Yesterday, at a community homelessness resource and health fair where I was a faculty preceptor for a footcare clinic with some of our medical and nursing students, I was reminded of the powerful role of libraries in the lives of people experiencing homelessness. Among the tables and tents offering warm winter coats, gloves, hats, behavioral health resources, pizza, bagels, coffee, haircuts, youth shelter, and women’s day shelter services, and our footcare, the University Branch of the Seattle Public Library table was quite popular. Amidst the absurdity of a return to backward-looking book bans throughout our country and in a season of thanksgiving, let us remember that public libraries literally save lives.

It is not hyperbole to say that public libraries save lives, especially for people experiencing homelessness. Libraries give sanctuary and shelter, both emotionally and physically. Libraries yield quiet, peacefulness, community, heat, and, hopefully, air conditioning when it’s hot and smokey outside. Libraries have public restrooms, which are surprisingly scarce in Seattle, as in most U.S. cities. Harried parents can find respite in libraries with their bright, colorful children’s book sections, free access to the internet and computers, and children’s story hours. Children, teens, adults, and older adults, no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, differing abilities, socio-economic and housing situations, can all find stories of people like them who deal with challenges they face and who find ways to not only survive, but endure, resist, and thrive.

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Psychology Today
November 11, 2023