My wife is a librarian.  She showed me the trailer to a movie written, directed by, and staring Emilio Estevez, called The Public.

The plot takes place in the main branch of the Cincinnati Public Library, during winter.  An arctic blast comes down and the homeless shelters are full.  The homeless who hang out in the library during the day to keep warm are kicked out at night and freeze to death.  A number of homeless people start to occupy the library and want the right to stay there all night to keep warm.  The occupation of the library turns into civil unrest when the police get involved.

That is as much of the plot as I can find online.  The movie is not out yet.

The reason my wife showed me the trailer is that it is a surprisingly accurate portrayal of the job of a librarian.

We’ve live in the Chicago suburbs, Rapid City, South Dakota, Omaha, Nebraska, and Huntsville Alabama.

In the winter, the homeless would spend all day in the library to stay warm.  It is a public building, and as long as they were not causing a disturbance, had the right to stay there.

There are some hints in the trailer, not to mention some prejudices that I have about Hollywood,  that predict where this movie is going.

I’m sure that the librarians who would allow the homeless to stay are heroes while the cops and mayor who want to eject the homeless are the bad guys.  The homeless will be portrayed nobly as people down on their luck who a heartless (capitalist) society has thrown away.

I’ve seen this argument play out in real life among my wife’s friends and co-workers (librarians are often a liberal bunch).

I am now bringing my argument to the blog that I’ve made before to others.

This type of “social justice” is self defeating.

In every place I’ve ever lived, the public library was funded by property taxes.  As a homeowner or renter, I payed property taxes to keep the library open and operational.  I didn’t actually live in Omaha (I wasn’t going to register my handguns) so I had to pay a fee to use the Omaha library.  Chicago had the same system for people in the suburbs to be able to use the Chicago main branch library (which is AMAZING by the way).

The homeless, by definition, don’t pay property taxes so don’t pay for the service that they use.  To be fair to the homeless, this is not unique to them, nearly half of Americans won’t pay a net federal income tax.

There is some difference here.

I remember in Rapid City, where any comfortable (or upholstered) chair wouldn’t last a week.  They were constantly being steam cleaned or thrown away because the bed bugs or lice or vomit or shit left in them by a – usually drunk – homeless person.  I remember the homeless using all the paper towels in the restrooms giving themselves sponge baths in the restroom sinks.

Then there is the issue of homeless people watching porn on the public computers in the library.  This is something every librarian knows about.

Across the country, library patrons complain about this (Capistrano, Gainesville, Brookline, Philadelphia).  In Seattle, the librarians let the homeless watch porn to the point where normal patrons are warned to stay away from the library.

Libraries Are the New Homeless Shelters.

As a taxpayer, I have no interest in funding a library that I can’t take my kids to because the homeless are watching porn on the computers and have infected every possible surface with bed bugs and hepatitis.  Why should I pay for a the salary of a librarian to spend her time stopping homeless from masturbating at the public computers rather than helping my children with their research projects.

When the homeless take over the libraries and consume a disproportionate amount of resources, not to mention ruin it for other patrons, the library becomes a financial liability instead of an asset to the community.

This is the problem with this sort of redistributive social justice.  Not just is money taken from the taxpayers and spent disproportional on non-tax payers, but the effect is to make whatever the money is being spent on unpalatable for those paying for it.

If the libraries are going to be homeless shelters filled with books, I’m going to vote against any library expansion and increase in my property taxes as I can.

Yes, it is a public space, but a public space should serve the best interests of the public that funds it.

If this is a statement about how cities should do more for the homeless, as a taxpayer, keep the homeless out of my library and let them sleep in the fancy offices of City Hall.  I pay for those too.  Frankly, if I were a resident of of New York City, I’d demand that the homeless be sheltered in Gracie Mansion.  Maybe if Mayor de Balsio woke up to watch a homeless guy washing his ass in his kitchen sink he’d do something about it.  I’d much rather the homeless guy wash his ass in the Mayor’s sink that I pay for than in the fountain in front of the library that I pay for.