At Home Downtown: Educating Citizens and Leaders about Homelessness

Early in the history of The Surly Librarian, I started writing about public libraries as "the last publicly funded walk-in human service agencies." For example, in "Poor Richard Redux: A Manifesto" (July 2008), I wrote about the mandate of public libraries to escort all people across the digital divide:

The roots of the American public library lie with Benjamin Franklin and his peers, who believed that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" depended upon free and equal access to information. They thought it important that information and the ability to search for, have access to and use it should not be solely the province of those privileged by prosperity or status.

We now have a culture in which only those with the advantage of computer and Internet access and the knowledge of how to use these tools can even get to much of the daily information which is most important for living successfully in American society....

The new jargon refers to those who have grown up in the online world as “digital natives.” Those of us who entered the work world before PCs, but who have had the privilege of learning to use and perhaps of owning them, are “digital immigrants....”

My concern here is for the very large population of immigrant and native residents who are “digital refugees.” Whether or not they know how to use these new technologies, our culture now expects them to join the “wired world” if they want access to the benefits and prosperity America has claimed for its successful citizens.

We didn't know when I wrote this that libraries would soon be flooded with out-of-work people and even homeless families who got kicked off the bus by the so-call Great Recession.

We certainly didn't know that governments were going require all who needed to apply for unemployment benefits or other public services—and now the Affordable Care Act—to do so online.

National Center on Family Homelessness

A broader way of exploring the public library mandate is to look at the questions "Who are our customers?" and "What are our services?" If the core of our mandate is to counterbalance privilege with information, and if public libraries are truly centers of community life, then the folks on the street are among our customers, and being involved in the public discourse about humane response to homelessness is part of our service.

Downtown Vision, Inc., (DVI) is "a nonprofit steward of downtown Jacksonville, has been a thought leader for years on what downtown has (benefits), what it needs (realistic assessment) and how to get there (a list of strategic suggestions)." The 2010 DVI white paper, "Turning the Corner: Rethinking and Remaking Downtown," is well worth studying.

A recent outgrowth of the DVI effort is the new Jacksonville website, At Home Downtown:

At Home is the meeting place for an ongoing conversation on downtown Jacksonville, homelessness, vagrancy and how these issues relate to urban revitalization. At Home will strive to provide candid and insightful conversation about these issues with the purpose of revitalizing downtown Jacksonville and improving results for our most needy. (from About)

One of the website's pages shares Ideas from other communities, another shares information about Collaboration, another Facts (such as homelessness statistics and mental health issues).

The key role of the website is to draw more people into the conversation about homelessness in Jacksonville and beyond.

I encourage your to take a look and join in.

Thanks,
Mike

Save the American Community Survey

On May 10th the House voted to defund the 2012 Economic Census and eliminate funding for the American Community Survey.

The American Community Survey (ACS) is an ongoing survey that provides data every year -- giving communities the current information they need to plan investments and services.

Information from the survey generates data that help determine how more than $400 billion in federal and state funds are distributed each year.

The Senate may consider funding on the Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill this week.

Online petition of support here:
http://www.petition2congress.com/6825/save-american-community-survey-acs/

Rep. Norman Dicks (Washington), Member of the Appropriations Committee, commented that the ACS was first administered in 2005 under President Bush and includes questions that were part of the long form Census and have been asked since the time of Thomas Jefferson.

Information from this study are used to establish policies about how to distribute over $800 million in federal funds, including Medicaid benefits.

For more in depth information:
A Future Without Key Social and Economic Statistics for the Country, from the blog of Robert M. Groves, Director of the U.S. Census Bureau.

The 2012 Economic Census provides comprehensive information on the health of over 25 million businesses and 1,100 industries. It provides detailed industry and geographic source data for generating quarterly GDP estimates.

The economic census is also the benchmark for measures of productivity, producer prices, and many of the nation’s principal economic indicators. At this moment, we are poised to request the key data from individual firms.

We have already printed 7.5 million forms, and are preparing the October mailing and internet data collection infrastructure. Cancelling the 2012 Economic Census now wastes $226 million already expended on preparatory activities.

Please share this information widely.

Thanks,
Mike

Petition the White House to Open Access to taxpayer-funded research

Note: This message is copied verbatim from a District Dispatch email.

Who:You! And anyone you know who supports libraries and supports increasing access to information - especially research that you (the public) helped fund.

What:
A petition is posted at "We the People" asking the White House to require the published results of taxpayer-funded research be made available via the Internet (without having to pay an additional fee to access the research).

When:
Now! 25,000 signatures must be secured by June 19 to ensure the White House will respond.

Where:Go to wh.gov/6TH electronically sign the petition. It's that easy!

Why:Why not?! The petition asks the White House to build upon the tremendously successful National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy implemented more than four years ago and now has 500,000 users accessing and downloading two million articles a day.

But wait, there's more! The petition's request to the White House essentially mirrors active legislation - the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2012 (FRPAA) (S. 2096, H.R. 4004) - that would extend the NIH model to make available taxpayer-funded research of an additional 11 federal departments and agencies! Increased access would allow librarians the ability to better assist patrons with their information and research needs as well as allow direct access by the public.

Please spread the word by forwarding, posting and tweeting (#openaccess), etc.!

Corey Williams
Associate Director, Office of Government Relations
American Library Association

Chuck McClure: "Score 1 (or more) for the Digital Divide and 0 for Florida public libraries"

Another excellent response to Gov. Scott's veto of Multitype Library Cooperative (MLC) funding from Dr. Charles R. McClure, Director at the FSU Information Institute, this one on the Libraries Connect Communities blog of American Library Association.

Dr. McClure focuses on the veto's negative impact on the collaborative efforts of Florida libraries to help customers, especially in rural counties, to get across the digital divide—this in a time when all of the state's own social services, including unemployment assistance, are now only available online.

We have discussed the digital divide implications between rural and urban/suburban settings noting how rural public libraries struggle to provide adequate broadband and information technology (IT) support. The Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study (PLFTAS) data demonstrate this struggle. Recent events in Florida suggest that strategies to reduce the rural digital divide – or at least the role that libraries can play in reducing that divide – will remain difficult....

While the $1.5 million veto may not sound like much money, the pain likely will be felt disproportionately in rural areas since many of the rural libraries depend on their MLC for a range of IT access, training, and support. As part of this blog, I interviewed a number of Florida public librarians for their assessment of the veto on the digital divide in Florida.

Please read and share the whole blog post.

"Why does a library cost more than a bomber?"

Remember the classic bumper sticker:

Wouldn't it be great if schools had money
and the Pentagon had to hold bake sales?
The title of this blog post is a somewhat fanciful paraphrase of the following chart, created originally by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and republished by the blog Shakesville and the New York Times Economix column.

The gist of that 2007 PCRM story was that

The Farm Bill...governs what children are fed in schools and what food assistance programs can distribute to recipients.

The bill provides billions of dollars in subsidies...to huge agribusinesses producing feed crops, such as corn and soy, which are then fed to animals. By funding these crops, the government supports the production of meat and dairy products—the same products that contribute to our growing rates of obesity and chronic disease.

Fruit and vegetable farmers, on the other hand, receive less than 1 percent of government subsidies.

I don't have the software to create a similar pyramid for Defense vs. Education, but how about this chart, Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go?, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities?

Three percent!!!

I've never understood why education is not a top national security priority.

Oh, well....

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See also the National Priorities Project: Bringing the Federal Budget Home.