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Comment by WillPostForFood | Hacker News Reader

The modern version of this scare (possibly more real) is bedbugs in library books. Our local library had to close for a few days recently due to a bed bug infestation. It is 50% library, 50% homeless shelter, unfortunately.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/garden/bedbugs-hitch-a-ri...

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Had them in our library as well - also suspected to be from the homeless folks who go in and out.

Public libraries serving as defacto shelters is beyond their designed and intended use. This is a problem in many public space. Private spaces like shopping malls can remove people. How does a public library decide who to remove?

I've had bed bugs in my apartment from library books too unfortunately. I'm not sure if there is an easy solution for public spaces - especially libraries where you have air conditioning, electricity, washroom facilities, and comfortable areas to sit and read.

How about instead of wondering how to evict the homeless you tackle the issue of homelessness. This is far from a hard problem to solve with a bit of wealth redistribution.

If you are the person in charge of running the library your job isn't to "solve the issue of homelessness", nor have you the authority to do "a bit of wealth redistribution" - your job is to make sure all users of the public library are safe and don't get random bugs from just borrowing books - which means stopping the source of the bugs from coming in in the first place.

Systemic issues need larger-scoped solutions. "cleaning" the library is just masking up the problem so people that are well off can pretend homelessness doesn't exist and isn't a systemic issue and they're definitely not part of the problem just let me get a book from the public library.

There is also the problem of homed people having bed bugs too. Lower income school districts have to deal with that as well. Hopefully both problems (everyone's bedbugs and homelessness) can be solved without neglecting the other.

> This is far from a hard problem

I think you’re drastically underestimating the difficulty of solving this problem.

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