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America Gone Wrong: A Slashed Safety Net Turns Libraries into Homeless Shelters

By Chip Ward, Tomdispatch.com. Posted April 2, 2007.


A dirty little secret about America is that public libraries have become de facto daytime shelters for the nation's street people while librarians are increasingly our unofficial social workers for the homeless and mentally disturbed.

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See more stories tagged with: libraries, homeless shelters

Chip Ward recently retired as the assistant director of the Salt Lake City Public Library System to devote more time to political activism and writing. He's the author of Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West and Hope's Horizon: Three Visions for Healing the American Land.

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