librarypunk - 146 - Overdose community response in libraries feat. Samantha and Nicole

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

We’re talking with Nicole of Brave Co-op about their overdose sensors, and Samantha of Guelph Public Library. Trigger warning: death by overdose is mentioned several times Media mentioned https://www.brave.coop/about Welcoming Streets Guelph: https://guelphchc.ca/welcoming-streets/ Hope House Guelph: https://www.hopehouseguelph.ca/ Facts on Narcan and fent test strips in Texas: https://www.trs.texas.gov/Pages/healthcare-news-202301_Fentanyl_Facts.aspx  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/zzEpV9QEAG Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/j4gauhdc 

I'm Justin. I'm a free agent and my pronouns are he and they. I'm Jay. I'm a cataloging librarian and my pronouns are he, him. And we have guests. Would you like to introduce yourselves? Sure. My name is Nicole. She-Hur. I am Samantha. She-Hur. Welcome. Nicole and Sam, thanks for coming on. Would you like to tell the listeners what you do?

Let's start with Nicole. Yeah, for sure. I work with a small co-op in the downtown east side of Vancouver. we make opioid overdose detection sensors, and we work closer with a lot of libraries. And I'm lucky enough to have worked with Sam, who I would love to introduce y'all too. Hi, I'm Sam. I work at the Guelph Public Library, and I'm the branch supervisor there.

Nice. Great. We're slowly making this a public library podcast, because these two, both me and Justin were academic, and then Sadie was public, and now I'm public. So we have had a lot more public people on. Yeah, so it's been great to have more public libraries stuff focused. None of it's on purpose. It just happened that way.

No. Just know people. So Nicole, why don't you start us off by letting us know what brave is? And, well, tell us in your own words. How would you elevator pitch it? Oh, gosh. So we're a co-op. 5-4-3-2-1. So we're like a very small co-op in downtown east side of Vancouver. We build opioid poisoning detection equipment, which is a complicated, way of saying that we build technology that detects when somebody has an overdose. We do that

in conjunction with people who use drugs. So like with respect to their privacy, what they're looking for, how are they going to trust the specific system in libraries? We're building a lot of overdose sensors. So these are just like these sensors that kind of sit in the ceiling of like a washroom and they will send either a text message or a team's message to the library and let somebody know that like a person in the bathroom is in trouble, is an overdose. I'm really interested also in just the fact that this is a co-op as a like a model of business, like just like politically. Would you be able to talk a little bit more about like being a co-op and why choose that model instead of maybe something like a traditional nonprofit structure or

a traditional LLC or something? We could totally be a corporation, right? Or we could be any number of things, but one that sucks. Yeah. And two, we're all politically motivated. Everybody who's working here is more interested in the big picture than like the actual operations of a company. We want to keep you all safe and it's easier to do it when we're caught, which means everybody gets equal votes and equal shares. We know what we're doing as much as we can with everybody else. I like it as like sort of a leftist structure and I like seeing it gain track. Yeah, I know in Rojava or whatever they're calling it now so that it's not explicitly just a Kurdish word, but the autonomous region of Syria, a lot of their like sort of business structures are worker co-ops. And like that's how they do a lot of stuff over there too. So it's interesting to see like how co-ops thrive and what they do and stuff.

It's easy to thrive as a co-op specifically because of what we're doing, right? Yeah. If I was doing, if I was making clothes or something, if I was doing something else, it would probably not be my choice. But doing this one thing that we're very good at, the right choice, right? And how does it get started? We were just talking with the Queer Liberation Library, which was on like all volunteers. It's an online library. They have like, they're technically like a private library.

And it was kind of just like, well, should we do this? Are we to do this? Oh, we're doing this. Oh, we're doing this. Oh, we've got like a sponsor now. we're doing this. Like how did, when did that happen? Career Liberation Library is really cool, by the way. And so eight years ago, our CEO moved to Vancouver and was like, oh, there's a lot of people here who are struggling with drug issues. And then six years ago decided to build a co-op.

They started off with like buttons that go into residential spaces that don't have PA systems. And my push was like, oh, hey, I'm going to try a non-tested substance. Please come check on me in five minute. Oh, okay. And that could be to like a few different government grants, which turned into realizing that the spaces where people are dying the most are the ones that are unsupervised and that deserve privacy, right? And those are usually washrooms. And a lot of the time, those are washrooms in libraries. So they developed a former radar that does not identify anyone anywhere ever, just sends this text message. And they found a whole bunch of libraries that were

willing to try it out. And then we land with people like Sam, who's like changing her community doing this. That's interesting with the radar. When you, when you're trying to scope out the problem before you're installing the sensors, how do you know like this is where the overdoses are happening? Is it from those previous pilot projects that you get the data that then you build on with Brave to say, okay, here's how we're going to change the technology? Okay. If you're in a library, you know where people are dying, first of all. Yeah. But also, also, it's largely single cells that are left alone. and sometimes like men's washrooms, you know, just depending on what your layout is like and where your front desk is. So we're always going for those accessible family washrooms first.

And then we're moving into doing multi-stall installations. Depending on the library, I don't want to be, to be honest, I don't want these sensors anywhere. They should not have to exist. But that they do have to exist. I want them in the right spaces with the right people. And I want the right team. They're available. And that's where people like Sam come in.

Maybe this is jumping the gun a bit. when we were looking into these and reading about them, and this maybe goes into the privacy concerns a little bit, but one thing I was curious about is like, so it's using radar detection and it will detect, like if someone hasn't moved in a bit or something, does that throw like false positives for other conditions or like other instances where maybe someone just hasn't is sitting still for a long time

or like has IBS or something? Or is there a specific type of movement or something that this is looking for? You have IBS, Jay. I don't have IVS. I don't know. So, yeah, somebody is still from a lot. He doesn't know the pain. It is going to throw a false positive.

One, you want false positives. That's better than not being a false negative, right? That would be good. That means someone's dead. Secondly, any kind of time where somebody is still in a bathroom that we know they're in for, let's say, 90 seconds to two minutes, is probably a medical emergency. We're not talking about still like, oh, you're leaning over your phone, checking something as you... And the lights go out because you haven't moved in a bit kind of thing. Right. We're talking about medically still.

Okay. It's a stillness detector. And if you are still enough to set this off, you are still enough that I want somebody to get on the other side of that door. I want them to be knocking. I want Sam or when a Sam staff be knocking on the door and be in the cave, are you okay? Like, what's going on? If you're still enough for this to detect you, you're probably still enough that you're probably not. not breathing very heavily.

It's some kind of medical emergency. Okay. That makes more sense. Whether that's like you fell and you hit your head, whether that you had a heart of attack, whether that you were playing statue freeze in the washroom. That one's really hard. I've tried doing that one myself and I can't do it. But yeah.

Okay. That makes more sense then. We'll circle back because I'm still interested in the co-op stuff. But Sam, why don't you tell us how you got started with Brave? Yeah. So as I mentioned, we, I'm at the Gulf Public Library and we're kind of, we're not like a big city like Toronto by any means, but we're also not very small. So right downtown in the core. And I've been there about three years. So when I started, you know, it was evident that there was, you know, people who were under house and experiencing like mental health issues as well as like some drug issues. And it was new for all of us. We didn't really know what to do. And then there was. a day where we actually had three people go down at once. And it wasn't in their washrooms or anything. It was just like out in the open. And, you know, none of us had never experienced that

before. So we, some partners reached out to us actually about it. And we're like, you know, like, what's your plan? What are you going to do? Like you're in the downtown core. What are you going to do? It's like, oh, you're right. We don't have a plan. And the advice I got was to just start talking to people. Like, ask, ask your community, like, why the library? Why are you using at the library. And at first, and I thought that was, like, I was terrified. I'm totally honest. I was like, I, this is not my world. I don't understand it. But I started to learn the difference between what is actually scary and what is just uncomfortable. And I started having those conversations with people. So one of the individuals who didn't have a drug poisoning at the library and did survive,

he came back. And I just, I asked him, like, why? And that's when I started to learn about what he was experiencing and the services that were in Guelph, like our safe injection site and the health center. And it kind of just opened up this whole, this whole world to me that I had no idea about. And like a librarian, I wanted to know more. So people put me into contact with the harm reduction manager actually at the health center. I got a tour of the CTS after hours. And then we started building out partnerships with something we call welcoming streets, which is actually like, outreach workers who are out in the community, and they are de-escalating and also doing system navigation for people. So we continue to partner with them. We even had actually, so the health center came

into the library and so did the Guelph Police to kind of give us an assessment of our building. So we are in a very old building, and our bathrooms are actually, there's nothing on the main floor. There's adult washrooms in the basement, and then an accessible washroom. upstairs in a hallway near the children's department that is also pretty like closed off. So it was brought to our attention that like our washrooms are potentially going to be a problem. So what we tried to do was like regular security checks, you know, just like knocking on the door. And, you know, that could be someone could have just gone in there and then obviously they're annoyed. Or someone could have been in there for like an hour and we don't know for sure.

So that was like proving to be a bit difficult. And we kept working with partners to try to figure this out. And then unfortunately, we did have a fatality in our washroom. So that was obviously, like, very horrible, very sad. That is not what we wanted to have happen. And, you know, we were all pretty affected by that. So through this network of, like, community partners, we had a lot of people reached out to, to, like, offer support and just, you know,

offer condolences. And we kind of kept asking, like, what else can we do? Like, I mean, for checking bathrooms or trying to do. all this and it's just, it's becoming very overwhelming. So one of our partners, Hope House, actually mentioned, they're like, hey, we just got this thing called Brave. Have you heard about it? Would you like to use it or like want to see it? So we did a tour and saw how they were using it in their washrooms. And Hope House is like a drop-in center. They have like a clothing market and that kind of thing. So we, my CEO and I went to like view them and just like ask some questions

about it. And then we reached out to Brave and it turned out to be like pretty accessible to install. Like even on their website, they have instructions of how to install these centers and I just handed it to the electrician. And they're like, oh, this is great. I can do this. So we just, we rolled them out in our public washrooms, the adult and the accessible. And we trained our staff. We talked about what it was. And because we were all having these experiences of not knowing what was going to happen in the washroom. And, you know, unfortunately, like the opiate crisis, like we, it's a growing problem, not a going away problem. So, you know, this was just like another tool that we could add to our, like our tool belt there. So we went

live with them in March of last year. And yeah, it's been, it's been a game changer for us because we do two things with them. There's obviously the stillness alert, which will tell us when someone's in medical distress. But the other thing it does, we have it set for duration alerts as well. So that sends a notification to one of our service desks as well as our security team that someone's been in a washroom for 15 minutes. So at that point, we just do a wellness check. And that's also been helpful to build relationships with people. So it could be something as simple as like, people are in our accessible washroom and they're there for a long time because they don't have access to a shower or they're living rough and it's like so you get the opportunity to have a

conversation with someone about what's going on and then when they do share you can offer them something so like in guelph we have a program where there are showers available through the health center or you know we can call our welcoming street partners and they can come and connect with someone and do that system navigation that we can't do so and it could be too sometimes people just fall asleep because they've been awake for a long time, so we can give them a bit of a snack to help them get to the next place and just sort of check on people that way.

I feel like I went really fast, sorry. No, no, no, no. I really appreciate what you said when you said, like, learning the difference between what is uncomfortable and what is scary. I feel like I've seen this a lot, especially with public librarians, around Narcan training.

And, like, this is a huge. huge discourse of like tanglement in libraries of like whether Narcan training should be mandatory or or not like

is that job creep is that other things and you know as someone who lives in a city I actually feel bad that I'm not Narcan train just as like a person who lives here

like you never know when you're going to be on poet transit and something happened right but like I feel like would I be like maybe uncomfortable or even scared

in those situations? Yes but it's not like me in danger kind of scared. Like it's a different type of scared. And I feel like around these topics, like a lot of librarians don't know and necessarily how to untangle that like I'm uncomfortable or don't know what to do from like, but I should do it anyway kind of thing. So I just really appreciate you saying that. Yeah, it's hard. Like it is when I first heard about Narcan too, I was like, oh, there is no way I could do that. Like I. Yeah. And the fear like there was this rumor we always heard like if you Narcan someone, they're going to wake up and they're going to be

so angry. And like we've done a lot of training around it. And even like today we had more training at work actually about it. And, you know, it's just like a reminder. It's like someone's not waking up angry. They're waking up because you're standing over them and they don't know what happens. So like if you administer Narcan to someone, like make sure you're kind of stepping back and like get to their level and be calm and, you know, because they don't know you. And so it's yeah, it's really unpacking that fear piece. And like, I do recommend arcana training for like everyone just because like, even if you're not comfortable to use it, learning about what happens to yourself to after you witness an overdose, I found that to be really helpful. I mean, I was witnessing overdoses before or drug poisons before

and not realizing like I was getting anxious because like my adrenaline shot up. Like that's a very normal thing. And it's like, oh, well, what do I do about that? And it's like, well, you know, like get moving, drink water, like these like self-care kind of things to after, to take off that edge, right, of why you were scared. Yeah. I mean, it also is, I understand the kind of skill creep in public servants, because like whenever there's any problem, what do you do? You just like throw police at it, right? And they're just trained to do like a thousand things really poorly and in the worst way possible. And so whenever you have public servants like librarians, it's like, well, train them to do stop the bleed, train them to do Narcan train them to notice signs of child abuse, right?

Like, it's, it kind of is like, because we're one of the public spaces and public servants of last resort that work directly with the public. It's like, yeah, I mean, you are going to kind of be handed a lot of responsibilities. So I don't, I don't want to lump that into the same issue of, like, vocational awe, which I think is a separate phenomenon from this issue. Yeah, agreed. That's more of, like, something that teachers would also have. But teachers also have to learn this, you know, a lot of things because.

their public servants on the front line doing public servant stuff. Like, it's just kind of how it is. So I don't know. I'm not too worried about the Darnarkand discourse. Also, stop the bleed. You should learn stop the bleed training. People will bleed out before an ambulance gets there. So learn how to use a tourniquet. Keep a tourniquet on you in your house and your car. It's important. Anyway, it's important when you're talking about Arcana and you have an American audience as to mention that like it's not legal in every single state, right? No, is it not? It's not. And in some States, it's actually considered drug contraband. I didn't know that. Yeah. So for Ontario, like, we have the Good Samaritan law, which covers you so that you can administer. If you feel

comfortable and it's needed, nothing can happen to you. And as well as if someone is using and has Narcan and like, like, you administer it to them and then you call 911, like that person won't be charged either, right? Like there's kind of protections built in in Ontario. And for us, too, we only use the nasal spray. That's the only one we have on site. Editor's note, Narcan is legal to carry in Texas. It is fentanyl test strips and clean syringes, which are considered paraphernalia. State laws will vary and are subject to change, so be sure to check the status of naloxone in your area. I mean, the price is just not doing it in the first place. Also, $125 is like wild, right? Sam, like 125 U.S. That's like 175 for us in Canada. How much do you spend at the pharmacy to get your Narcan, Sam?

So it's paid through public health, so we don't pay for it directly. It's like, it's part of our like healthcare. And if you went to the pharmacy and you were like, hey, I need a Narcan kit, how much would you pay? Nothing. And would it be like a fly at the front being like, hey, reminder, grab your fresh Narcan kit. Yes, yeah. So it's considered a prescription. Like it'll go on your health card. but yeah, if you are like prescribed opiates for any reason too, like for surgery, you know, you do get like a Narcan kit with it or you should. And yeah, anyone, there's just signs in all our pharmacies like ask and get a trained. Yeah. Your training is free. So like for me right now, so I work in the Antony's side and I reversed two overdoses since November last year. Happened to like work in a hotspot, right? Like a really intense hot spot. But I have an Narcan kit in my car, in my purse, in my second. purse and then many at my desk because it's easy and accessible and this is what we do to keep us safe, right? Yes, yeah.

And that's like true for like we have it at all our first aid kits at work. Our outreach workers carry it. Like our Guelphalith habit too. Like it's, yeah, I guess it's just a different vibe over here. It's interesting to hear about like tourniquets, but not an arcant. Yeah. I would do both. Yeah, I can't really remember if my.

workplace offered Narcan training. I feel like it did. But I'm not sure now that I think about how they think about it. Yeah, like it's newer for us that we have it. And like staff also really were like, yeah, let's like look into this. Let's do it. Like staff really wanted it as well. So and for us too, it's like it's not a you have to. It's like here's an option. Like the bare minimum is you have to call 911. So it's just like if it's too much like it's fair. Like if it's a lot, then if you can't do it. If someone else can, that's great. Yeah, just 911 is the minimum for us. That's the big thing that people who use drugs said.

So like, okay, we detect there's still that's in the bathroom. Then what, right? And the initial idea was like, oh, you should call EMS. Like, call on ambulance, right? But people who use drugs said, don't do that. And they were like, just Narcan us or just have somebody knock on the door, right? So like putting that choice into the hands of a human who can go and execute on that and make like a wiser decision, And whether that's to Narcan, not as it is, but sometimes it's not because a variety of things has led to, like, way better results for library clients and also library staff.

Could you talk a little bit more about the training you do about, like, when to make that decision and how that's informed? Yeah, I'm not allowed to make that decision. What I'm allowed to do is send somebody a text message that says there's somebody who is in medical, like, need in your bathroom. And it's up to that person to know what to do. So sometimes, like, if you're a Sam and you get to work with people like Sam and they're amazing, you're probably going to go and Narcan them, right? But other times you work in a place that has different laws or you work in a place that has, I don't know, collective bargaining agreements that are against what you're trying to do or they have union restrictions. In which case, you're going to call EMS. But what you're going to do is be the human on the other side of the door that make sure that person does not die, right?

there are something we think through a lot of the Lucy Parsons Center where I volunteer, which is like a radical info shop bookstore here in Boston. And our like number one rule is you do not call the cops. We do not work with the police at all. You know, we have an anti-Nazi bat in the store just in case shit happens, you know, like that kind of place. And so, but we have like Narcan and we have like harm reduction like stuff like in the store just in case.

And a lot of like new volunteers, their main question is, well, what do I do if someone's having a medical emergency? And if it gets to the point where you have to call EMS, there are ways where you can request that police also not be sent. Never say it's an overdose because the cops will be sent if you say that. But if you just say you need an ambulance but requests they don't send cops, sometimes you can get away with that. But also, if an ambulance shows up,

they don't necessarily have to take the person back to the hospital. They can administer care of there. And then the person is like it, it charged for it if they don't get put back, at least in Massachusetts. So, like, I don't know, like, if you have to call EMS, if there's ways that you can do it, like, as a public servant without the cops coming. But why it goes as a text message, very specifically as a text message, or now we do Microsoft Teams too, right? That's the reason. I can't send an alert to your general security system. I don't want the cops to show up 20 times if that's not what's going on. And also,

Like that's up to you. Most of our situations are solved with immediate Narcan and there's no need. Right. Combalizing people for no reason and it also like causes like EMS fatigue. Do you really want showing off every single time? And then the sixth time then you actually needed them. But that doesn't make sense. It makes more sense to trust your staff, give them all the tools possible and then back them up, right?

Mm-hmm. This is why I am so enamored with Sam. what she's doing. Like she has built this thing, use these tools, and then also built out the team behind it to support everybody who's there. We haven't had an overdose death since these sensors have been installed in Guelph, which is pretty good, given what the state of libraries looks like today. Yeah. And like with our, with us too, like we are sensors as well. Like we have another group called like the drug strategy group in our community where that is like looking for trends and like also issuing health alerts. When

the supply is very toxic and we are very lucky and I'm sure you won't believe me but like Guelph police are actually like very, they're very good, very sympathetic and like our whole culture downtown has just really changed where like we if someone does need medical intervention too like I just had this happened to me last week where you know someone you know they weren't in a great shape they going to the hospital is not an option for them but they really wanted to go to the health center one of the officers happened to be in there for a different connecting with someone else. They recognize them and they're like, hey, I need to go to the health center. Can you drive me?

And it's like, yes, absolutely. So we, we've, this whole thing has just really transformed for us of like the people who are like supporting and working. And I've given tours to Guelphali's to like other community partners of our brave sensors. And they're like, and they're like, wow, this is like, this is so different. And like kind of what Nicole was saying, like, when we do call. it's like we've done A, B, C, and D and now we need. Serious. Yeah.

Yeah, serious. And, like, everyone, like, people know that now, too. Like, we're only calling when we absolutely have to. So, my family is from Guelph, right? Like, half of my family was born in Guelph. And I called them today because I was really nervous about this phone call. And I was like, oh, hey, like, what changes have you seen in Guelph when you're born until now? And then also, have you seen anything with the library and downtown?

And my aunt Donna was like, yes, there's a huge increase in folks that are like unhoused. But also in the last year and a half, she's seen that like she feels like there are fewer people who are unsupported and they have a place to go. And my guess is, and it's just a guess, is it's because of programs like you, Sam, right? Those are the measurable impacts you're making in the community. And I love that. Like I think the biggest, one of the biggest shocks for me too is like when we put in these. sensors. There was like a story in Guelph today about it. And we were like kind of worried that the public would be like your monitoring is in the bathroom. Like what is this? And there was none of that.

It was actually like I'd hear from parents who are like, you know, like, hey, you might know my kid because they, this was happening to them. And like, I really appreciate everything you been doing. Or like, you know, we hand out a lot of juice boxes and granola bars, which probably sounds ridiculous. But that makes like a huge difference, especially when we're doing wellness checks and the amount of people who like come up and are just like thankful that we're trying to do something, it has really changed the tone. Like we, whenever the ambulance used to come, people would scatter, right? And now people are hanging around and they're like, it's not as tense because there's a plan. There's people are going to come and it's going to get resolved.

And it's not always like sunshine and roses, but there is a plan. Yeah, I think maybe I didn't ask the question right. Curious about like the relationship between like, Nicole, when you go to someone who wants to install the sensors, do you give them, you know, this is what we've learned from these programs, how you can put in that A, B, and C plan? Or is it just, here's the tool, here's what other people are doing? Or is it someone who's already got A and B and you're like, here's C? I'm trying to get like, what's the relationship I'm like response between Brave and the people you're working with? Yeah, so I only got access to being a full member of the club in November of last year. So, like as a co-op member, I'm brand new. I've been fighting it for years to try and get here.

My little sister died from an overdose. She died in a bathroom. It sucks. These sons would have to save her. I care on a very personal level. I wanted access to their data, right? So now that I get to me in this spot, and I can see like, okay, libraries are, I don't have to tell you guys this, but libraries are sort of the new front line of the war on drugs. What do we do now? How do we protect library staff? How do we protect clients? So, so far what I've been doing is reaching out to every single library system in Canada, about to move into the States in like a month or two, question mark. And my call is always like, hi, my name is Nicole.

My little sister died of an overdose in the bathroom. What's your plan to stay safe? I don't have much more than that, right? I don't know that any of us have anything more than like what is the plan to stay safe for like your staff and your patrons. This works sometimes. Yeah, like I think for us too, like other libraries I've talked to, like if you, you, if you're just installing sensors because you think that's going to stop it, that's like,

you're going to be disappointed. Yeah. Like, you know, I learned early on, like, I can't prevent a drug poisoning. All I can really do is do my best to respond to it when it happens, right? Like, that's what harm reduction is. So if, but generally, if you're looking at sensors, I find, like, you've already kind of started, you're on that path to harm reduction. So it's kind of a natural fit.

You've probably tried some other things first, too, and you're just like building, building it on. Oh my gosh, they've probably tried so many things. My favorite thing to talk about when it comes to Sam and overdoses in libraries is sleeping policies. Justin, what's your library's sleeping policy? Or what was it before you quit? Well, it's an academic library. So I mean, it just the building closes. So, um, there's though? No, universities, while it's open, you mean? Yeah. Yeah, like students falling sleep with their desks and stuff. Yeah, it's normal. Okay, Jay, what do you do? So at the computers, you can't fall asleep. So if you're using like the library computers, a library employee can come and like wake you up and be like, hey, you need to stay awake. And if, you know, if it happens so many times, then they can't use, they have to get off the computer, but they can totally go somewhere else in, in the library. So yeah, you see like we have like our regulars like every morning when I get to work. I kind of see the same people getting into the elevators with me and everything. And they usually have. like all their stuff with them. Usually they have like sleepy bags. People will sleep outside as well.

So I don't think there's like an anti-sleeping ban except when using the computers. So in Vancouver and like most of the libraries in BC and Ontario actually, I'm pretty sure Sam can agree with me, there's like an anti-sleeping policy. Yeah. Which I thought made sense until I talked to Sam. And she was like, well, would you, would you kick a baby out for sleeping in the carrier. No, I would not do that. What are you talking about? That's insane. Right? And she was like, well, what about like an older gentleman that fell asleep and, you know, his glasses have sort of like slipped up his head and he's reading the New York Times. Would you kick him out if he was reading a newspaper in the corner? And the answer there is no as well. And so she introduced this idea to me of respectful

sleeping, which Sam, you're so much smarter than me. I know you can be told him better. But it's like, Yeah, so we did, I think it's common. And like, for her, from other libraries, too, it's like a no sleeping policy. You can't sleep. Yeah. So we did have a lot of staff who, like, just kept having to wake people up.

And as you can imagine, that was not going over very well. Like, you're constantly waking someone up. They're obviously going to become escalated. And, you know, it's not a good scene. And then you're looking at, like, a ban for someone because they've gotten aggressive and you're sort of setting people up to fail. So, like, through conversations with staff and, like,

And our partners too, the idea of respectful sleeping was suggested. So what that means for us is like you have to be in a chair and you have to keep your stuff with you. And if we don't know you, we are going to do like wellness checks. But it's as simple as just like a hey, just checking in, if you give me a thumbs up or if you're good. Usually if it's the first time we're meeting someone, we drop off like a granola bar and a juice box. And really like the rationale behind that is like if I have an issue, I want to just like hyper focus on like what the actual issue is. So we did have patrons too who like be very concerned about sleeping and kind of like what I was saying Nicole is like we don't care if a baby sleeping. So like why why do we care if an adult sleeping? And it's like we care because there might be something wrong. Right. So let's like hyper focus on like what could be wrong. So if someone, you know, is living rough and is tired. Like let's ask like it just again have a conversation like if I am worried someone's used or or that kind of thing. We'll just check more. But yeah, it's just like, hey, I've been awake for three days. I've been walking around for three days and I'm just exhausted now.

And it's like, you know what? That's valid reason. Like when I started at Guelphal Public Library, I'd just come off a mat leave and like I was also exhausted so I get it. And like as we, I learn more about like mental health, everything too. Like I'm always really floored by like how we all know that you need sleep. But it's like so hard to get sleep, which is I could go on about that forever too. But yeah, so it's just like respectful sleeping. And as we're checking in on people too, like it might just be.

be like, hey, just make sure your bags, like, tucked under your legs, you don't want it to get stolen, right? Like, it's these ways to check in with people to make sure they're okay, but to also, like, make them feel like they're welcome because they are. And, you know, we just want everyone to, you know, keep the peace, keep it, you know, keep temperatures, like the temperature low and that kind of thing, right? So, yeah, it's not a big deal. Like, when I first started, definitely it seemed like it was a huge deal. And when people do fall asleep at the computers, too, it's sometimes actually just a gentle conversation of like, can I get you, get you to a chair? And like, I have a regular security guard who is like a gentle giant. Like he is just, it is, it floors me that he can just like de-escalate

something by walking into a room and he can have someone screaming at him and then they're giving him a hug at the end of it. So yeah, he often will help people get to a chair too and then, you know, sleep for five hours and they're okay. If I could take Sam and make like 20 versions of her and drop her down in every library system across North America, I feel like a lot of these problems would be solved. But I'm not allowed to copy people, and that's weird. I like you phrased it that you're not allowed, not that you can't do it. Like you started doing it and like the technology showed up.

Mad scientist. Yeah, like for us too, like I learned so much from, I've like really talked about it, like the welcoming streets team and like our like Stonehenge and just like everything about like wrap around services with like our shelter system. And just learning from all of them has been like a game changer. Like if you have any of those resources, like you probably do and you don't realize it. And just like getting out there and trying to connect with people. Like the first time I found out we had an outreach nurse was because there was someone sleeping in our bush when I first started.

And like this guy just went over and like asked for a thumbs up. And I'm like, who are you? And he's like, oh, I'm the outreach nurse. I can do, I can just come out and like check on people. And now we have like a partnership with him that he comes to the library every day. Tuesday night to like to just meet with people to help do wound care and like he goes to other locations and encampments and whatnot too. So it's like the simplest connections can just really grow into something else. I was talking about this with a different library yesterday Sam.

I was talking about building relationship with clients and I was like, okay, you're welcome to purchase these things from our co-op and I hope you do because like one, they're life saving and two, you need them. But also if you do all this stuff and you're not doing that relationship building, if you're not like interacting with your clients if they don't trust you. If you're not like working back and forth with them, there's no point. Like talked about you directly.

I think I quoted you poorly probably. Yeah, it is hard. Like it's hard work. Like I'm not, you know, you can be really tapped out and it's not just me too. Like I get to work with like really awesome people who are so committed to. And you know,

like we try to work as a team and like tap in and out when when you just, you know, when you're like not, you can't always solve it for people too. And like maybe I am triggering for someone. So someone else can can step in for me and triage it that way too, right? It's also like not what you signed up for, right? Like I feel like people who are a little bit younger, like maybe Gen Z who are joining

libraries now understand that like this is the front line of most social issues, right? Like these are frontline workers. If you are a library worker, you're a hero and you're also definitely part of leftist front line. I have no doubts about that. But maybe if you joined 10 years ago, you didn't know that, right? You don't plan on being this person or this thing when you sign up to work with a library. It's interesting because this did come up in library school. And I think whenever you had a lot of librarians and training, because I was in library school 10 years ago.

So a lot of people, we were talking about like, because you mentioned, I just had like a reverie because Sam mentioned shower stations. And we were talking about like how useful those would be in so many public libraries and would solve other problems like people bathing. in the sink or people having like a really bad smell and just you know distracting other people and it's like what if we just had public showers and more libraries you know then you could like to work yeah and it was it was also just like you put people in a room and present them with these problems they come up with really straightforward solutions that were still implementing a decade later so it's not that we didn't see it coming it's it's but yeah i'm sure it's more and more i think there's also a political aspect of realizing the public library is one of those last public-facing fronts

that maybe people are understanding more. Last free third space that exists. It is the current frontline for all of this. Yeah. And I think newer librarians are way more aware of the fact that libraries aren't neutral, like no matter what kind of library you work at or what you do as a librarian, because I feel like, so this is not related to like front-end stuff necessarily. I mean, I can make the case that it is. But Library of Congress subject headings, all right? They just put out the proposal Tuesday to change Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America

and Denali to Mount McKinley. Like that's a proposal. They only gave one day for people to comment on it. The fucking comments on the Auto Catalyst serve, which like, one, that's the main reason to subscribe to list serves as the drama. But there were people, like, defending this choice and being, like, get the politics out of the AutoCat list serve. And I'm just, like, me and my, like, co-worker who sits next to me and we have similar

politics, just, like, kept, like, we just, like, kept who's also a catalog. We just, like, kept looking up over our desk and, like, looking at each other, like, any time. So, like, a new email coming from this list serve because we're both on it. And sometimes he would just, like, say. something like quoting it and I just feel like like but these are like old guard librarians who feel this way where I feel like

New Guard librarians like oh yeah that facade is long gone like they don't you know the kids are all right as they say yeah I mean at this level like when we're talking about life or death or we're talking about who's going to die in your bathroom and like to library staff I'm talking about which one of your staff members is going to go open that door and find somebody who has passed away, right? Who's going to get the, oh, I feel awkward about this, but like I'm approaching

you at the front desk or whatever. I think somebody has problems in this bathroom. And then you have to go and then find out that somebody has passed away. Like, it's personal, yet political, but like, that is very, very personal. And I will always tell you that the personal is political, right? But in this case, this is about, like, how we interact as humans on a regular basis. And yes, politics and yes, there are a lot of things going on, but kind of fuck that. Because I don't want you to have to be that person that goes and answers that, like, call to go to wash him. What I want you to do is get a text message that's like, hey, Jay,

please go check on bathroom number two, right? Where you make that knock and you're like, okay, I have to decide what I'm going to administer, whether I'm going to call, like, whatever your policy is, right? Sorry, that's really happy. No, no. It's, I was going to say, the politicization of libraries is sort of an inescapable fact. and I think more librarians are aware of that. And it wasn't something librarians did.

And I think there are some librarians who think like, you guys made us political talking like other librarians, like leftist librarians. Like you guys made us political. It's like, no, the politicization came to libraries. They've always been political. But like this current engagement with politics wasn't something libraries brought on themselves.

People are just reacting to it. And so it's people are aware of that political reality, which is actually what I wanted to ask when you're talking about, well, first of all, I guess I wanted to ask, what's the trend for criminalization of homelessness in Canada? Like, what direction is it going? How have you noticed the politics on that changing and what might that do for these kinds of programs? It's a really scary question, given that we have an upcoming election and we're struggling with U.S. tariffs. Right now, homelessness is not criminalized in Canada. Yes, you can be removed from where you are staying currently. But it's nothing close to like, so I spent, I don't know, six months in Austin, Texas last year. And we were talking about, like, criminalizing camping, which is like criminalizing existing on the street question mark. Yeah, it's criminalized in Boston. Yeah, it's like a, yeah, we don't have that.

But that doesn't mean that like our people are any closer to safe than yours are necessarily, right? We just don't do it the same way. Yeah, they actually use those like anti-encampment laws. against the Palestine protests that were happening on campuses. Oh, great. Yeah, that's what happened at the Emerson campus because they don't have like a quad like Harvard does, right? And so they were in this sort of like public alley space, I think, is where their encampment was. And so, yeah, those laws were used against protesters.

Yeah, I made a phone call before this recording to talk about qual. And like, I know that they had an encampment downtown. They got cleared out, Sam, right? Yeah, so I can speak to a little bit about that because it was invited to sit on like another committee about basic needs and like trying to connect people to resources. So there was an encampment downtown and it did get dismantled. But part of the plan with that too was trying to put people, give people options. I'm not going to say they're still encampments, but they're not in like the downtown core as much. They would think they come in last year is like clear them out. Like they literally come in and the city. workers and they'll just like lift like all their shit and they'll be like okay you have to go somewhere else but we don't have us somewhere else to go to oh yeah so it didn't happen for us thankfully it was people did get storage and then there's there's like our emergency shelter and then there's like another

shelter that's a little more long term so and then there also was like a winter response plan where people some people were put into hotels and i know for our community it's like the way our agencies run it's like the idea of like a housing first goal. So it's like what do you need to be able to get to housing? Like if it's like we have some communities in Guelph that are like, it's you have a rental. It's like you sign a lease. But like maybe you need someone to come in and like just help you get your breakfast ready or like you just need reminders for certain things as you, you know, if you've been living rough for like years and years and years and not additional support. Let me just go back. Just quickly going back two steps. American friends. One, storage is available.

What? I think it's true. Storage is available. Secondly, housing first. Can you imagine the like no camping, camping ban, whatever it is with a housing first policy? And then you get to talk to people like Sam. Yeah, I think Salt Lake City had like a pilot program like maybe 10 years back or something of like putting homeless people like in hotels or in like basic apartments or something. like, weirdly, like Salt Lake City was one of the places that had a very successful program around that.

I think it has since ended. But yeah, I know some places in the United States are like trying that out, but it's not very popular. Michael Hobbs, weirdly, is like of several podcasts, has done a lot of reporting and journalism around this topic. That was like one of his like starter areas, I think. Yeah. And Canada, like, we're all trying to figure it out too, right? Sorry. Basically, like, it's, I mean, not every community in Canada is facing this. And I think there's a lot of different approaches for how to do it. And like local government plays a role. Provincial government plays a role. And then the federal government plays a role in this too. So, you know, it's complicated. And yeah, I just, but the good thing for us, I guess, is that like there are so many agencies and smart people working on this that we get to partner with them. And, you know, we can kind of work together and try to support someone. Jess, I'm dying to hear what you think about this. Or I'm dying. What about the housing first policy? Sure. Or like what should happen when we like remove encampment? What should happen? You mean? Yeah, what do you think should go on? What should that look like?

I think we should recomb in the land. I mean, barring that. I mean, like you mentioned Austin. Like I've, I've been to Austin a few times and you were saying like, you know, there's anti-camping law. And if you have ever walked around Austin a night, you know that that is an impossible law to enforce because there's not enough beds. There's literally nowhere for people to go. There's nothing but empty hill country all around Austin. There's no place for people. There's no options for anyone to go anywhere. It's to sleep outside the starvation army.

And that's what they do. That whole row is like that is where people live. That's their home. Like there is no reason to be clearing out encampments because they have no other choice. Like people have a right to live in a public space. So I mean, obviously you have to have a housing first process. Like, you know, even if I'm just talking like, very sort of base level as to be meeting a basic need for shelter.

You can't just displace people indefinitely unless you want them to no longer exist, which is, you know, ethnic cleansing and a genocide. That's what you would be doing is trying to kill these populations, which I think is probably the effect of these criminalization laws across the U.S. is that they're viewed as surplus population. They want to just keep moving them and moving them until they're no longer alive. Yeah, it's kind of... Or they're imprisoned.

In prison. Yeah, imprisons. too, because that's also lucrative business. And I notice that there's a new crop of kids coming up because they're still doing, they've rediscovered private prisons. And they're like, private prison's bad. And it's like all prisons function the exact same way. The only difference in a private prison is you have slightly fewer rights because the guards

aren't government employees so they can beat you up more. But that's really the only difference. Like all of the privatization has already happened, the securest tablets, the commissary stuff, like, all that's already privatized. So it doesn't matter what kind of jail you're putting people in. Yeah. Was that the thoughts you were trying to get out of me? A little bit, yeah.

I mean, I was thinking about stuff like, so when I call places, so I'm calling all these libraries. I'm like, I'm very lucky. Also, librarians are like very fast. So I call them, they call me bad, which is like wild, right? I have like almost a one-for-one ratio of answers. That's insane to me. And we're talking about like, okay, opiate poisoning in your space. right? Oftentimes, I do have a question that you just brought off Justin, which I would never say. But it's like, what do you want people to do? And do you want them to just die? And I think there is sometimes like an implied yes, which is... Not always implied either.

So no one said that to me, but also I'm like a woman calling talking about my sister who died, right? Yeah, deeply uncomfortable. Yeah. The purpose of a policy is what it does. And if it kills people, then that's what the purpose of the policy was. Completely. And it depersonalizes that by making it. policy instead of making it personal. And that's how we have community leaders. We have the Sam's. We have the co-ops like, we've got the people like you guys who are talking about it. Like this is why we exist, right? If I could, again, if I can't own Sam 20 times over, my library death problem in Canada would be solved. I just need her 20 times. And then her community needs to deal. And not that like, like drug poisoning and opioid poisoning and overdosing and all that,

like it's like not that it's limited to unhoused populations obviously like anybody can overdose but also like I feel like public library workers or any like any person who works with the public really whether that be like in a university or not or in a public library or not or whatever like Justin said like the purpose of a policy is what it does how many policies does your library have that their real purpose is to make sure that homeless people don't use the library. Tons of them. Most of them. Not if you're in Sam's library.

And this is like the thing that I have to like highlight again. This is the sleeping policy. Yeah. You can't, the no sleeping policy, that's an anti-homeless policy versus respectful sleeping that we get to talk with when we get to talk with brilliant minds like Sam, right? When she talks about like, so there's a fridge available. And it's not like a community fridge, but if you have something you need to store in a fridge rule that you put in this. Like all of this stuff, it's the exact antithesis of being

anti-houseless and being like community oriented. And this is why I'm so like hugely in love with this concept. Yeah, like another thing we did too was it's really you need an address to get a library card. So we actually were able to do a digital access card instead, which is we just need your name. And then it's not a full card, but it has all our digital resources. Then you can take out two items at a time. And then through that conversation as well, too, it's like, hey, if someone's like, I don't have ID, I'm like, well, would you like, well, would you like some? Because we can connect you. It's literally down the street to go work with legal aid in the health center to get ID. Right. I don't have an ID has the answer of, okay, would you like some? What? What? What?

Yeah. It's one of the instances of the government actually can help you, not just punish you, to to paraphrase the Simpsons. But yeah, I mean, I do hear stories about that all the time when you're talking about like temporary cards. I've heard a lot of places that do essentially set people up with temporary addresses. I forget how they work, but like temporary postal addresses and then they use that to set up library cards as their permanent address. And that's also for like registering to vote and things like that for people who don't have

a fixed address. And I've heard public libraries doing stuff like that as well. I'm not sure exactly like the process, but people have this. similar workarounds. Yeah. And it's the shame we have to reinvent the wheel in every single state and every single county because they don't work together, right? So you have this huge disparity.

Property taxes or whatever. It's paying for your library card. And it's like, yeah, most of people paying those property taxes aren't using the library. So people who do use the library should get to use it. God damn it. Or their property, for that matter. Yeah, exactly. Recommon the land.

Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is also like an abolitionist issue. This is a housing justice. issue. Like, this is a, what we call

in one of my political orgs, a transversal issue that like affects everything, right? You can't just, it's not just like labor organizing, it's not just this kind of organizing. It, like, affects and weaves through everything. Yeah, I mean, you can't talk about, like, a whole weird poisoning with like,

talking about where it came from, right? Yeah. And it came from this whole thing, which is like a million things, which is why, I think a co-op is best to do to, like, address it. We talked with QLL about this, because often people will hear about like something you're doing and it's like really cool and they want to do it too. Is it a model? Is Brave a model that people should duplicate in their way or should they focus on supporting what Brave is doing? Yes, they should copy us. Also, they should support us.

Everything that we own, there is no IP. It's all open source. All of it. That's right. Complete. Like from our data all the way through to like how our hardware works. everything you can access online. You could duplicate us in Boston. You could have us in Seattle. You could have us all these places. If you don't want to do that, order from us, great.

But you could do this. All the radical mutual aid orgs who are listening to this podcast episode, go do that now. So, yeah. Put it next to the hormone factory. Yeah. Although like the trans witches

in your neighborhood who are making their own HRT now. Has Audrey told you about her friend, I think maybe her girlfriend, who has like 50 years of HRT startup. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Okay. We usually only go an hour. Is there any final thing that you would want people to know in terms of contacting you if they want to do something similar or,

actually, no, I had one more question. I keep getting like a hacker vibe from this. Is this started by like computer people who are really into open source stuff? No, it just worked out that way? Started by somebody who was independently wealthy, saw people dying, thought I was stupid, and wanted to change it, which is great. And he's currently our CEO, doesn't take a salary. It's all public. He doesn't for eight years. We're not hacker people.

We are technical people sometimes. Like, my background is technically development. We just like people and don't want people to die because they use drugs. And if that means that I get to use my voice to help other people like Sam, so I do this backwork, right? And then people like Sam show up. And I'm like, y'all should talk to this lady because she is incredible. And I get to go fight for that. My evening was so well spent.

So thank you. She's incredible. Give Sam a raise. No, me agree. Copy her a million places. It's like a team effort, though. Like, really. Give everybody a raise there.

Yeah, great. Not mad. Yeah, like our team at the library is just so committed to. and like our community too. Like we are very lucky. We have, there's just a lot of people who, who care and,

you know, it's not like, yes, tensions can be high, but like it's, we're trying to figure this out and, and work together. And there's just,

there's so many great people I've learned from, like, who I work with and partners that support us. So yeah, even just like, this was like not a hard thing for our senior management team to like do. They're like, yeah,

let's do it. Like, like they went like, my CEO went with me to like go look at things. My, the deputy like went on the CTS tour with me. Like it's like everyone at every level is involved. So yeah, we are very lucky that way.

Great. No, thank you so much. Any contact information will be in the notes. So any way that you would prefer to be contacted, we'll just put it there so you can see it in the bottom. Sam and Nicole, thanks so much for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having us. All right. And good night.