Connecting libraries and social services in Washington DC

The Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library is in downtown Washington. Its newly renovated building is open and airy, with long lines of sight and glass windows all around.

Jean Badalamenti has been the Manager of Health and Human Services at the library for more than eight years. The city government created her position – searching for social work or public health specialist – following a consistent rise in homelessness and a growing number of people with multiple and complex needs accessing the system.

Jean had worked in human services and homelessness response and was given the job of figuring out what to do – looking at the whole system and working out how to help people experiencing homelessness in the library.

At that time Jean started at MLK, vans would arrive at the library every morning, dropping off people when local homelessness shelters closed, and transporting them back in the evenings. That practice changed over the years, but the importance of libraries to people experiencing homelessness or with other complex needs, has grown.

Speaking to Jean at the MLK Public Library, I learned that under her direction, the Washington DC library system has adapted constantly and built good relationships with other parts of government. They are linking in with homelessness and mental health services in ways that recognise and capitalise on the important role that libraries can play as front-end community locations.  

As part of my fellowship, I have been asking colleagues in many different roles questions about how we can better connect with and involve the people who work for local government, who do not have ‘homelessness’ in their job title or position description.

What I have heard is that this kind of connection between front-end operations like libraries and homelessness services in a city might be widely recognised, but not always enacted. In many interviews I have heard wide acknowledgment of the potential in this space but seen little evidence of programs or formal partnerships in place with front end services. I think this is a huge lost opportunity that I am keen to explore more.

I think Jean’s approach was a bit different. Below are a few of my notes from our conversation.

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System connections

One thing different to other cites is that because our program was originally funded through the department of behavioural health, we were trained and have access to the city's homelessness management database.

That allows us to connect people to housing resources. We are part of a larger system working on this. We are part of the regular matching meetings. Ultimately that is good for our peer workers as well. We are able to do our work and see that people are moving into housing.

It’s a coordinated process city wide. We also participate in Continuum of Care work, which is through another department. They are matching people to hosing and other things too.

Peer work - the program

About four years ago I connected with the dept of behavioural health - the city agency tasked with addressing mental health and substance use.

At the same time, I was learning more about peers - people with lived experience. The department of behavioural health has certification program. It was serendipitous that there was funding for peers and they gave us money to hire contractors - certified peers to do work.

We hired three people doing 30 hours a week. They were meeting with people in the library, trying to help them and showing them that recovery was possible. 

We just developed a program that worked for us. I was hoping it would be like a street outreach model and through word of mouth, people knew to come here.  There's signage too. 

When the health department money ran out our Peers became government employees. Not many peers are in permanent full-time positions.

Benefit of the library program

I think libraries are better at connecting. We are not tied to reimbursement. If you are working with a mental health provider your time is focused on being able to bill Medicaid to be reimbursed. That's not what we do here.

There is a freedom in being able to meet people, talk to people most of whom are homeless. Sometimes they are not.

Peer workers have a different kind of relationship with customers, who are just people coming into the library who don't know where to go to find help.

Our Peer Workers have contacts. The program isn't limited by ‘here's what we do, here's what we don't do’. It's pretty broad. It's whatever is possible. I don't think we are constrained.

I think libraries can help but (librarians might not necessarily have) the time it takes to work with someone who has multiple complex needs. A peer can have an hour conversation with someone and they have had the same experience and I think that's the benefit.

The library's role

I think before I got this job, service providers liked the library but didn't make the connection. They would meet clients at the library but didn’t' recognise that we are the day shelter.

You get people saying that is not the role of the library, but I'd say people are here.  Don't you want them here?

During covid I managed our partnership with the Department of Health. We were giving out test kits and we had four libraries that were vaccine services for several months. I think some people were wondering why we were the people giving out covid vaccines and tests - that's not what libraries do.

Personally, I want to see more public health in the library. It makes perfect sense for children to come to the library to get their regular vaccination and get a book.

I think there are lot more partnership opportunities with government agencies to have. I think you have to have people who feel like they want to try something. People who are willing to innovate and think differently.

Jean’s top tips for responding to homelessness in libraries:

• You need dedicated resources to do this work. Pay someone to do it. You need a space where you can do the social work. A private space to have complicated conversations
• You need buy-in from the administration and an understanding of the role of public libraries in this. Lot of people coming out of library school don't necessarily know that.
• I feel so fortunate that we are connected into a larger system in the community. It feels more substantive, we are part of whole movement helping people - we are not an isolated group.