Tens of billions of dollars have been poured by the Biden administration into the war against Russia in Ukraine in just a matter of months. Trillions of dollars have been spent on wars and funding the military over the last two decades alone. And whenever Wall Street has run into trouble, from the 2008 financial crash to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the government has leapt to hand out trillions in corporate bailouts and guarantee rising fortunes for the wealthiest.
The One Percent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmlX3fLQrEc
The Rise Of The Super Rich - Untold Wealth Of The One Percent Documentary 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNRwERkZhjs
But business and progressive groups insist that 300 million Americans must subordinate their families to the elites’ goal of importing l0w-wage migrants. “Citizenship Day is a reminder that the job of every single one of us is to ensure that America remains a country worthy of immigrants’ aspirations,” Biden said in a September 17 video.
Jackson, Mississippi’s water disaster is a crime of capitalism
The 150,000 residents of Jackson, Mississippi remain without access to clean drinking water this week following the collapse of the water and sewage system under the pressure of heavy flooding late last month.
While water service has returned to homes and businesses throughout the state’s capital, the city remains under a boil-water advisory that was issued in July, with reports that water remains foul and undrinkable. Residents once again queued in long lines at distribution centers throughout the city Tuesday, picking up bottled water to use for cooking and basic hygiene. Approximately 600 National Guard soldiers have been deployed to the city by Republican Governor Tate Reeves to oversee the distribution.
While tens of thousands have been forced to rely on bottled water or use buckets to collect water from wells in the wealthiest country in the world, Jackson sits on and draws its water from the Ross Barnett Reservoir, the largest source of drinking water in the state.
The ongoing crisis in Jackson is part of a series of disasters in the US, from rolling blackouts in California to routine power outages in Metro Detroit and the water poisoning in Flint. Under conditions where climate change is fueling extreme weather events and pandemics, systematic planning is needed to meet the danger. However, this challenge is met with indifference by the capitalist governments.
Tens of billions of dollars have been poured by the Biden administration into the war against Russia in Ukraine in just a matter of months. Trillions of dollars have been spent on wars and funding the military over the last two decades alone. And whenever Wall Street has run into trouble, from the 2008 financial crash to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the government has leapt to hand out trillions in corporate bailouts and guarantee rising fortunes for the wealthiest.
The current disaster in Jackson has been years in the making. It was preceded by systemic failures as the city’s public water infrastructure became the target for corporate looters and was subjected to criminal neglect by local, state and federal governments.
A $90 million deal was signed by an outgoing mayor with the global conglomerate Siemens in 2012 to upgrade the city’s water and sewage infrastructure and implement an automated billing system. The new billing and water meter system failed to send bills to residents, resulting in more than $43 million in unpaid water bills and throwing the city’s water fund into crisis. A legal settlement in 2020 saw the city recover the $90 million from the company, but by this point the antiquated water system had degraded further.
In 2016 it was announced that elevated levels of lead had been discovered in the water. The state continues to advise that children under five and pregnant women not drink unfiltered tap water. Lead in water is especially harmful to children as it can cause serious developmental problems.
A 10-year, $109 million deal was signed with another corporate giant, Veolia, in 2017 to operate and manage the city’s three wastewater treatment plants. Between December 2018 and May 2019, the company dumped four billion gallons of water into the Pearl River, violating the Clean Water Act and a consent decree the city had signed with the federal government in 2012.
A severe winter storm fueled by climate change in February 2021 brought unusually cold temperatures to the Deep South, freezing water lines and causing water mains to burst, knocking out water service to the entire city and surrounding suburbs. The severe damage from the storm left the city primed for the current catastrophe.
While Democratic Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba estimates that it would cost approximately $1 billion to fix the city’s water system, the Biden administration has only allocated some $500 million over the next five years for water infrastructure issues across the entire state in recent legislation. Federal aid will do little to resolve Jackson’s problems, nor will it help across the poorest state in the country. An Environmental Protection Agency assessment in 2015 found that the state required $4.8 billion over 20 years to guarantee safe drinking water, with much of the infrastructure reaching or well beyond its designed life span.
Under these conditions, where dramatic underfunding at every level has brought on this disaster, the big business Wall Street Journal and Governor Reeves, with dollar signs in their eyes, have proposed full privatization of the public water system as the solution to the problem, completing the looting operation that began a decade ago.
A statement published by the Journal’s editorial board Monday blamed the water crisis on “local government failure” and floated a proposal to place the city under state receivership. It made the comparison to Flint and Detroit in Michigan, where emergency managers were involved in lucrative schemes connected to those city’s water systems, which in the case of Flint helped create the disastrous lead in water crisis. Taking his cue from the Journal, Reeves told a press conference the same day that “privatization is on the table.”
At the local level, the Democrats bear their share of responsibility, having overseen the deindustrialization and systematic impoverishment of predominantly African American urban areas like Jackson over the last four decades. The election of black mayors and city councilors has done nothing to stave off a dramatic decline in living standards for the working class.
The overall social crisis is compounded by the impact of climate change, which is generating increasingly severe weather events throughout the world. Historic flooding in Pakistan has already killed thousands and displaced over 100,000. China is suffering from a massive heat wave. Recent studies from scientists have warned that, even with immediate action, climate change will raise sea levels by nearly a foot, while increasing temperatures will devastate the lives of millions in the Middle East and Africa.
Capitalism has no solution to any of these problems. The subordination of all of social and economic life to private profit blocks a rational response to crises like that in Jackson, Mississippi while preventing the coordinated global planning necessary to address their underlying causes.
The only solution lies in the expropriation of the wealthy and the big banks to free up trillions of dollars which must be put into rebuilding and developing the country’s infrastructure and combating climate change through emergency measures coordinated on a global scale. This will only be possible through the socialist reorganization of society by the working class to meet human needs and not private profit.
Nolte: Democrats Can’t Even Deliver Water and Electricity
Democrats are in complete control of California and can’t deliver enough water and electricity to keep its citizens comfortable.
This is outrageous.
What’s even more outrageous is the lack of outrage.
Too many Americans have been gaslighted into accepting what should be wholly unacceptable as normal — their own government’s ongoing failure to provide them with the basic necessities that sustain life.
Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but there was a time when the least we expected from government was enough electricity and water. Ask Mr. One-Term President Jimmy Carter about that. The issue that derailed his presidency (along with the Iran hostage crisis) was gasoline shortages. Anyone who grew up in the 70s remembers those gasoline lines and the lies the media and scientific “experts” told about how it wasn’t Jimmy’s fault that the planet was running out of fossil fuels.
We didn’t stand for those lies then. We wanted the problem fixed, so we fired the guy in charge and replaced him with Ronald Reagan, an optimist who understood America’s future was limitless. What followed was 20 blissful years of peace and prosperity.
Today, though, Americans are putting up with it. Well, not all Americans. Democrats. Democrat voters are putting up with not having enough water and electricity. They’re putting up with it in Democrat-controlled California. They put up with it for years in Democrat-controlled Flint, Michigan. They’re putting up with it in Democrat-controlled Jackson, MS.
Are water and electricity not the least you expect from your government?
Texans didn’t put up with it. When Texas was hit with power outages during a freak winter storm last year, the state went to work to ensure it could never happen again. We’ll know soon enough if Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has done enough, but at least he made it a priority. Democrats don’t make fixing these problems a priority. Instead, they use their own failure to deliver basic necessities as ideological talking points: They push the Global Warming Hoax. In Jackson and Flint, they blame American racism, their Republican governors, and white colonization.
Let’s say you buy all of those lies. Fine. Whatever. Still, where’s the pressure to solve the problem? That’s what I don’t get. The only way for voters to ensure things get done is to punish their failed political representatives at the ballot box. Nevertheless, voters continue to reward failure in Jackson, Flint, and California.
This self-destructive complacency is especially staggering because we currently live in the Age of Miracles.
Everyone holds in their hands a phone with more computer power than it took to land a man on the moon.
A 72-inch flatscreen TV costs $600.
A quick laser procedure will not only remove cataracts but return your 20/20 vision.
You can get a new heart, new kidneys, and new limbs.
We’re this close to our cars driving us instead of us driving our cars.
All the knowledge in the history of the world is available at the click of a button.
Other than people with severe mental and addiction problems, America’s eradicated poverty and hunger.
I could go on and on…
And yet, with all these miracles around us, some are willing to accept a government that cannot and will not deliver the basic necessities of life.
With desalination, there is no reason that California should not be able to supply its citizens with an abundance of water. We not only have the technology, the Pacific Ocean offers a limitless supply.
With nuclear technology, fracking, and advances in oil exploration and drilling, we have access to a limitless energy supply.
Flint and Jackson had clean water for decades and decades. The only reason that became a problem is because the Democrats who have run those cities forever (and into the ground) were focused on something other than maintaining and upgrading the infrastructures already in place.
In the middle of 1961, President John F. Kennedy said he wanted us on the moon within ten years. Starting almost from scratch, America did it in eight.
California, once seen as the place where everything was possible, has suffered blackouts going back nearly 20 years. Same with the water shortages.
It took Flint five years — five! — to fix its water problem.
Jackson’s water problem reaches back years.
Project Mercury launched in 1958. Three years later, Alan Shepherd was launched into space and returned safely to earth. Three years to start with nothing and launch a man into space.
We can easily fix these power and water shortages. Democrats refuse. Why? Because it accomplishes two goals for them. It allows them to 1) push the Global Warming Hoax and 2) use scarcity to control the idiots who vote for them.
But this is only possible when voters allow it, and idiot Democrats more than allow it; they keep voting for more of the same.
You get what you vote for.
No sympathy here.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
BIDEN AND THE BANKSTERS. THEY GET BAILED OUT, WE GET SCREWED..... AGAIN!
Michael Hudson | Economy is one big PONZI SCHEME
Boots on the Ground...Sept. 5th...Evictions are increasing....Homelessness going to get worse.
Street Level Signs We’re in a Recession
Americans are angry over the 'double standard' on Hunter Biden: Rep. Emmer
Goldman Sachs is About to Sell Another $47 BILLION in Global Equities
15 Facts That Prove That The Quality Of Jobs In America Is Going Down The Drain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf-NY7o2eig
Do you wish you had a better job? Do you wish you had a better salary? If so, you're not alone. More than 47 million Americans have left their jobs in the past year in the search for better working conditions, a clear sign that U.S. workers are getting increasingly fed up with long-hour, low-wage jobs that leave them scrambling to make ends meet every month. Over the past decade, the quality of jobs in America has drastically declined, and the vast majority of job openings out there are for underpaid positions that don't allow workers to afford the bare minimum. That's the consequence of a long-term trend that has been unfolding for the past 50 years, when middle-class jobs started to be shipped to overseas markets. Millions of good-paying jobs have been lost in that process, and even though the population has significantly increased since that period, today, U.S. workers compete for a shrinking pool of good-quality jobs while they see the cost of living steadily going up and their purchasing power going down. Wages are simply not keeping pace with inflation, in fact, once you adjust for inflation our paychecks have been getting smaller for years. Needless to say, all of this is absolutely destroying the middle class and eviscerating the working class. And now that the economy is taking a turn for the worse, these trends are likely to only get worse in the months and years ahead. Almost all of us know someone that is working a low-quality job. In America, working conditions can be harsh. According to a survey conducted by the RAND Corporation, 61% of American workers perform repetitive or intense physical work, which can include moving heavy loads or maintaining painful positions. More than half of these workers are exposed to hazards such as loud environments, extreme temperatures, hazardous materials, or unhealthy air. On top of that, many working environments can be hostile. Around 20% of American workers report abuse at work. Many of them are often subject to humiliation, bullying, or harassment — from their superiors, co-workers, or customers. Many positions are hectic. The survey reported that nearly 50% work in their free time to meet workplace demands. Ten percent do so nearly every day. Twenty-seven percent of workers say they don’t have enough time to do their job, and 66% work at high speed or on tight deadlines. To make things worse, 36% have work hours set by their employers with no possibility for changes. We have to deal with all of this and more only to collect a check every month that barely pays for our everyday essentials. Perhaps you find yourself stuck in such a situation. This can really suck the life right out of someone. No wonder why so many people are quitting right now. As the quality of jobs in America continues to worsen, we're going to see a stunning amount of families financially struggling as we move towards another economic recession. Challenging times are ahead. For that reason, today we gathered some shocking statistics that reflect the rapid decline of working conditions in the United States.
THE BIDEN DEPRESSION
VIDEO
Boots on the Ground...July 10th...Health care system is on life support.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6mJK56MMx0
Prepare Yourself For A Housing Market Crash That Will Freak Americans Out As Prices Collapse By 50%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRLTBBIIwkI
The last time the U.S. housing market looked this bubbly, property values sharply crashed. Over the past couple of years, double-digit appreciation has been the rule. Buyers were being forced to pay more than the asking prices – sometimes $100,000 more. Since March 2020, home prices skyrocketed by 45 percent, reaching levels that are impossible for many to afford. However, in recent months, a major shift has started to take place. Home sales and price cuts are becoming the new norm, leading the scorching-hot real estate market to a well-deserved slow down. The bubble has been popped by rising interest rates, and a housing market crash that can slash home values in half has begun. The nightmarish memories of the last boom and bust remain fresh in the minds of homeowners, lenders, and Realtors. With affordability issues squeezing potential homebuyers, the latest price increases are creating no shortage of concern. A new report by Redfin exposes that some of the hottest corners of the market are already seeing some of the sharpest price cuts and big drops in demand. Since August 2021, mortgage rates have more than doubled, and approximately 20 million prospective buyers have been priced out. According to data compiled by Wolf Richter of WolfStreet.com, price cuts spiked by 50% in June from May, and doubled year-over-year. A Moody’s Analytics report outlined that homes are overvalued in at least 93% of markets across the country, with markets in 11 states overvalued by 50% or more. They are Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, Tennessee, and Washington. Now, all of these markets are at risk of seeing home prices being slashed in half. “Homes are now even more overvalued than they were during the 2000s housing market bubble,” Moody’s Analytics said. At this point, American families are facing record-high prices on about every item they need in their day to day lives. And the supply shortages for housing are forcing many to keep renting despite record rent prices. In fact, there is less housing available for rent or sale now than at any time in the past 30 years. Current rent prices are about $1,100 higher than they were in 2020. A separate report from Redfin uncovered that nationally listed rents for available apartments rose 15% from a year ago. And the median listed rent for an available apartment rose above $2,000 a month for the first time.It really goes without saying how crazy these numbers really are. It’s clear that the housing and rent market can’t keep recording one all-time high after the other. We’re moving towards an affordability reset. More and more sellers and landlords are coming to grips with a new reality: Prices have to go where the buyers and renters are, and they’re are around somewhere, but they’re a lot lower, so prices have to readjust accordingly. The ones who have benefitted from speculative bubbles had powerful incentives to deny that this massive bubble could bust. But just as all bubbles that arise from speculative excesses, the U.S. housing market bubble reached extreme levels and started to reverse. All these gains are eventually going to be reversed, and if the system is destabilized any further, then the price drops could be far below previous lows. A property value collapse is already underway. And we can only hope this doesn’t end in another global financial disaster. For more info, find us on: https://www.epiceconomist.com/
VIDEO
20 Signs Of The Staggering Decline Of The American Middle Class Family
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHc3TS2JFzU
We just got more evidence that the middle class is being systematically destroyed in America. At this point, millions of people out there have already grown accustomed to barely scraping by from month to month. But that is not what being “middle class” is supposed to be about. Middle-class families should be able to make more money than they have to spend on everyday necessities because is only by doing so that they can build long-term wealth. Unfortunately, income growth has not kept up with the pace of the rising cost of living, and millions of households have taken massive amounts of debt. At the same time, the labor market doesn't offer good-paying jobs that support middle-class life, and the lack of these positions has been contributing to the decline of this income group all across the country. In the early 1970s, the middle class accounted for around 60 percent of the population, but now middle-income households are rapidly becoming a minority in the United States. And as economic conditions continue to deteriorate, millions of hard-working families all over America are being stretched financially like never before. “In America, the middle class can no longer afford retirement. Middle-class Americans face sharp economic inequality, with ownership of financial assets highly concentrated among the wealthy,” explained Tyler Bond, NIRS research manager. “Now that we have a retirement system largely built around the individual ownership of financial assets in 401(k) accounts, middle-class Americans are struggling to accumulate sufficient financial assets during their working years. This means the retirement outlook for many in the middle class is bleak at best.” Since the onset of the health crisis, the U.S. economy has been decaying at an alarming pace. Over the past two years, the middle class has gotten smaller and smaller in this country, and now it seems that another economic downturn is upon us once again. So many families are already living on the edge right now. Recent surveys have exposed that well over 50% of the population is living paycheck to paycheck and that most Americans don't have emergency savings or a financial cushion to fall back on. When you are living on the edge, there is always a danger that you could fall over. Since 2020, we have never seen so many middle-class Americans falling straight into poverty. In other words, unless dramatic changes happen in America, the middle class is going to be absolutely eviscerated in the next decade. We must wake up now. The middle class is dying right before our eyes, and if we want to save it, we must take action now. Today, we compiled a series of new numbers that expose the rapid downfall of the U.S. middle-class.
VIDEOS:
It's Too Late To Stop This Now, Get Your House In Order
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u7173SPBF8
15 Signs That The Social Decay In America Is Worse Than It Has Ever Been Before
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDTdgIJcoD8
The social fabric of the United States is rapidly deteriorating. Right now, virtually any measure of social welfare is showing us that social decay in America is accelerating at a very shocking pace. Our main institutions are either being dismantled or falling apart. At the same time, civil disorder continues to trigger unprecedented chaos in several parts of our country. Millions of Americans don't have access to proper housing, food, and education, and the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' has never been wider. The lack of proper education to help Americans thrive and accomplish financial stability is another sign of societal breakdown. Most colleges and universities are failing in one of their most basic missions: to equip students with the tools they need for a career. Millions of students graduate each year totally ill-prepared to earn a living and pay off the debt they’ve accumulated getting their degrees — at least 40% of those who start college don’t finish within six years. Despite these problems, colleges continue to raise tuition and to pay for these ever-increasing costs, students are borrowing more money and taking on more and more debt. And with federal loans accounting for much of the $1.5 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, and more than a million people defaulting on their loans, taxpayers are picking up much of the tab for this broken system while our younger generations remain utterly unprepared for the challenges of adult life. In the world’s wealthiest country, more and more people are living on the streets. Homelessness is a significant indicator of social decay. There are 750,000 Americans who are homeless on any given night, with one in five of them considered chronically homeless. Around 70% of the homeless are individuals, and families with children make up for the remaining 30%. Living without proper access to housing puts many people in very a vulnerable position, oftentimes, their lives are at risk. An examination of 20 US urban areas found that around 13,000 homeless people are victimized by disease, extreme weather, and substance abuse every year. The number of victims shot up by 77% in the five years ending in 2020. Today, the average life expectancy of a homeless person in America is just 50 years. There will be no future for us if we stay on this highly self-destructive path. The choices that we make individually and collectively as a nation are critical for the health of our society. Throughout all human history, great empires have fallen because societies have consistently made the wrong choices. So if we want to prevent the downfall of America, we must start making better choices. But if we are going to change direction, we better start doing it now because time is running out, and it won’t be too long before it is gone completely. Today, we decided to expose some worrying facts about the social breakdown happening all around us.
VIDEOS:
Why New York’s Billionaires’ Row Is Half Empty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wehsz38P74g&t=1439s
VIDEO
Prepare for the EVICTION WAVE about to hit US Housing Market (13 MILLION NOW IN DEFAULT)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-XhzvHUgB0
VIDEOS:
Why New York’s Billionaires’ Row Is Half Empty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wehsz38P74g&t=1439s
From Book Stacks to Psychosis and Food Stamps, Librarians Confront a New Workplace
For nearly two decades, Lisa Dunseth loved her job at San Francisco’s main public library, particularly her final seven years in the rare books department.
But like many librarians, she saw plenty of chaos. Patrons racked by untreated mental illness or high on drugs sometimes spit on library staffers or overdosed in the bathrooms. She remembers a co-worker being punched in the face on his way back from a lunch break. One afternoon in 2017, a man jumped to his death from the library’s fifth-floor balcony.
Dunseth retired the following year at age 61, making an early exit from a nearly 40-year career.
“The public library should be a sanctuary for everyone,” she said. The problem was she and many of her colleagues no longer felt safe doing their jobs.
Libraries have long been one of society’s great equalizers, offering knowledge to anyone who craves it. As public buildings, often with long hours, they also have become orderly havens for people with nowhere else to go. In recent years, amid unrelenting demand for safety-net services, libraries have been asked by community leaders to formalize that role, expanding beyond books and computers to providing on-site outreach and support for people living on the streets. In big cities and small towns, many now offer help accessing housing, food stamps, medical care, and sometimes even showers or haircuts. Librarians, in turn, have been called on to play the role of welfare workers, first responders, therapists, and security guards.
Librarians are divided about those evolving duties. Although many embrace the new role — some voluntarily carry the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone — others feel overwhelmed and unprepared for regular run-ins with aggressive or unstable patrons.
“Some of my co-workers are very engaged with helping people, and they’re able to do the work,” said Elissa Hardy, a trained social worker who until recently supervised a small team of caseworkers providing services in the Denver Public Library system. The city boasts that some 50 lives have been saved since library staffers five years ago began volunteering for training to respond to drug overdoses. Others, Hardy said, simply aren’t informed about the realities of the job. They enter the profession envisioning the cozy, hushed neighborhood libraries of their youth.
“And that’s what they think they’re walking into,” she said.
Across the U.S., more than 160,000 librarians are employed in public libraries and schools, universities, museums, government archives, and the private sector, charged with managing inventory, helping visitors track down resources, and creating educational programs. Often, the post requires they hold a master’s degree or teaching credential.
But many were ill prepared for the transformation in clientele as drug addiction, untreated psychosis, and a lack of affordable housing have swelled homeless populations in a broad array of U.S. cities and suburbs, particularly on the West Coast.
Amanda Oliver, author of “Overdue: Reckoning With the Public Library,” which recounted nine months she worked at a Washington, D.C., branch, said that while an employee of the library, she was legally forbidden to talk publicly about frequent incidents such as patrons passing out drunk, screaming at invisible adversaries, and carrying bed bug-infested luggage into the library. This widespread “denial of how things are” among library managers was a complaint Oliver said she heard echoed by many staffers.
The 2022 Urban Trauma Library Study, spearheaded by a group of New York City-based librarians, surveyed urban library workers and found nearly 70% said they had dealt with patrons whose behavior was violent or aggressive, from intimidating rants and sexual harassment to people pulling guns and knives or hurling staplers at them. Few of the workers felt supported by their bosses.
“As the social safety net has been dismantled and underfunded, libraries have been left to pick up the slack,” wrote the authors, adding that most institutions lack practical guidelines for treating traumatic incidents that over time can lead to “compassion fatigue.”
Library administrators have begun to acknowledge the problem by providing training and hiring staff members experienced in social services. Ensuring library staffers did not feel traumatized was a large part of her focus during her years with the Denver libraries, said Hardy. She and other library social workers in cities such as San Francisco and Washington have worked in recent years to organize training programs for librarians on topics from self-care to strategies for defusing conflict.
About 80% of librarians are women, and the library workforce skews older, with nearly a third of staff members over 55. As in many professions, salaries have failed to keep pace with rising costs. According to the American Library Association-Allied Professional Association, the average salary for a public librarian in the U.S. was $65,339 in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available.
Studies confirm that many librarians experience burnout.
In Los Angeles County, with more than 60,000 people who are homeless, the past few years have tested the limits of a public library system with more than 80 sites.
“The challenge is that the level of need is off the charts,” said L.A. city librarian John Szabo. “Unfortunately, we are not fully and effectively trained to deal with these issues.”
Libraries began their transition more than a decade ago in response to the number of patrons seeking bathrooms and temporary respite from life on the streets. In 2009, San Francisco decided to formally address the situation by hiring a full-time library social worker.
Leah Esguerra leads a team of formerly homeless “health and safety associates” who patrol San Francisco’s 28 library sites looking to connect sick or needy patrons with services big and small, from shelter beds and substance use treatment to public showers, a model that has been copied in cities around the world.
“The library is a safe place, even for those who no longer trust the system,” said Esguerra, who worked at a community mental health clinic before becoming the “library lady,” as she’s sometimes called on the streets.
But hiring a lead social worker hasn’t erased the many challenges San Francisco’s librarians face. So the city has become more aggressive in setting standards of behavior for patrons.
In 2014, then-Mayor Ed Lee called for library officials to impose tougher policies in response to rampant complaints about inappropriate conduct, including indecent exposure and urinating in the stacks. Soon after, officials released an amended code of conduct that explicitly spelled out the penalties for violations such as sleeping, fighting, and “depositing bodily fluids on SFPL property.”
The city has installed extra security and taken other steps, like lowering bathroom stall doors to discourage drug use and sex and installing disposal boxes for used needles, although people still complain about conditions at the main library.
Some rural libraries have sought to make social services more accessible, as well. In Butte County, along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in Northern California, library workers used a $25,000 state grant to host informational sessions on mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia, as well as how to help people access treatment. Books on these topics were marked with green tags to make them easier to find, said librarian Sarah Vantrease, who helped build the program. She now works as a library administrator in Sonoma County.
“The library,” said Vantrease, “shouldn’t just be for people who are really good at reading.”