News & Events

By Nick Vogal
Berwyn Life
March 24, 2010

The Berwyn Public Library has been buying bus passes for patrons who — after being told to leave the library at the end of the day — have no where else to go.

Library Director Tammy Clausen said that since last summer, the library has seen an increase in the amount of homeless visitors.

As the cold nights of winter approached, library staff found it harder to turn the homeless away once the building closed.

“And when we close in the coldest of weather, we have to make sure that the library is secured. It’s difficult to, you know, put somebody out in the cold,” Clausen said. “We don’t advertise that we do it.”

The idea, she said, is to help the homeless get to a restaurant like McDonalds, or to shelters in other cities like Oak Park and La Grange. Clausen said the library has spent a few hundred dollars on the passes, with the money coming from its outreach budget.

“To get on a bus costs money. You can get a bus pass from PADS, but you have to get there,” Clausen said.

Nancy Ford, director of development at West Suburban Public Action to Deliver Shelter, said anyone seeking shelter must be at a PADS shelter or the administrative headquarters in Maywood by 7:30 p.m. in order to qualify for a lottery. The lottery determines who gets a place to sleep and who does not. The library is open until 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and until 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday.

Ford said there has been an increase in the number of people who rely on PADS for emergency shelter — which is available September through May. Already this season PADS has served more homeless people than they did during the entire 2008-09 emergency shelter season.

Berwyn has two churches that participate in the PADS shelter program, St. Mary of Celle and United Lutheran. Both are open as shelters on Saturdays.

Clausen wants to take the library’s informal giving of bus passes to an established process and will seek money from the Community Economic Development Association in Berwyn. She hopes to be able to purchase 100, five-day passes.

Right now, the passes are given out on a case-by-case basis.

“We aren’t in the business of social services, but at the same time if we can help them get to the social services, that’s what we want to do,” Clausen said.

Before Clausen goes too much farther with her idea, the Berwyn Library Board will have to address the issue, she said. So far, the board has not approved the idea of purchasing bus passes for the homeless.

“It was something that we did in-house for serving the patrons,” she said.

Ford said bus passes are a significant need for the homeless and something PADS tries to give out whenever funding is available, especially when there is no more room at a shelter and Chicago is the only option left for refuge on a cold night.

David Powers, communications director for the Village of Oak Park, said the village actively promotes the PADS program.

“We’re a very progressive community. I think (residents) understand there’s a need to assist people who are down on their luck,” said Powers.

He said occasionally the village will receive a complaint about aggressive pan handling, but that “police see it as a different issue than someone looking for a hot meal and a place to sleep for the night.”

La Grange Police Chief Michael Holub said his department has received periodic calls from the La Grange Public Library regarding homeless patrons, but added the library does a fairly good job of monitoring them.

BEDS Plus spokesman Molly Salisbury said the seven BEDS shelters in La Grange, La Grange Park and Countryside have taken in homeless people from Berwyn, sent them to MacNeal Hospital and the Berwyn Police Department, but was not aware of any who have been sent by the Berwyn Public Library.

Each of the shelters operates one night a week.

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