Before he was homeless, Tom was a Psychology major at USM.
“I remember being in English class. I was so nervous, I ran out of there and never came back,” Tom said of his days at USM in the 1980’s. Last Tuesday, Tom sat on a bench in the hallway outside of the Glickman Library on the Portland Campus, nervously thumbing through a copy of the New Testament, reciting phrases from memory, and debating whether or not he should start drinking again.
Five years ago, Tom got into an argument with his stepmother, which led him to his current predicament: sleeping in homeless shelters and battling the urge to drink. Tom likes to come to the Glickman Library to read the Bible and the Big Book, the main text of Alcoholics Anonymous. “It’s peaceful here, you can read,” he said.
Lately the Glickman Library has seen a rise in issues with homeless that have resulted in intervention by USM Police. On Oct. 30, four homeless men were removed from the library.
One of the men, Dennis Sheehan, 54, of Portland, was arrested for failing to register as a sex offender. Two others were found sleeping in chairs on the fifth floor. According to USM Police, one of the men was drunk and had defecated himself. “We’re not in the business of removing people from the library. When we do it is for a good reason and not an arbitrary reason,” said University Librarian David Nutty. “These decisions are not taken lightly or quickly.”
Recently, Nutty met with USM Police Chief Lisa Beecher and Craig Hutchinson, Vice President for Student and University Life. “We have meetings periodically, but there were also concerns about a letter to the editor in The Free Press which had some misinformation in it,” said Chief Beecher. “It was a discussion so that we were all operating with the same understandings.”
The letter was sent by Karine Odlin and other students of an honors class, Cultural Practices and Ambiguous Identities. Odlin said she and members of her class—which is centered on the nature of exile—were spurred to action after reading about homeless ejected from the library in a Nov. 9 issue of The Free Press.
The committee decided to increasing police presence in the library to deal with the issues. “We are more likely to send police through the library on a more regular basis,” said Hutchinson. “Police will patrol [the library] several times during each shift.”
Nutty also presented some planned changes to the library policies at the meeting. He had been working on revising and updating the language of the policies for three months and released the updated rules Thursday. “I knew the language was kind of outdated,” said Nutty. “I realized the policy needed updating.”
The new policies include changes to the original structure along with the clarification of some rules and the addition of others.
The food and drink policy has been changed to allow snack sized food in the library. It also specifies that patrons are not allowed to be under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs.
There is also an acceptable standard for personal hygiene that is expected of all individuals. Using the bathroom for bathing, washing clothes, changing and other unintended purposes is not allowed. Nutty looked at other libraries’ policies to see where USM’s library policy needed improvement. All of the new policies can be viewed on the USM Library website and at the libraries.
On Sunday evening, Odlin and six other students sent an e-mail to Nutty, inviting him to take part in an open forum about the treatment of homeless in Glickman on Dec. 3 at the Honors House.
“We’re concerned with protecting the rights of homeless having access to the library,” Odlin said. “We feel very strongly that if there were to be a formal policy adopted then we would want community input from students, faculty, librarians, security, homeless people, and other interested members of the community.”
According to the city of Portland website, there were 305 homeless people in Portland at the time of the survey in 2008. Like Tom, some homeless come to the library to read. Gordy, also homeless, spends “five to six hours at a time” at Glickman Library and reads 150 books a year.
Gordy said there could be more homeless at Glickman Library since the Portland Public Library began renovations.
Stephen J. Podgajny, Executive Director of the Portland Public Library did not know if more homeless have come to the USM library, but does not see as many patrons at his library since it has been reduced to one floor. “There are less people overall. There is less physical space. All kinds of users have gone to other places,” said Podgajny.
Gordy knows that the transients who have been kicked out of the library were not kicked out arbitrarily. “They don’t come here to read,” he said.
Gordy, a former fisherman, said that he has never had problems in the library. “If you don’t bother anyone, they won’t bother you.”
Some people like Tom and Gordy come to the library because it is a peaceful place and are able to read there. “It’s quiet. It’s not crowded, nice seats,” said Gordy, smiling.
Tom has been trying to find a job, but hasn’t been able to. He said that God told him to be a race car driver back when he was “saved” in the early 90’s.
“I grew up in racing,” said Tom. “Homelessness is not my forte, I don’t think it would be anybody’s.”
Additional reporting by Dan MacLeod