Many unhoused people in Schenectady go to the Schenectady County Public Library's Karen B. Johnson Main Library downtown for shelter from the elements and resources ranging from bathrooms to internet access. But in recent weeks, the number of unhoused people at the library has led to a debate over the issue amid a Schenectady City Council race between incumbent Democrat Justin Chaires and challengers Conservative Rachel Ward and Republican Sarojanie Ibrahim. For more, WAMC's Maryam Ahmad spoke on Midday Magazine with Capital Region Bureau Chief Grant Ashley.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's Note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Ahmad: So to start off, what is the situation with homelessness in Schenectady, and how does the library tie into this?
Ashley: So, like lots of places in the U.S. right now, Schenectady has a lot of unhoused people, and there's a lot of complex factors behind that, right? Like a lack of affordable housing, addiction, lots of other things. So homeless people have gone to the library for a while now. I've seen it before while covering an event at the library this summer, and I spoke to Michael Saccocio. He's the executive director of the City Mission of Schenectady, and he says the library has a lot of plus sides if you're a homeless person, right? It has an awning around the outside to protect you from the elements. It's relatively safe. It's visible from main roads, and it's right next to the police station, and, you know, it's a comfortable place that's open to the public.
Saccocio: The library, as many libraries are, has often been a place of refuge for people on the streets, right? I mean, obviously, rules have to be followed, but you know, that's one thing libraries offer is a place for people to come in and sit for a while and read the paper or just sit and be still.
Ahmad: And how did the situation get into the spotlight?
Ashley: So this really started to ramp up around mid to late September. There was a weekend cleaning at the library, and the details are a little bit murky here, so I'll just kind of get into what we know. The activist group All Of Us got a call from an unhoused person who said the police told them they couldn't sleep outside the library, and if they wouldn't leave, they would go to jail. Jamaica Miles is the executive director of All Of Us. She says a police officer or sheriff told her the same thing outside of the library, and you know, then she said they reached out to county leaders who said nobody was supposed to be arrested, and then she ended up leading a protest outside the library that Friday, where she accused some in government of trying to push homeless people out of the city.
Miles: When they were in the bushes off Albany Street, you couldn't see them, and now you're mad because you can see them. Now you're complaining. Oh well, people can't go to the library because they see homeless people. I'm here all the time. I've never seen a homeless person except somebody going to the f------ library.
Ashley: That same day, Schenectady County Legislature Chair Gary Hughes said in a statement that the county was planning that deep cleaning of the library outside of business hours, and they'd asked the unhoused people, you know, who were sleeping outside of the library to, you know, go somewhere else for the weekend. He said they weren't planning to make any arrests and hadn't made any as of Friday evening. I asked a county spokesperson if they had made any arrests, and she didn't mention anything in her statement, but she reiterated to me that arrests were never part of the plan, and that there might have been some "miscommunication or misunderstanding on both sides" around this issue. And she also said that since Sept. 18, when all this happened, the county had managed to get five people in temporary shelters and six people got into permanent housing of the unhoused people who were congregating outside the library.
Ahmad: And how has this become an election issue?
Ashley: So I would say everybody agrees that, in an ideal world, nobody should be sleeping outside of the library, right? People just disagree on what to do about it. So, you know, for a little backstory here, the Schenectady City Council had an open seat, and that's now up for re-election this year. Even though the rest of the council isn't, the whole city will vote on that seat. Rachel Ward lost the Democratic primary, but she's now running on the Conservative Party line. And very early on, the same day they asked people to, you know, not camp out outside of the library, Ward posted on Facebook that she was glad this was happening, you know. She said people told her they no longer felt safe going to the library. You know, she said she's heard complaints of people using drugs and alcohol, of harassing people, public urination, littering, adults hanging out in the children's section of the library, and, you know, she said at least part of the problem was people declining services, and she said we need solutions for that case. The quote that kind of stood out to me from one of her Facebook posts was, "Compassion for people in crisis and maintaining safe public spaces are not mutually exclusive responsibilities."
Ahmad: And she had some numbers about this, correct?
Ashley: Right. So, she posted that there were 105 calls for service in 2024, and then there were 245 this year so far. She also said there were 27 calls for assault in 2026. I don't know what the 2024 or 2025 numbers were, so I can't see how that compares. I reached out to the Schenectady police, and, you know, Police Chief Brian Whipple told me in a statement that the data "does not necessarily paint a complete picture of activity at the library." He pointed out, you know, there's some duplicate calls in there. There's, you know, some people might go to the library for help after something bad happens because they see it as a safe place. And he also said that calls for service could include proactive officer activity, community engagement, a routine stop, right? That's all sorts of things. It's not just crime, although there's definitely crime in there. So I would say that doesn't necessarily prove Ward wrong, but it's also, you know, just important to keep in mind as we look at this issue. And you know, I'd love to hear from Ward. I've reached out to her and haven't heard back. And Ward has also pointed her finger at her Democratic opponent [Justin Chaires], who's also a member of the [Schenectady County Public] Library Board of Trustees.
Ahmad: And on that note, let's talk about Ward's opponents in the Schenectady City Council race. She has two, correct? What are they saying about these issues?
Ashley: That's right. So Justin Chaires is the Democratic candidate. He narrowly won that primary against Ward, who was the party-endorsed candidate, and he's on the council currently. He was appointed to fill a vacancy last winter. There was a whole lawsuit over that. It's a whole thing. Go Google it if you want. Chaires told me that, you know, he says people are allowed to feel unsafe, but he, you know, also mentioned that he and his son go to the downtown library and they haven't had any problems. He says arresting unhoused people isn't the answer here, and he's hopeful about programs in Schenectady that are, you know, currently helping homeless people.
Chaires: This is definitely a long-term process. There's no one person that's going to solve it. There's no one agency. This is something that we're facing across the country. Schenectady is not uniquely different than anywhere else when it comes to trying to help residents right now, but we do have to do everything we can to make sure we get people in secure housing and keep treating everyone with dignity that's out there right now.
Ashley: And then there's a Republican candidate in this race as well, Sarojanie Ibrahim. She told me that she wanted to kind of go to the library, find all the people with mental health issues, put them in an institution, and then get the other people who are there into some sort of job program.
Ibrahim: The homeless they need to get sheltered, proper sheltering. They need to get meals because that is getting them more sick, more frustrated, agitated. They become violent. You know, people can walk in there. You know, you don't let the police grab these people and put them in the police station. That's wasted tax money. Put them in mental institution and treat them.
Ashley: And you know, I want to emphasize that this became political very early on, right? Ward posted the afternoon all this went down, and then Miles, that activist leader, mentioned Chaires and City Council President Carl Williams as people she thought were doing a good job on the homelessness issue, and she criticized Ward by name.
Ahmad: To turn back to the issue itself, what is being done about homelessness in Schenectady?
Ashley: So a lot of the people I spoke to about this were, you know, quick to mention this [Schenectady] HUB program. So it's a multi-agency group. It's got the county office of community services, the Schenectady City Police Department, a bunch of community organizations, and it's meant to connect people who are, you know, experiencing homelessness to healthcare, substance abuse services, affordable housing, all of that stuff. Hughes, who's again the head of the county legislature, says it's made contact with more than 200 people and gotten about 75% of them in touch with service programs. And Saccocio told me it's done a good job of including formerly homeless people and of, you know, cutting through red tape to get people connected to services as soon as possible.
Saccocio: If you say, "See me on Monday," that can be the equivalent of a decade. It's too long. So, they can actually say to that person, "I want treatment." They can make it happen faster, and they're dedicated to trying to ... constantly working outside the box within the system to fast-track [a] solution.
Ashley: And I went to the library this week to try to talk to some of the unhoused people who go there. They're definitely, you know, back since this deep cleaning. I saw some suitcases and a shopping cart by the bike rack, and there was nobody outside. But I talked to a lot of people inside off mic, and, you know, whether the county will change course in the coming months is an open question, right? Like, you know, people change their minds; they react to pressure. I'm also in the process of setting up something with somebody experiencing homelessness who goes to the library, and I'm hoping to bring everybody that conversation soon.
