BPL new hire to probe drug, homeless issue
Councilor: Problem systemic
The Boston Public Library is hiring a new troubleshooter to deal with homeless patrons who have been fighting and leaving hypodermic needles in the restrooms — but a city councilor says the new hire will have to confront the problem at both the historic Copley Square building and other branches citywide.
The appointment of Mike Bunch, a social worker at the Pine Street Inn, to serve as an outreach manager for BPL comes a week after a Herald report detailed a recent surge in problems at the libraries — including syringes and passed-out drug users — that one trustee said had caught officials “off guard.”
Bunch’s job will be connecting with homeless addicts and helping them find housing and substance abuse services. A BPL spokeswoman said the position has been in development since June but its salary — which will be paid by the library and the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development — hasn’t been set.
“I look forward to continuing my outreach efforts to the homeless men and women at the BPL and in Copley Square,’” Bunch said in a statement.
“I had already been spending part of my time there so I know many of the individuals in the area,” he said. “Now I can put all my efforts into helping them find the treatment and housing they need.”
Although Bunch will work out of the central library branch in Copley Square, he will also visit branch libraries as needed. Trustees said the South End and West End branches have seen an increase in homeless problems, and Marleen Nienhuis, president of the Friends of the South End Library, told the Herald that her small branch has been “overwhelmed” by their presence.
At-large City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George — who has advocated for better needle disposal in the city and said she’s frequently heard from librarians about syringes littering libraries
— said the new position is “fantastic” but stressed that Bunch will have to give satellite branches as much consideration as the main library if he’s going to solve the problem.
“It’s critical that he is connected to and providing resources to neighborhood branch libraries,” Essaibi George told the Herald.
“We often get stuck in our focus on the central library — it is our flagship branch, but neighborhood libraries are most directly connected to residents through schools and community programming,” she said. “And it’s too easy sometimes to forget about them.”
Essaibi George added, “Unfortunately one of the symptoms of the opioid crisis and uptick in homelessness has created some pressure in the library system, it’s created more demands on library staff and we need to support them.”