Hundreds of vagrants crowd into San Francisco’s main library every day. Some bathe in the rest rooms. Some threaten patrons. Some use illegal drugs and disturb the quiet atmosphere.
But rather than adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward disruptive library visitors, the San Francisco library has hired an $85,000-a-year social worker to cater to them.
The social worker’s “delicate task is making herself visible and available to those who might want help without intruding on the privacy of those who do not,” The Associated Press reported.
The results seem mixed at best. Asked how the social worker might help him, one vagrant pointed to his big bags full of clothes and said, “I’ve got all this laundry to do. Maybe she can help with that.”
We have to wonder whether this sort of expenditure of city funds is what recently led one newspaper in San Francisco to declare it “the worst-run big city in the U.S.”