In 2008, the San Francisco Public Library considered a very unusual question. How, they asked the city’s homeless, can our library better serve you?

Officials weren’t looking for book club ideas. Over the past decade, the shrinking social safety net has turned many libraries into major care providers for the underprivileged. The homeless, in particular, rely on libraries for daytime shelter. It’s a big job, one that libraries — perpetually cash-strapped and understaffed — aren’t sure they’re equipped to handle.

I did this work for a year and a half in a city that was quickly gentrifying and working to expel it’s homeless population. While many opponents of this trend have fair points, (re:can we give sound advice, can we give the time when we are understaffed) I urge to point out that homelessness and poverty exist in many different forms. At the time I was leaving my last library, I had been working with the less-than-regular homeless population. There were many times I would see mothers with their children at the library ALL DAY. And I would roam and keep an eye on them, seeing if they needed food or toiletries. We were working on keeping a small food pantry. We were located on the children’s floor and we would so often see children who had not eaten all day.

I think the most important thing to consider is that many people do not have the time nor resources to call shitty social service phone trees. They do not have the patience nor phone minutes nor phone battery to put up with all the road blocks in place to obtaining rental assistance, a place to stay for a night, an update on their TANF case, etc. and that’s what I did. I called and called and called, and I networked to get ahold of people or places that could actually help me help people. I would so often say, “this is how we can help at the library. We do job searches, we are a safe place. What can you do for us?” So many shelters do not allow their residents to stay during the day. You leave in the morning, you show that you’ve been job searching throughout the day, and then you come back in the evening. It’s awful and exhausting, particularly if you have children in tow.

I feel that the library is an excellent place to make all of these social service providers come together. You have no idea how separated they are, they don’t work together even if it makes TOO MUCH SENSE for a shelter to coordinate with the food pantry or with DSS.

If libraries are so enthusiastic about becoming community centers in order to continue being relevant, than this is part of what comes with that. You can’t just say, oh but we just want book clubs and sewing clubs and 3D printing and yoga. Stop trying to gentrify libraries and actually become resource/community centers. Librarians bend over backwards to learn new things, but are making some weak excuses for not learning how to connect people with the right places for help.

The whole responsibility definitely shouldn’t devolve onto librarians but they are well placed to do a lot of helpful stuff if they have support and connections with other relevant agencies.