventually getting back on their feet and out of the system.

        • Rosco
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          1 year ago

          Then they should provide access to toilets. Where are they going when they want to take a piss? Also isn’t helping the poor in anyway they can a charitable act revered by their religion?

          • Meowoem
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            1 year ago

            I get the idea and I think it’s wonderful but have you ever been to a homeless shelter? They need staff to break up fights, protect women, clean up the mess made by drug users and alcoholics, and all sorts of other difficult things your average old lady pew duster isn’t capable of dealing with.

            • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 year ago

              Every major religion reveres helping the needy, for example in Islam, zakat, giving money for charity (if you have enough wealth to afford it) is a requirement.

          • cricket97@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You are making the mistake of assuming homeless people’s actions are rational.

      • cricket97@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Are you aware that churches do some of the most public outreach for homeless people in the united states?

    • Oisteink@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      We’ve been doing extended openings 0700-2200 for several years in Oslo. As do libraries all over Norway. You need to use your library-card or app to open the door, so there’s some control (data lives for 7 days). We have very little problems - maybe there’s some homeless there but they are as welcome as anyone else. We do have security guard, or one that strays between branches. And yes we do have homeless people in Oslo.

      • xspurnx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Go Norway! I whish we had a library law here in Germany like you do - our places are underfunded and understaffed… a lot of my colleagues are very passionate about their jobs, we could do so much more with our local libraries.

        • Oisteink@feddit.nl
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          1 year ago

          A lot of Norwegian libraries are underfunded as well.

          In Oslo public library (Deichman) we’ve been given more money the last 10 years than previously. And we have shown what that money can do.

          During Covid shutdown the Library was what kept open except for two weeks - that really showed what kind of back-bone we were for Oslo.

          It was very tough on our frontline workers as we were swamped with students ignoring any precautions. Working in libraries are still low paying compared to the education