Effort to staff SJC public library with social workers

SOUTH BEND, Ind – There’s a local push to staff the St. Joseph County library with social workers to fight homelessness. 

“Just finding resources,” DTSB outreach specialist Chris Anderson said.  

The St. Joseph County public library is one of many places that Chris Anderson and his work as DTSB’s outreach specialist already finds homeless people to help 

The goal supported by South Bend common council member Oliver Davis would fund social workers employed at the library to help homeless people find resources to get back on their feet. 

“I was talking to a colleague from the university of Southern California and gave me an idea about an article that talked about social workers being hired by the library and we were discussing that as we discuss the renovations of the library and how we do not just wanna put our funding into brick and mortar kind of programs or buildings but to put it into programs that we want to be able to help,” Davis said.   

The library’s executive director in the midst of crafting a multimillion dollar renovation of the main library was receptive to the idea at Monday’s common council meeting. 

It is unclear at this point if the idea will be officially picked up and if the cost would be rolled into the overall cost of the library renovation project.