Addressing Homelessness and Poverty in Knox County Public Libraries
Requirements
This assignment required me to select and partner with a library or information agency and a community partner of my choice, and create an action plan which addresses an aspect of homelessness within the community. To complete these requirements, I was required to research the needs of my community, library, and community agency, reach out and perform interviews with my selected organizations, before compiling field notes and writing out this action plan.
Description
In my Final Action Plan for INSC 590, titled Building a Strong Foundation: An Action Plan to Address Homelessness and Poverty in Knox County Public Libraries (KCPL), I partnered with a local community agency Knox County Community Action Community (CAC), and KCPL to address an aspect of homelessness in the Knox County. After researching trauma-informed approaches; professional ethics and standards; KCPL; the Knox County Government’s budget; and interviewing both an Outreach Coordinator at CAC and an unhoused resident of Knoxville, I realized that one of the first things that needed to be done to meet the needs of Knox County’s homeless community was for the KCPL to actually allow access to their resources and materials—and that in order for this to be done successfully, KCPL librarians would need to be prepared to meet this underserved population.
To increase access to KCPL, I created an action plan to revise KCPL’s code of conduct, create a fee-less library card in partnership with CAC, and meet the growing demands for community and government resources and aid. In this Plan, I recommend the transformation of prohibited behaviors and conditions that imply extreme signs of homelessness, trauma, and state of crises from KCPL’s Code of Conduct into points of introduction to community resources and the fee-less library card (with the consent of the patron), as well as continuous contact with community agencies and social workers. The feeless library card also extends access to the physical and online space of KCPL by bypassing the requirement of official proof of residency and partnering with CAC to help applicants get official documentation, waived library fees, and a printing allowance, and extended internet time.
The final component of this action plan consists of partnering with local community organizations and social services to gather and provide relevant resources, services, and physical handouts to both library staff and all patrons so that library staff feels more empowered with the proper knowledge and resources to meet this specific demographic, as well as allowing low income and unhoused library patrons the agency access relevant resources by themselves.
Skills and competencies for this assignment include but are not limited to Emotional Intelligence, Trauma-Informed Care, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, and Academic Research.
