'Libraries are reflections of our communities': Hardship and hope at the Lewiston Public Library

May 11—LEWISTON — On March 20, a man sat down with friends in the Reading Room at the Lewiston Public Library. A few minutes later, his head was slumped on a friend's shoulder, and efforts to revive him were unsuccessful until the man was given Narcan, the nasal spray that reverses an opioid overdose.

Two weeks earlier, a similar incident took place, when after a patron was in the bathroom for more than 20 minutes, staff conducted a wellness check. When the person inside did not respond, staff opened the door and found a man prone on the floor in front of the toilet, with a needle sticking out of his arm.

After each incident, both patrons were given one-year criminal trespass warrants by police.

While the incidents occurred in the same month, it has not been uncommon for library staff to be confronted with similar issues on a weekly basis over the past several years due to the opioid and homelessness crises. One former staff member said the library has essentially become a de facto day shelter in Lewiston due to the lack of other services during daytime hours.

Incident reports written by staff between Jan. 1 and April of this year describe events ranging from drug overdoses and public intoxication to verbal abuse of staff members. Staff routinely sees patrons under the influence of substances, sleeping, or not following other library rules.

Several library supporters, homeless advocates and elected officials have for years called on city leaders to pursue solutions for homeless people with nowhere else to go during the day.

However, through it all, library staff has continued to adapt to the new reality while still offering a variety of popular programs and services to the public on roughly the same budget. Many of the issues facing the library are not unique to Lewiston, and are common at many libraries in larger urban areas. Library supporters and some officials are also quick to point out that issues are not solely caused by the homeless population.

"Libraries are reflections of their communities," said Library Director Joseph Houston this week. "We as a community have some pressures that the library is not immune to."

While recent budget discussions by the City Council put library safety in the spotlight, there is some optimism that building monitor positions, combined with contracted security added late last year, are a working combination that is relieving some pressure from staff.

The Sun Journal spoke with library leaders, staff, elected officials and more about the issues facing the library, the root causes, and why there's hope for the future.

According to library incident reports that were obtained through a Freedom of Access Act request, staff continues to deal with regular disruptions, but the presence of either the building monitor or security provides a layer of support and helps streamline the response to issues when they arise.

There is clearly a pattern of patrons suffering with substance use disorder, mental health issues or homelessness, and staff is often keeping tabs on the same person entering multiple times a day or week, or after they've been suspended from the library for a certain amount of time. Some of the reports are updated weekly or monthly based on the person's activity.

According to police data, there were 60 calls for service between Jan. 1 and April 10 of this year, but those numbers are inflated by the city's work with Project Support You staff, social workers that shadow a police officer downtown. City administration said 29 of the "calls" were actually an officer conducting routine wellness checks on library patrons along with the city's PSY staff, and those visits are counted as calls.

Library officials said roughly 90% of calls made to the police are for issuing or discussing a criminal trespass warrant for known individuals.

Houston, who was hired in July of last year after former director Marcela Peres left, has worked at seven different library systems over his 19-year career and said all of them use a similar incident reporting system. He said it helps to keep staff on the same page, especially when it comes to patron suspensions due to behavior. The library hands out suspensions of various lengths depending on the infraction, some requiring a meeting with Houston before it is lifted.

The building monitor position, in place for at least the last five years, is responsible for knowing library policies, keeping an eye out for behavior infractions and issuing incident reports. One building monitor has been on staff for several years, but a second position has been difficult for the library to keep filled.

That difficulty led the library to instead add part-time contracted security in November 2023. Houston said the system "has really worked for us," with the library seeing a decrease in both calls for service to the police and the number of incidents compared to the same period of time the previous year.

"Those things are working, and together with the staff, they've really done a great job," he said, adding that while he came on board in July, staff have told him that things are "getting better and they feel safer."

Harper Chance, who worked as a teen services technician in Lewiston between 2019 and 2023, recently wrote a letter to the editor in the Sun Journal that said the library should not be a "catch all" for the city's "unmet needs."

When reached this week, he said he left after spending nearly 10 years working directly with the public in libraries and was burnt out. During his time in Lewiston, he said part-time employees were "holding the staffing schedule together" despite being underpaid and often being "the ones on the front lines dealing with the most stressful situations."

In his view, full-time library staff "are constantly burnt out and dealing with trauma from situations they are not equipped or trained to deal with."

"Librarians struggle to get actual library work done because they are spending their time managing staffing issues and addressing patron behavior when there is no building monitor," he said.

The entire library staff participated in de-escalation and conflict resolution training last May.

The building monitor positions are 19 hours per week, while the contracted security is 20 hours per week. Houston said the library has had only one monitor actively on staff for roughly 36 of the past 42 weeks.

After a City Council debate last week, the second building monitor position was added back into the budget.

Chance thinks the library monitor positions and security have the potential to help staff handle issues, but also said the positions as they are structured now have been difficult to keep filled because they are "underpaid and undervalued" for the skills and experience that is needed to support the library and its patrons.

When a reporter walked into the library mid-morning this week, there were a handful of people on each floor, but all was quiet.

Some patrons worked on computers, while others hung out in the teen room. The Children's Room was between public story time events. A small number of people sat at the long stretch of high top table that looks out onto Lisbon Street. It was similarly calm later in the day.

Reading through recent incident reports, however, can feel like reading about a different library.

One report describes a man "rolling on the floor, whining about his situation" suffering from substance use disorder while in the Children's Department, with children in the Activity Room. The man dropped a torn paper bag that contained many unused syringes, several tourniquets, and other items.

The reports often describe people found asleep in different areas of the library, and efforts to rouse them or give warnings about library rules that prohibit sleeping. At one point recently, a woman was lying face down on the floor by the newspaper tables and had to be awakened by her friends. When staff is tasked with waking people, sometimes the person gets angry or combative, lodging verbal abuse at staff. Most other times the person leaves without incident.

On March 8, after three teenage boys were warned for being disruptive, they ran down the stairs shouting, one with middle fingers in the air, shouting racial slurs at a staff member. He then spit at the staff member. While all three were suspended, they came in days later, and after being told about the suspensions, sprayed soda onto the same staff member.

Those who spoke to the Sun Journal for this story said that while the library faces complex issues, it remains a safe and welcoming space for everyone. Libraries are meant to be places that anyone can access, and that includes people without a home.

Houston said one of the most beautiful things about working in libraries is not expecting money to change hands. The library is truly there for service, he said, but that attracts different people than a typical business.

He said as society experiences trauma like the opioid epidemic, COVID-19, and homelessness, public services like libraries are on the front lines.

"A lot of communities are still processing trauma, and that's reflected in libraries," he said.

The Rev. Sarah Gillespie, who recently stepped down after serving on the library board for six years, said she never hesitates to bring her 5-year-old son on a regular basis.

"Several staff greet us by name and we always find a warm welcome and a sense of belonging," she said. "But no place is 100% safe. We cannot judge (the library) or its books by their covers. If you don't go inside the library, meet its people and experience its programs, you will never know the goodness that awaits you. I hope the community continues to see and support that."

Houston said he's in regular contact with library officials in Portland and Bangor, and that while safety solutions are "never a one size fits all," every library he's ever worked for has had resources devoted to safety.

Tu Biederman, the current library board chair, said years of experience working in public libraries in different parts of the country has shown that "some of the kindest, most considerate patrons I've known have had unstable housing situations, and likewise some of the most disrespectful, disruptive patrons I've encountered have not."

"It is simply inaccurate to assume that all security issues in the library are caused by unhoused individuals," Biederman said.

Leading up to the council's budget vote last week, Mayor Carl Sheline issued a statement to the media that said cutting the second building monitor position is "extremely shortsighted and threatens the safety and well-being of our library staff and patrons."

But Sheline's approach to the issue angered some councilors. During the meeting, Councilor Josh Nagine said he was "disappointed that our mayor decided to say that the downtown was a very dangerous and scary place and so is the library."

"The library is a safe place," he said. "There are safety concerns. They're being addressed. The library is not a war zone. The library is not a dangerous place to be."

Council President Scott Harriman said Sheline manufactured a "media crisis" surrounding the building monitor position. Ultimately, councilors said they supported keeping the second monitor position after hearing from constituents.

Sheline said this week that the library and its mission "has been historically undervalued by the city" and that the departure of some staff in recent years — like Peres and Chance — reflects that. In August of last year, a librarian was assaulted.

"The issue is that we've allowed the library to bear the brunt of the social issues facing our community," he said. "While we have made progress, we still have too many calls for police service at the library. I am happy that we have approved the second building monitor position, but I wish there was political will to do more."

Most people who spoke to the Sun Journal emphasized that the issues facing the Lewiston library are ones facing many libraries across the country.

Chance said he also worked at the Portland Public Library, where he saw the same issues, often with greater frequency because of the higher population density. The city of Portland has recently added "community safety" staff at the library, who have more social work and behavioral health backgrounds, something that Chance said Lewiston should consider.

"Unfortunately, libraries around the country, especially those in urban areas, are dealing with many of the same problems," he said. "They are being asked to serve the needs of vulnerable populations that are outside the realm of their skills and expertise, without being provided adequate resources, and while facing harsh budget cuts."

Chance said he has disagreed with messaging that the library is an unsafe place to visit or work, calling it "damaging rhetoric." But, he said, "I want to acknowledge that it can be an extremely stressful, and has been on occasion a traumatizing place for employees to work because of the lack of adequate staffing and support for people in crisis in the community that falls on the library."

At the City Council meeting last week, councilors approved the formation of a new ad hoc committee that will be tasked with studying the feasibility of establishing a homeless shelter in Lewiston.

There have been calls for years from community members for the city to pursue a 24-hour low-barrier shelter, but efforts have often been halted by elected officials. While Lewiston has several privately run shelters, none of them are open during the day.

Nagine said this week that the combination of shelters closing during the day and a "lack of economic activity along the Lisbon Street corridor," makes the library a natural place for people to go, especially since it's open and welcoming.

He said the city's community partners "who purport to serve a particular demographic," have not stepped up to alleviate the issues during the day. And because of that, he said, a city-directed shelter facility would be helpful in order to "get people placed in programming that exists and get people off the streets."

Nagine said part of the ad hoc committee's job will be to "identify partners who will do the work."

Biederman, not speaking on behalf of the library board, personally supports the creation of a city-run shelter in Lewiston. They said any shelter has limitations but that "having more accessible resources for folks who need housing, financial assistance, and healthcare services, especially those experiencing acute crises, could alleviate the stress on library staff who are not equipped and should not be expected to adequately aid patrons in those ways and to the degree they require."

It was obvious this past week how passionate people can get about their public library, and perhaps how sensitive Lewiston has become to its downtown issues. A seemingly innocuous $15,000 item in the library budget led to a groundswell of constituent feedback and support because it was related to library staff and safety.

Darby Ray, director of the Harward Center at Bates College, called the library the city's "most important educational and cultural institution."

"It's a place where everyone feels welcome, and I'm not sure there are many places where that is true," she said.

Gillespie said the current systems of support in our society are deeply flawed, which is why the library needs extra support.

"But the library should never take full responsibility for complex economic and social issues that require the minds of our entire community to brainstorm around," she said. "But until other solutions appear, the library remains — open and enduring."

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