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Monday, May 21, 2012
Central Library cites survey in decision to remove benches
by Kathleen Haley, published on August 31, 2009 at 9:30 PM
Storyline: Downtown
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Sacramento’s Central Library recently removed the benches along the library’s I Street sidewalk. Don Tucker, director of facilities for the Sacramento Public Library, has cited a 2007 survey that showed only 7 percent of the people using the benches were library customers.
The benches had been used frequently by homeless people.
The Sacramento Press requested and obtained the survey, which was administered by a Sacramento Police Department officer. The “Library Bench Project” survey created categories of “legitimate bench users” and “total bench users.” People who were reading or leaving the library were defined as “legitimate users.” Read the survey here.
The police officer monitored the benches from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on five different days. Three of 68 total users on July 19 were legitimate, the survey said. On July 26, six users out of a total of 76 were considered legitimate.
The survey noted that on Aug. 1, 2007, a total of 52 people used the benches, of which seven were legitimate users. On Aug. 8, 2007, a total of 63 people used the benches. Four of these people were legitimate users, according to the survey.
A total of 78 people used the benches on Aug. 15, 2007, according to the survey. Of that total, four people were legitimate users, the survey said.
Tucker also cited other reasons for removing the benches. The library was receiving feedback from disabled patrons and mothers with babies in strollers that the benches were blocking access to the library, he said earlier this month.
Loaves & Fishes Co-Director Garren Bratcher criticized the library’s decision to remove the benches, which homeless people had used. “It is my belief that they were removed because homeless people use them to rest,” Bratcher said.
Photo by David Watts Barton.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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I also knew friends who mentioned to me that the area was less inviting because it felt like you had to suffer a barrage of homeless people in order to make it into the library.
I'd like to see that they were moved someplace else, maybe to area parks or along a major thoroughfare where people may walk and could use them to take a rest occasionally.
"Suffer"?
"A barrage"?
In the decades those benches were there, I never saw any homeless person blocking or impeding anyone else's passage into the Library. The area was never "barraged" with so many homeless that there wasn't room to sit down, if any "Legitimate Users" wanted to.
These are public benches on the public thoroughfare at a public building. There was no rule that someone on the bench had to be a library visitor.
The homeless aren't considered "Not Legitimate Users" -- this survey and these attitudes consider them "Not Legitimate Citizens or Human Beings."
Most already hang out all day in Cesar Chavez Park. It's getting so that that part of downtown is the 2nd Loaves and Fishes.
I agree with later commenters that if they were cleaned it would be better. Also if they're going to be moved elsewhere around downtown that's great. I don't mind the homeless utilizing resources, just not abusing the resources. And it does look bad when we have such a high concentration in one area.
You are complaining about the mere presence of poor and homeless people. You have no right to say "that part of downtown is the 2nd Loaves and Fishes." You are making assumptions about who these people are and acting like they should be disappeared for your convenience.
If you think people won't walk on the same side of the street or use the park of the library, you're wrong. Plenty of people coexist in the real world. The sanitized, selfish and short sighted opinions you are expressing are offensive.
L&F could help a lot by not throwing their "guests" out of their extensive compound at 3 every afternoon. The idea of moving the benches somewhere else? Donate them to L&F and then they could offer a nice place for homeless to spend their time on their facilities--even a few tents. I heard on the news recently that a homeless man was killed walking across12th Street to go to or leave L&F. Maybe the benches there would have saved his life.
What you mean is "the city has to extinguish its homeless."
Your version of reality is skewed, as if the people who need the services weren't here before Loaves and Fishes existed. There have always been people in need. Since Reagan created a new permanent homeless class, it has become common to hear the attitude that they should just disappear, for the convenience and aesthetic demands of self-entitled folks who never consider where the homeless are supposed to disappear to.
The way to address civic issues, whether homelessness or appropriate use of public space, is not to demonize and disappear the most disadvantaged among us. "Extinguish its homeless image" sounds like marketing speak from someone who may have grown up in a suburban mall and never got close enough to realize that many of the homeless and those who used to be called Downtown "bums," are war veterans. Pick a war, any war, including the current ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's always heartbreaking to see women on the streets. Often, they will resist assistance and do their best to appear "normal," holding it together against all odds. Perhaps they are more sensitive to the dehumanizing attitudes of so many in this thread.
Everybody's got a story. The false assumptions of those who lump all the people on downtown streets who appear disadvantaged as "the homeless" are part of the problem, not the solution.
"If Sacramento downtown is ever going to be vibrant and attractive to outsiders," some of those "outsiders" are going to have to check their ignorance and prejudice at the door.
"Loaves & Fishes needs to be addressed in serious terms."
Homelessness needs to be addressed in serious terms.
http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/11618/Benches_at_I_Street_Central_Library_removed
Cheers,
Kathleen
There is no doubt that there is a huge homeless problem in Sacramento and this needs to be better addressed by the community but these benches were never part of the solution and obviously were rarely used by people who use the library.
And, yes, I and my wife have also been aggressively panhandled at the benches. There is also the matter of some people fighting, violently cursing, and, um, handling themselves in public. This is not something my kid should have to deal with in order to get a copy of Curious George Goes to the Beach.
I would have a different perspective on this issue if the Library had been maintaining and cleaning the benches (they have not), and if security or police monitored activity there (they do not). I have no problem with homeless or any other people sharing a public resource, but I do have a problem with people who abuse a public resource even if they have serious mental issues (which does not necessarily equate to homelessness).
"I would have a different perspective on this issue if the Library had been maintaining and cleaning the benches (they have not), and if security or police monitored activity there (they do not)."
If we hide chronic homelessness then it doesn't exist. Right?
To be fair, I know that SPL did spend their limitied resources too on cleaning the sidewalk and benches on a weekly basis which factored in to their decision to remove as well.
What does "loitering" mean, in term of the survey? Resting is a purposeful activity, especially in August, in the hot afternoon, when the survey was taken.
How was the determination made that a person on a bench used alcohol?
Frankly, what the survey reeks of is not Smirnoff's but data created to justify a predetermined action.
I am curious what the result "57% somewhat or seriously affected by inadequate or lack of street lighting" means. Was it very, very dark in the middle of the day in late July and early August of 2007? Was the survey taken by use of cameras set up across the street and the film was hard to see?
I wonder if the film is still existent.
I am extremely critical of Loaves & Fishes, but not because they are somehow the source of homelessness in our metropolis, but because they enable and entrap the homeless and are an obstacle for people trying to climb out of being impoverished. And it is downright scary how very very sure I am becoming that I am right about this.
Re Loaves & Fishes and looney-tunes politics and our terrible local media, INDEED! The local media helped to report all the misinfomation stemming from Tent City last spring, that has given our city the reputation as being anti-business. THAT is a disgrace. The Bee was once brave and mighty; today it is a rag. The "Safe Ground movement" is led by Cathleen April Williams and others who are keen on the People's Tribune [ peoplestribune.org ] which is a communist publication. I kid you not; they want the overthrow of capitalism as a means to aid the peasant class. It's 1917 all over again at Loaves & Fishes. If it wasn't so overwhelmingly foolish [and igmorant of the central lesson of the 20th Century] it might approach being scary. [See http://sacramentohomeless.blogspot.com/2009/08/common-ground-on-safe-ground-common.html ]
Tom, you're right, "it is downright scary how very very sure I am becoming that I am right about this."
If the discussion could be held with valid concerns and minus dehumanizing and demonizing others, Sacramento would be that much closer to real civic solutions.
It isn't liberal nor progressives that are in charge of Loaves & Fishes' agenda anymore, it is the totalitarians. Oracle was being too delicate; they're beyond the fringe. [That is, those that are policymakers.] And they don't "represent" the homeless, they leach upon them. The homeless, themselves, fly American flags from the back of their bicycles.
Loaves & Fishes is headquarters for dehumanizaton. I have to say things have improved in some areas, but you still have parent->child transaction mode; enabling and entrapping policies; lines & queues without end; and the politics of endless whining and seeing everything that L&F wants for the homeless as demand for "a civil right." Too, the homeless-help industry in this city isn't competative, it's united in entrenching itself, collectively.
I'm glad that the library removed the benches, they can simmer in their juices half a block over at wino park.
We hated having to fend off their aggressive begging, smells, whenever we went to visit the library.
BTW this is how the rest of the area views downtown, an area filled with miscreants via public transportation, confusing streets, terrible parking, and bums.
We need a bloomberg style cleanup.
As far as the " rest of the area" and their opinions- although I don't see any evidence to back this statement whatsoever. what would you prefer,? downtown more closely resembling Natomas, Granite Bay or that hotspot known as Elk Grove? Sprawl is much better than a treelined city. Now we can all go to Linens and Things whenever we want and then maybe some crummy chain restaurant. Now that's progress.
BTW I hope thoses benches stay in the Downtown/Midtown area.
The matters that you bring up should be dealt with aggressively, but they should certainly also be dealt with *specifically* and, because this is a matter of people who are in a deathspiral, humanely and compassionately.
Most homelessdon't want real help -at least not if it anyway restricts their "lifestyle". Most have burn all their bridges so they have no family support. Thats Ok by me. ...but don't lay a false guilt trip on rest of us. If the supporters of homeless want to be their savior -more power to them...but don't demand everyone to follow and don't try to make us out to be cold hearted bastards if we don't. I know better.
When I say society has "abandoned" them, I mean social services don't help the neediest. We went from instant asylums for the mentally ill, to ignoring them altogether; one end of the sprectum to the other. In more recent history, VOA axed its outreach program first thing. It's most important program was the first thing cut. I'm not putting a guilt trip on you, Markes. What I am is highly critical of how the homeless-help industry misuses money and stockpiles money.
I think, and have written often, that the citizens of Sacramento are magnificent! My complaint is that the homeless-help industry in this town is highly unworthy of the citizenry and the mostly wonderful people who are homeless in this metropolis.