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Comment by VonGuard | Hacker News Reader

Spend just an hour at a local library in a struggling section of the largest city near you, and you'll see that this is where the poor come to interact with modern society. 1000's of people come here to access the Internet, get help with things like GMail, or online signups for unemployment insurance. They get tax help, legal help from lawyers who come give free consultations, and libraries offer some of the best child care events available: baby bounces, story time, big picnics, etc.

Libraries are some of the most important public spaces out there. Oakland even has a tool lending library with weed wackers, hammers, drills...

Libraries are the only public institutions dedicated to freely increasing the education level of adults.

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People have reacted fairly strongly to the threat of defunding organizations like the NEA and the NEH, but haven't really recognized the threat against IMLS, which is the Federal agency in America that funds a lot of this.

Worth a look: https://www.imls.gov/

We have plenty of homeless here in Toronto, and having spent many days of my youth at the public libraries (at least five whole days, from open to close, in at least six locations) I can say I have never even once seen a homeless person inside for any other purpose than to use the washroom. Is your experience universal in the U.S?

It's definitely true in San Francisco, where much of the library literally reeks from all the homeless people. Many of them do seem to be using it, though I'm sure plenty come in just to use the bathrooms, rest, or sleep.

SF Main is an example of a library gone wrong: it's literally a homeless camp, and smells horrible because of it. Oakland has better control: they have a bit of standards, and don't allow homeless people to impede the use by regular citizens, without restricting access for homelsss users. It's a tight rope, but if homeless people make the library unusable by other people, that's blocking access, just like it would be if homeless people aren't allowed in. It's a tricky balance to pull off, but Oakland does it well, SF has given up and let the homeless people win.

I literally left SF Main once because some guy with a pantload of feces was monopolizing the graphic novels section. Couldn't get within 10 feet.

Have you been back to the library as an adult and looked around at what people are doing there? As a child I only ever noticed ragged looking folks at the library, but that's because I was a child. Nowadays I notice all the people on computers. Shoulder surfing them (yeah, yeah) and it looks like a lot of them are taking care of business online that I would normally do at home on my own computer. Finding information, job applications, some gaming, etc. Also the library helps people file their taxes and learn how to interact with local government and vote. This is all on top of the more traditional functions you'd expect at a stereotypical library. I never noticed any of this as a kid, but I definitely notice it as an adult.

You're going to see more homeless people in a library that is located in an area with a lot of homeless people. They can congregate in the library where it's climate controlled and there are bathrooms as well as something to do (books to read). That's pretty common in larger cities.

Some libraries I've frequented also have spaces for hosting public events and also maker spaces for folks who can't afford access to such things on their own. It's really a great thing to see.

I can only speak for the Detroit and Los Angeles/Santa Monica/Beverly Hills library systems but I can say the overwhelming majority of people using the public computer terminals are the elderly, homeless, and poor.

In the Southern California area, it provides a respite from the unrelenting sun and stifling heat during the day. In addition, it is one of the few venues that provides a source of entertainment for those who could not otherwise afford it.

I don't know if this is still true, but part of my education involved taking quarterly trips to the library where we were taught how to properly research a topic and how to determine if a source is credible or not.

Not all poor people are homeless...

They didn't even say "homeless", they said "poor". Nothing in that comment connects to yours.

My dad up until recently worked at the public library in Waterloo. There were a number of homeless people well known to the staff that came in regularly. Mostly to get out of the heat or the cold, but they'd use the computers for things. They also get a lot of immigrants through the doors.

A thousand times this. It doesn't even need to be a large city. Large cities tend to be innovators on breaking the mold of what constitutes traditional library services, but I've also seen smaller towns where libraries provide lifeline services.

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