“I love librarians!” Deborah Edison, director of development and marketing for homeless advocacy organization YouthCare, is enthusiastic as she speaks to a group of 11 librarians at Straley House, YouthCare’s home for homeless youth aged 18–24. The large, labyrinthine house in Seattle’s University District neighborhood provides essential services and support—housing, meals, life skills workshops, art therapy, and more—to the homeless in an effort to prepare them for a life off of the streets.
The librarians are visiting Straley House as a part of Librarian Outreach to the Homeless in Seattle: Midwinter Day of Caring, an initiative that allows librarians attending Midwinter to tour a homeless facility and participate in outreach. It was created to introduce librarians to the various organizations serving people who are homeless in Seattle and to address ways in which librarians can best serve homeless populations that use library services. Edison stresses this point.
“For kids on the streets, libraries are incredibly important. They use them to research resources, to check email, apply for jobs, and write resumes. I don’t know what they’d do without them.”
The librarians at Straley House echo this sentiment when asked why they wanted to take part in the outreach.
Nicole Porter, formerly a librarian at Mendocino County (Calif.) Public Library System, wanted to participate after hearing about homeless library usage from colleagues. She hopes to share what she learns at Midwinter upon her return to California.
The initiative has a hands-on component as well, allowing the librarians to interact with the homeless up-close. The librarians gathered at Straley House not only learned about issues facing Seattle’s homeless youth from Edison, YouthCare community engagement and volunteer coordinator Randi McKenna, and youth counselor James Acquauella, but also spent the afternoon cleaning the house top-to-bottom. Kitchen countertops were scrubbed. Bathrooms were mopped. Windows were wiped. Carpets were vacuumed. The effort helped create a clean, organized home for the youth, many of whom have never lived in such an environment. It also allowed the librarians a chance to look into the world that these kids face every day.
