 All right, so our last speakers for today are actually from San Francisco Public Library. They're in two very diverse roles, so we're going to hear some very interesting perspective about policy enforcement through an equity lens. So I'd like to bring up Leah Squiera and John Kuhnha, where, where, where are they at? Oh, I see them. Okay. They're on their way. Whoo! It's good? Yeah? Okay. Thank you very much for being here today. Thank you for having me. It is an honor to be here today at PLP, actually at the San Francisco Public Library where I work. So, um, so my name is Leah Squiera and I'm the social worker at the San Francisco Public Library. I also supervise the San Francisco Public Library social service team. As some of you might already know, San Francisco Public Library is the first library system to hire a full-time library social worker. I started 14 years ago, yes, that's 14 years ago. Um, in 2009 I'm still here, very happy to be here, and I've been providing direct social services since and overseeing the social service program, which includes a team of amazing, amazing team of health and safety associates, or HASAs. By the way, so HASAs are peer, library peer outreach workers who have lived experiences of homelessness and issues that are often associated with homelessness. So, um, so when the shelters close at 6.30 in the morning in San Francisco, people experiencing homelessness have nowhere else to go except, you know, I mean, not except, but to sleep, rest, or attend to their personal hygiene. And San Francisco Public Library becomes one of the very first places where and how people can find refuge and solace, as well as access these basic needs until they start lining up for the shelters again at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, or leave the library to sleep on the streets. I'm sure that this reality resonates not just here at the San Francisco Public Library, but at your library as well, but also in the U.S. and also all over the world. Because the recent being is public libraries filled the systemic gap created by the lack of resources that are necessary for unhoused individuals and people living at poverty level to address even their most basic needs of food, safety, and shelter. The reality is that there are more needs than resources. So this picture was actually taken, I took this picture a long time ago in 2020 during the lockdown. It was a safe space, a slave sleeping space between here and Asian Art Museum. It doesn't exist anymore, but it included it as a representation of the homelessness crisis in San Francisco and I'm sure in your community where homelessness is very visible as I'm sure you have seen coming to this conference. So when patrons experiencing homelessness come to our libraries often, if not always, they might also be experiencing mental health challenges, substance use, chronic illness, and social justice issues including extreme poverty. These issues at times translate into challenging situations at our libraries that library staff are not equipped to deal with as they're not professionally trained to respond to these issues. These challenging behaviors or situations could include patrons with poor hygiene, people experiencing mental health challenges such as paranoia, delusions, or making loud noises that are disruptive to other patrons. And these behaviors might or might not be related to mental health, substance use, medical issues or developmental issues, behaviors that might pose as a safety issue for others when the space of other patrons are invaded or, you know, threatening behaviors. So these are the situations that prompted San Francisco Public Library to hire a professional social worker in 2009, which is me, and to support the staff and community and to connect patrons with social services. So let me give you a brief background on how I started at the San Francisco Public Library as the nation's first full-time library social worker. I've been told because I wasn't here yet, around 2003 I believe there has been a survey down among staff to assess the areas in their day-to-day work at the library where they need support. The results show that the library staff need support in dealing with challenging situations that I've mentioned earlier. San Francisco Public Library reached out to the San Francisco Department of Public Health for assistance, and in 2009 a partnership between two distinct city departments was formed, which is the Department of Public Health and the San Francisco Public Library. Through the partnership I became an embedded resident social worker at the San Francisco Public Library, where I remained to be an employee of the Department of Public Health until July of last year, where officially I became a staff of the San Francisco Public Library. Hey. So I started my role as what would become a model that continues to be emulated by many library systems, not just in the US, but other countries such as Australia, Sweden, and Canada. And the reason I'm mentioning all of this is because the challenging issues that we witness here in San Francisco and in our communities really are global, homelessness, lack of resources, substance use and overdose, mental and medical health issues, unemployment, social justice issues related to immigration, LGBTQIA+, racism, and many more. So these are complex issues that deeply affect our communities as we grapple with crisis in mental health, drug overdose, crime, racial inequity, homophobia, et cetera. And the trauma that our unhoused patrons, when they come to the library and those living at poverty level, when they come to us to use our library, the staff also experienced these hardships because we deal with the hardships of our patrons. So a brief overview of what I do as a library social worker, I provide training for the staff around the challenges of our underserved patrons with issues I mentioned earlier such as mental health and substance use. And because I like to say that we're all in this together and I really do believe that it takes a village, some of the trainings I provide are healthy professional boundaries and limit setting, humanizing homelessness and understanding mental health challenges and substance use, trauma informed approach, self-care and resiliency. These trainings are important for the library staff to understand the experiences of our underserved patrons and also for the staff's well-being as well. I also maintain and build partnerships with community organizations that we collaborate with to bring their services to San Francisco Public Library through tabling and outreach. So the library becomes a one-stop shop for the day as the patrons use the library services and accessing social services. So this was the pop-up care village before the pandemic. We used to host pop-up care village in partnership with Love and May that doesn't exist anymore and it used to be attended by 300 people and 30 community organizations. We do this but on a very, very, very small level or scale after, you know, when we came back. And also one of the strengths of being here at the San Francisco Main Library here in this area is that we're escaping a hop away from resources and organizations. So I develop and maintain a database of free community resources that the Health and Safety Associates or the Hauses provide to patrons during their outreach and that the staff can also refer to. So we provide over 60 resources based on the needs of our patrons and some of the popular ones are housing. So when people are looking for housing, we refer them to the city's coordinate entry system for adults, youth, and family. There's also, you know, popular where to eat, where to get clothes for free, shower. But we really have a lot of resources. And also what I do as a social worker is I'm always available to respond to assist the library staff, to support them when dealing with social service issues that are no longer reference questions or situations are beyond the capacity of librarians or library staff. So I would either respond in person to challenging situations. Also that might be beyond what a Hausa who are peer outreach workers can tackle. So those situations could be child abuse, elderly abuse, or chronic mental illness where a patient might need a mental health professional to assess and coordinate care. And as I mentioned, I've been supervising the Hausa program since 2009. So before I go any further, this is just let me mention that the social services team, including myself and the Hauses, we are not part of the security team. Johnny's going to talk about that later. Nor our roles have anything to do with security. However, to our presence and support for the staff and the patrons, we're being a level of safety and comfort to our patrons' physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. So as I mentioned, Hauses themselves have their own experience of being unhoused. Many of them understand the challenges of our library patrons when it comes to mental health and substance use. And they have a personal experience of actually going to, for example, general assistance or food stamps because they have used those resources themselves. The Hauses reflect the community that we serve. So they're really truly the ones who are at the forefront of face-to-face interactions with our patrons through outreach and the relationships that they build with our patrons, the community, and the staff. The Hauses walk around all six floors of the main library and some branches that we identify as high needs. During their outreach, they seek to connect with patrons who might seem to be needing assistance and meet them where they're at. They carry a thick binder of resources, as you can see here, that I mentioned earlier, binder of resources and try to connect the patrons to resources that are popular, as I mentioned, shower, free heat, shelters, how to access primary care, mental health. And so that's one of the Hauses in action. Hauses do not function as security. Their main role is to link people with services using a compassionate and non-judgmental approach. In this manner, Hauses indirectly complement the security team, as not every situation is a security situation. Examples of situations where asking for a Hauser to intervene would be a better approach, for example, a patron who might not be appropriately dressed, you know, such as not wearing a shirt or his barefoot, a patron with a poor hygiene that makes the area no longer comfortable for other patrons, or sleeping at the library, or experiencing a mental health situation. So in these situations that I've actually mentioned, library staff will most likely call for a Hauser than a security, or a security staff to assist. Or a library staff might still find a patron and still enforce the court of conduct relating to proper hygiene or those situations or no sleeping policy, but in the process they have something extra to offer. So they can offer the patron to speak with a social worker or Hauser. So the patron can be provided with information on where to get, for example, free clothes or where to shower or get shoes, or even to sleep instead of sleeping at the library. And also connect them with medical mental health or substance use treatment, you know, if that's what, if they're interested in those services. So this also gives the patron an opportunity to return to the library instead of being excluded because of these barriers. Really our goal is to help as much as I can, as much as we can, to remove those barriers so our patrons can return and return to the library to use its resources. So in terms of working with library security staff, our library security staff are compassionate and well trained in escalation techniques. However, many of the un-housed individuals have experienced trauma in dealing with authority figures or people in uniform. Underserved patrons tend to feel more comfortable when speaking with a Hauser, you know, who does not wear a uniform and who look just like everyone else. So this is one of the Hauses, excuse me, or most effective. They can communicate with the patrons without triggering the trauma of the patrons. So as they walk around they might also find people who might be experiencing possible overdose or having a medical crisis. Having, sorry. She is always on call, yes. Of my cell phone. And it's actually the library staff calling for outreach. Sorry. And I think one of the Hauses probably is responding. She's in the back. So sorry about that. So having a mental, so you saw the Hauses are actually really good at, you know, responding when in situations like mental health crisis or feeling, you know, or it doesn't have to be a crisis. A patron might be feeling alone, isolated or depressed or just really having a bad day that might escalate into a behavioral issue. All the non-security, the Hauses, comforting presence might mitigate those situations from escalating into a crisis. And in few situations the Hauses were also able to reverse overdose as they administered Narcan. When someone is experiencing mental health challenges, that could be disruptive, but it's not really a safety issue. Hauses kind of approach through peer-to-peer support might be enough in many situations to calm down the patron's anxiety or personal crisis. So because of the presence of the Hauses, underserved patrons have access to people who have firsthand knowledge of their challenges and staff also get the support that they need beyond their roles or capacity as library staff. So these interactions are wonderful opportunities to be able to reach to many individuals who might be difficult to reach because some of them have actually given up. You know, they've got laws in the system, they've given up trying to access services or feel like no one really listens or can understand them or answer their questions. So I like to say about our approach. It's bringing services to those who cannot access traditional base, traditionally based services by meeting them literally where they're at, which is here at the library. And I call this model in-reach, which is a street outreach model but inside the library. And then lastly, the Hausa program is also a workforce development program. The program is served as a stepping stone or a hand up for a number of Hauses who are able to overcome homelessness and now have entered the workforce. A number of the Hauses have found employment in different sectors after receiving vocational training here as Hauses. Two of the former Hauses have been working full time for the Department of Public Health now for close to 10 years as public health workers. Another one, a young adult that I outreach here and became a Hausa is now a manager of one of the hotels here in San Francisco. And another one is actually a supervisor for our social service program in another state. And lastly, as of July of this year, the Hausa program has been expanded to a capacity of nine part-time positions from where the positions have been converted from contract with a nonprofit. So now there are temporary civil service employees. So with this, I really believe that this really says, this is a testament to the invaluable contributions of the Hauses here at the San Francisco Public Library. Thank you very much. All right, good afternoon. I'm just gonna start off by telling you a little bit about myself. And then we're going to get into kind of a, kind of a general overview of security here at San Francisco Public Library. So let me just start off by saying, I feel incredibly fortunate to be here today and I hope you do as well. This has been a fantastic place to work. I've only been here about 15 months, but I'm very grateful for my job and it is new and exciting every day. As the facilities director, I oversee several units of which security is just one. One thing that I'm, I don't know if I'm proud of it. Yeah, I'm a little proud of it. As I come from an untraditional background, I actually come from a construction background and a project management background. And one of the things that I really enjoy about that and what I tell new hires that come to work for facilities is that fresh eyes are very strong eyes, right? So that's one of the things that I like to think that I bring to specifically to the security team is because I am not a traditional security specialist, I tend to step back and look at things from a more holistic view and try to problem solve in maybe some untraditional ways. Okay, it works. Okay, how does security fit in with our mission of the San Francisco Public Library? Our security team works to ensure the safety and security of all patriots and staff at each of our locations. And our professionalism supports the core values of our department by creating welcoming environments for our diverse communities to enjoy free and equal access to our library services and programs. Right, pretty straightforward. So one of the things that I talked to about our buildings and grounds patrol officers is looking at things like I mentioned earlier from a high level. So we're just gonna look at a quick scenario here. Imagine a loud disruptive person or patron is knocking over books and causing a scene. The patron continues to shout as security drags them out by force. So the question here is who is most affected by this scenario, right? Obviously the security staff is affected, the library staff is affected, and obviously the patron is affected, but intentionally misleading question. The patrons who are around and exposed to this scenario now no longer feel safe in the library and they may not return. And I don't know if you noticed on my first slide there, one of my main missions here as a facilities director is about welcoming and keeping people in the library, not keeping them out. So with our 8207s and our 8211s, so those are our buildings and grounds patrol officers and their supervisors. That's a message I continue to reinforce with them is our job is to get people in the library and make them feel welcome in the library, not keep them out. So in the event that you feel like somebody needs to be removed from the library, let's have that conversation before we move to that step. Now, as I mentioned, I'm relatively new to the library family. So you may hear a lot of material that I've stolen from other people in the last year and a half and I'm okay with that. But one of the profound thing I heard in Columbus last year that I share excessively with our security team is if you take that event, the incident, as a point in time, there's all kinds of stuff that happens after that, right? The person might be removed, they might be kept out of the library, there's going to be appeals hearing, there's a lot that goes on. But what we tend to overlook, and we're shifting our focus on this, is all that time that occurred before the incident, right? So that's where we're really shifting our focus. Like how do you establish that relationship in a five-second conversation or in a one-minute conversation? And just acknowledging people when they walk into the library, hi, how are you today? It helps to remove the anonymity and it creates that relationship, right? So all of that is part of how we provide customer service. I come from a very customer service-centered background, right? In facilities, I oftentimes, we talk about this with my staff, who's our customer in facilities? You guessed it, everybody, right? We don't really have anybody that's not our customer. Library staff, definitely our customers, right? Patrons, absolutely our customers. My boss, my customer, obviously, right? And for me personally, this is just my own mission. The taxpayer of San Francisco is my customer. So it's important for me to deliver the best product at the safest product, the most used product I can to them, all right? How do we incorporate mindfulness? Again, a lot of talking is how we incorporate mindfulness. We have a security briefing every Friday. I attend 90% of them, 85% of them. One of the things I try to impress upon the security team, but also all of facilities, anyone who reports up to me. But in this case, let's talk about security. I tell my security, or buildings and ground patrol officers that they are not being paid to be security guards. They're not being paid to remove people from the building. They're not being paid to enforce even the patron code of conduct. Ultimately, what they are being paid to do is to be critical thinkers. Like, that is their number one goal. And to apply that to every situation. If it's a potential situation which may escalate, that they're thinking about that ahead of time, right? If it's something they can resolve without it escalating. If it's a matter of maybe asking a library staff to step away and let me have this conversation. But to be able to make that critical thinking so that as much as we rely on and as important as policy and procedure is, we are all critical thinkers and we need to be able to make decisions in the moment. That's very important to me. So again, security is obviously one of our main points of interaction with patrons from facilities. So I make sure that we invest as much as my boss will let me invest in our security staff, right? We have lots of expanded training and security from supportive crisis response to managing boundaries to de-escalation. Team development is, it's not the most important thing to me, but it's really high on my list. And it is when I coach my security supervisors for in dealing with their reports and in working on their annual work plans. One of the things I really impress upon them is work with your reports to find any training course they're interested as long as it can be tied to what they do for work. And it doesn't even have to be a strong correlation, but I find it's really important that every employee, but in this case, we're talking security, every employee within facilities knows that this department is investing in them. Wants them to be the best version of themselves at work and at home and that they can develop here within our department. Team morale, that's turned into a wonderful thing in the last eight, nine months. I have a one-person party committee that has knocked the socks off of several parties for security and they've expanded now. We don't have security parties now, we have security parties where everybody's invited. We've gone bowling, we've had barbecues, we've done karaoke. And I think right now, at this time in history, that is probably more important than ever, coming out of the pandemic, coming out of a lot of social isolationism, easy to say. So it's been very enjoyable watching security grow and bond as a family and as a team. Lost track of where I was there, hold on. Okay, so Leah mentioned her presentation, right? It takes a village, right? So the one thing where I would challenge you, dear colleague, is I think we're all part of security and I think that's a really, really important little detail that we all understand, like, hey, it's what can the librarian do? What can the library tech do? What can the HOSTA do? What can we all do to help elevate the safety and the attitude of safety within our facilities, within our buildings, right? So in addition, sorry, to our security team, we have, as Leah mentioned, the HOSTAs. We also have Sheriff's Office support here. We usually have two deputies on staff during our open hours. We also have a relationship with a community group called Urban Alchemy, and to be honest with you, I'm not sure how big they are, so I don't know how familiar any of you are with them. But they provide additional support in the form of greeters or ambassadors throughout our building. They're in our neighborhood a lot. It's a work development program and one thing I really love about this slide is the gentleman with the finger up there, number one, he is now a full-time employee of San Francisco Public Library and he is, I mean, I'm not supposed to have favorites but he's one of my favorites. So his name's Larry, he's outstanding, 8207, he's a lot of fun, very sincere, very lovable gentleman, and really exactly what I'd like to see in 8207. So I'm very proud of him, and I'm very happy that he's now part of the SFPL team. So yeah, Urban Alchemy helps out a lot. That's the biggest help is actually providing Larry, but they also, they allow us for extra services, like we have a bike check-in for patrons, Urban Alchemy, man's that, they station our hide street door and then they're helped to monitor the restrooms and as well as our Larkin Street entrance. As I said, I think security, I think of security as more of an attitude situation than a team. I think it's important for library staff that they always stay aware and alert of surroundings, and that they take ownership in that. It's not a matter of what can security do for me, but what can I do for myself to ensure my own safety? Practice de-escalation, I know we have de-escalation training here at SFPL, which moving forward, I'm working with the public services side to make sure that the security team as well as the public services team are taking the same training so we make sure we're on the same page with each other. And then the documentation of incidents clearly and accurately is really obviously important in dealing with patrons in a fair and equitable manner. So obviously things do happen, so we have incident reports here. One of the things, like I mentioned, we request is that anyone who's gonna file an incident report make sure that it's objective and it's documented as soon as possible after the incident. Of course, all of our records are public, so we do a lot of training on incident report writing to make sure that we're all on the same page again. Now those incident reports help out a lot because we collect data on a monthly basis, we take a look at those, and this data really helps us to identify is there a hotspot, is there a problem where maybe we need a little more support, maybe another buildings and grounds patrol officer, or maybe our mobile unit goes there a little more frequently. And it informs staffing about those scheduling adjustments. So here's just a quick image of some of our Tableau data that we're looking at on a monthly basis. And again, it shows the heat map to where there are more or less incidents, it shows trends and then actual numbers. And what's obviously really important about that is that it allows us to make decisions that maybe aren't couched in just an emotional reaction or something where we're just trying to settle down somebody else's emotional reaction, if you will. So we try to make data-driven decisions anytime we can. So after incidents, we also have an access appeals hearing program where if the patron feels that their suspension was unwarranted, they can appeal that. The hearing officers are assigned so that they're not directly affiliated with the incident in any way. So hopefully they will have a very objective point of view. And you can see here just some of the basic fiscal year 23 data. So there were only a couple reversed, but really a lot of people didn't show up for them. So it would have been interesting to see how many of those we could have reversed had they shown up. So ultimately, again, you've heard me say it a million times already and I've only been here a few minutes. But safety is an attitude, it's a collective and collaborative effort. Everybody contributes, everybody can be aware. Some of the things we do within our security team to try to heighten that sense of community and that sense of involvement is I really try to let the security team come up with ideas and proposals that will keep them engaged. Like I like to make anybody a project manager that's willing to take it on. So some of the things that we've done recently is it was important to some of our patrol officers that the amber lights be added to our mobile vehicles. So I handed that over to an 8207, he saw that, I don't know about you all, but procurement in the city of San Francisco can be a little challenging. And he saw this all the way through from specking out the light to taking it to central shops, to getting the quote, to walking through the procurement. And I didn't even notice that till just now, but the final one there was that same individuals, a different idea from the same individual. And I'd like to think that's because he had success on his first proposal. So that's, we'll get to that in a second, but then additionally we have alarms, local alarms on doors that are for staff only and security response to those as quickly as we hear them. Again, the stickers, I love the stickers. Again, it was a security idea that they have custom made stickers made that represent, for now it's security, but we're gonna expand that in the future. We just started this a few months ago, but we've had two rounds of custom made stickers that security patrol officers can hand out to patrons that come in. Obviously children love them and they're a lot of fun. So, and it's as much as it might be for patrons and their children, I love the level of engagement it creates within security. So that's important. So that's pretty much it. That's kind of a summary of security from my point of view here at San Francisco Public Library and thank you for listening. If anyone's got questions for this panel. I'm curious about the HASA people, how were they recruited and interviewed or chosen? Sure, so when we first started in 2009, they started out as interns. And they are actually part-time staff. It's if you're familiar with trauma informed approach. Even before knowing about trauma informed, I use the trauma informed approach in hiring and developing the HASA program. So it means three, they work three hours a day, five days a week. The reason being is that many of them are coming out of recovering from homelessness and some of them have not worked in a very long time. They still have appointments that they need to attend to. So after about, I guess, maybe two years and it was time limited because it's internship, it's six months in one year. And then, but the HASAs kept on wanting to continue working. And then we found out that it's actually not legal to keep on keeping people as interns. So we partner up with a nonprofit to hire them as contract positions. Part of what really helped is that I work with a Department of Public Health vocational counselor, which is a community mental health clinic where they have a workforce development program. So they were able to refer really great applicants and candidates for the HASA program. And the great thing about it is that while they're working and learning this new way of, I guess, life, you know, living, working, is that they have extra support not just from the library, not just from me, but also from their counselor as well. So, sorry, I just wanna add. So from non-contract nonprofit, they are now, as I mentioned, with the San Francisco Public Library as 9920s, which is public service aid, 15 to 20 hours a week for two years. Thank you. A quick question is, how do you manage people who are sleeping in the library? That's something that at my library, we used to kind of enforce it in a way where if they're not snoring, we would just kind of leave them be, but then that was challenged by another patron who was snoring and he kind of pointed out that we were being a bit hypocritical in our enforcement. So I'm just curious, how do you do that at your library? Yeah, not to be, yeah, we wake them up. Yeah, we have a no sleeping policy. And so the buildings and grounds officers are asked to gently and politely wake them up, check in on them. If it is just a matter of dozing off, that is usually where it ends. If it's a person that's really having a hard time staying aware and awake, then we, there's a decision point there, right? Like, is this a place where we call in Leah's team and call in Ahasa? Or is it someone that we potentially have to have removed? But again, that's that critical thinking point right there where they have to make that decision. But yeah, we do have a no sleeping policy. So from, you know, our work as social services team, we just, even me, if I see someone who's sleeping, I'll just say, hi, you know, waking up and say, I just wanna make sure you're okay, you're not having any medical emergencies. And a lot of times they really appreciate that. And I know the Haasas would might, and you know, that's also an opportunity to start, get to know the person, give resources. Some of, one of the resources that I've actually mentioned is that there's a church here where they actually allow people to sleep during mass. So they'll say, you know, we're welcome to be here at the library, you just need to be awake because of the policy. But if you want, you can actually go to St. Boniface and you can sleep there. Yeah, that kind of stuff. And you know, a lot of times that opens up into other conversations as well. All right, thank you, Leah. Thank you, John. And thank you. I would also just love to get a round of applause for all of our speakers today. I think that we had some really good topics discussed. And I want to do one more round of applause for Mike Hector, the tech team. They did an amazing job keeping us on track. And they have also generously recorded this conference. So those segments will be available online. So you can re-watch or share with staff members that you think might benefit from the topics discussed today. So again, thank you so much. And we do have an evaluation form. We do ask that you fill it out. We have a QR code. We also have a print version for those who prefer that. We really do value your feedback and we do apply it to the planning process for next year's conference to make it even better. And we also have these fun little plastic name badges. You can keep the insert, but we do like to reuse these. Way to be user-friendly. So please do return these. We have a table in the back. And we appreciate you. We hope to see you next year at Futures 2024. Thank you everyone. Drive safe. Thank you.