Four years ago, Gloucester police pioneered a novel approach to people addicted to opioids. Now some former police officers are using their training to make sure the local library is a place that is both welcoming and safe.
Gloucester’s historic Sawyer Free Library is more than a century old, but there is evidence of a 21st-century problem, according to John Brennan, president of the library’s board of trustees.
“We had one publicized incident in October [2018] where somebody used drugs outside of the children’s room,” Brennan told WGBH News. Brennan added that incident, and others like it, drove patrons away.
Deborah Kelsey, the library's director, told WGBH News that worries about patrons' safety made it difficult for librarians to do their work.
"The most important thing for people at the library is to feel safe and to feel welcome," Kelsey said. ”And those two things go hand in hand, and we were having a hard time creating an environment that felt that way.”
In response, a six-man security team made up of former Gloucester police officers started on the job in February. They are retired from a police department that introduced the Angel Program, formally known as the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative, which became a national model for referring people addicted to drugs to treatment instead of arresting them.
Members of the security team are unarmed and work part-time to keep things calm. Larry Ingersol, who was on the police force for 30 years, said his team knows the community and can help diffuse potential problems. Officers will handle as much as they can on their own before calling police, and will serve as a resource and give out information for services and housing if needed.
"We’re also here to keep an eye on the people who do spend the day here: the homeless and people with substance abuse,” Ingersol said. “The main thing that we're here for is now the library staff can go back to being a library staff.”
The team will cost about $140,000 dollars a year. Library trustees will keep the team on the job for as long as needed. The plan is to have at least one security officer on duty during the week at all times and two on Saturdays. Every year, about 186,000 people come through the doors of the library.
Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken told WGBH News the idea is to create a comfortable atmosphere for everybody.
“Gloucester is a community who engages in people’s rights, who engages in people’s beliefs,” Romeo Theken said, “and also makes you feel that you belong to this community, whether you are here for an hour or whether you are here for the rest of your life.”
Library Director Deborah Kelsey said the extra eyes would help prevent what she once feared.
“The worst would be if someone died here,” Kelsey said. “We want to make sure people have an opportunity to get up tomorrow and start to live a different life.”
