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San Francisco put a social worker for homeless people in a public library, and it's working

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Leah Esguerra, center. San Francisco Public Library

Before the San Francisco Public Library started a homeless outreach program, the indigent population would wash themselves in the bathrooms and sleep in the common areas. 

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In 2009, it launched an outreach program and hired social worker Leah Esguerra full time. 

The mission: give support to the homeless population, and help them find the resources to get their lives in order.

"Many [homeless people] come to the library because this is their sanctuary," Esguerra tells Tech Insider.

She and her 7 person team help their constituents find the resources to get their lives in order, like drug treatment, transitional housing, and case management services. 

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She's careful to note that her staff is not the same as security. Many of her health and safety associates were homeless at one point in their lives, and the empathy creates a bridge.

"The goal was people who had experiences could use their own stories," she says. "Being able to work side-by-side with people who had been homeless, it gives another face to homelessness." 

The population she works with may have come up through the system and had persistent homelessness all their lives, or could have run into a calamity like job loss or divorce that have driven them to living on the street. 

Last year, Esguerra personally had 523 interactions with patrons, while her Health and Safety Associates team as a whole had 1983 interactions. Through library referrals, ten patrons were placed in permanent housing with the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team.

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The program has expanded to four additional branches beyond the main branch in the Civic Center neighborhood. 

"The role is not to 'end homelessness,' but the role is to connect people to resources, to homeless services," she says. "So far of whats going in SF because of homelessness, there’s a lot of exclusion, but here in the library it's including them, helping them."

Other cities are  also pairing social workers and libraries. San Diego, Denver, New York, and San Jose all have programs in place. 

Esguerra hopes it's a sign of things to come. 

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"This started in SF, having the first full-time social worker," she says. "I'm hoping that every library would have social services — like nurses at schools." 

San Francisco
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