Why putting social workers in public libraries could help Montrealers in crisis

Since Roxann Fournier-Hoyt started her career as a librarian two years ago, she has played the role of literary matchmaker, connecting readers with the right novel. But she has also been helping visitors in other ways. 

One morning, a few weeks ago, a man came in asking for help finding an apartment. On another day, a woman inquired about a list of local shelters. Other times, it's a more mundane request like help with filing tax returns.

"I want to help, but all I have are books," said Fournier-Hoyt, who works at the Atwater Library and Computer Centre, a registered charity run mostly by volunteers.

Straddled between the Resilience Montreal homeless shelter and the YMCA Residence — which provides asylum seekers and refugees with short-term housing — the Atwater Library regularly has people coming through its doors looking for help. 

Librarians are shouldering more responsibilities to fill the gaps of eroding social services, says Fournier-Hoyt. 

"Libraries are one of the last places that you can get help for free," she said.

"Even though it's not really within our mission to do that, we're all of the personality type that, 'Goddammit, I'm going to help you anyway,'" she said. 

To respond to the changing needs of their communities, a growing number of public libraries across Canada have started hiring social workers. Now, some librarians in Montreal want their city to follow suit.

It would not be a first for Quebec.

Facing what it calls an "unprecedented housing crisis" and "mental distress from COVID-19," the City of Drummondville, about 100 kilometres northeast of Montreal, hired a social worker in 2021 to work in ther library.

Between October 2021 and June 2022 alone, they made over 400 interventions focusing on psychosocial support in emergency situations, according to the city.

The public library is a microcosm of society, says Eve Lagacé, general director of Quebec's association of public libraries. In recent years, she has heard a growing number of reports about incidents across the province.

The complaints range from drug use to verbal abuse and sometime physical violence directed at librarians, she says. 

She says she's had to intervene in a variety of situations: a mother with postpartum depression posing a danger to her baby, a mourner in a mental health crisis.