What is the purpose of a library?

Is it a place for reading? For learning? For coming together as a community? For acting as a social service agency?

Is it all of the above?

This week’s Rogue Valley Times article by reporter Buffy Pollock that detailed issues related to the large number of homeless people who congregate at the Medford library — where many receive services and are supplied with necessities — raises the above questions and more.

In its 2022-26 Strategic Plan, Jackson County Library Services specifically cites as a primary goal fostering “a welcoming and inclusive environment in facilities, services and resources for all segments of the community,” including “unhoused individuals and families.”

While admirable in intent, it has come with a cost — crime reports are up dramatically, there has been damage to facilities, some local residents now avoid going to the library, while increased security measures are being taken by those in neighboring buildings.

The situation is a flashpoint in Medford, but the issue is not unique to our city. Libraries across the country are magnets for homeless people, spurring similar conversations elsewhere.

In the election coming up May 16, three JCLS board seats are up for grabs, and two are contested. For the candidates — and for taxpayers and voters — there are many more questions in need of answers.

Should the library — our library, your library — stop providing wellness services to homeless individuals based on the actions of a few?

Pull Quote

If the library were required to stop tending to the homeless, would they still come there — to get away from the weather, to use the facilities? To escape the sheer boredom of being alone?

If so, who would step up, who could step up, to treat the homeless with a sense of common decency?

Is it the library’s responsibility alone to provide increased security for the times those who cause disruptions impact the ability of others to have safe access?

Can the library say, “We want to be of service to those less fortunate,” without also saying, “We want other visitors to be able to enjoy their visit without worry?”

Where is the line? Is it drug use? Is it sleeping in public areas? Is it blocking doorways? Is it performing sex acts in bathrooms?

Is it when a mother feels forced to put herself between her child and a screaming woman approaching them in the parking lot?

How much is too much? Is it the increase in crime? Of fires started?

Should the library be treated with leniency when businesses or other areas experiencing such problems would be threatened with closure?

Shouldn’t we, the tax-paying public, have a say in what is going on?

Does frustration make one heartless? Does fear?

Can we, on one hand, reach out with our hearts … but, with the other, signal that something has to stop?

If the library were required to stop tending to the homeless, would they still come there — to get away from the weather, to use the facilities? To escape the sheer boredom of being alone?

Where would they go instead?

Where is this “someplace else” that critical voices prefer they go?

How would they get there? Who would pay for it?

You? Me? Somebody else?

Shouldn’t our county have a role in solving this? Shouldn’t our city? Shouldn’t we?

Since one of JCLS’s strategic goals is to “serve as a convener of community conversations of broad local interest in the county.” Wouldn’t this situation merit such a forum?

Were you to talk, privately and in confidence, to those who work at the library, what responses would they give you?

Shouldn’t the voices be heard of those who live, work, go to school, go through their days in the proximity of the library?

Shouldn’t the impact on the surrounding area be a primary consideration?

Why do we narrow our focus to specific areas — our Greenway, our library, our city parks — when discussing the crisis we face?

Is the challenge too great? Are we incapable of seeing a solution? Is coping on a day-to-day basis not enough anymore?

Can we accept without prejudice the idea that with the umbrella term “homeless” there are separations of behavior? Can we acknowledge that some need more help than can be provided at the library, while others try their best to get through the day?

Can we accept without prejudice the idea that within the umbrella term “the public,” there are separations of behavior? That the range of emotions stirred by situations such as this do not reflect the value judgments of all?

Do we understand that empathy, sympathy and patience do not spring from bottomless wells? That calls to “do something” come to the surface for reasons beyond anger or a lack of compassion?

When we see those without a home, does the fear creep in that we might see a familiar face? One that looks like family, or friend? Neighbor or co-worker?

Does it hurt to divert our eyes?

What is the purpose of a library? Is that even the right place to start?