The Librarian's Guide to Homelessness

I completed Ryan's complete training for librarians before I read this book, so a lot of the stories and tips were familiar to me.

Ryan is really great at putting into words the right way to serve and help others. His stories are very moving and easy to learn from. This book gets four stars because at times the way that he explains things makes me a little uncomfortable and I worry about his tendency to generalize and stereotype. Overall, this is a great book for anyone who serves the public in a third space—Starbucks employees, you may want to read this too

An important book for public library employees, but more generally, Dowd's message about choosing an empathy-driven approach (as opposed to punishment-driven) can benefit anyone in whose work involves serving others.Dowd is undoubtedly qualified to offer insight. He has worked with people experiencing homelessness for decades. This book is a wealth of information, without being dense. There are lots of cross-references, showing how techniques relate and overlap. Dowd describes homelessness (and those experiencing it) with nuance. He prepares you for what to do when a situation turns dangerous, but emphasizes that fear is often unfounded and due to stigma. It's not too idealistic, though. It's more like he's saying, “When you do this, you're making it worse. Do this instead.” The result is a lot of small ways to make any patron feel respected, even as you're telling them they need to stop and/or leave.Time for qualms. The constant references to pop culture and public figures are both grating and confusing. There are some points I wish he spent more time covering, and others that grew really redundant. His takes on gender and sex work were bad. I don't know how else to put that. He was strangely dismissive for a book so focused on empathy (it is literally in the title). In all, the meat of it is compelling, much more so than my recent read of [b:Crucial Conversations 15014 Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High Kerry Patterson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1497193248l/15014.SX50.jpg 2051713].

I learned a lot from this book! More than I was expecting!

I appreciate Dowd's attitude. He does not look at the problem of “homelessness,” but rather he looks at individual human persons whom he loves. Without using the word, he encourages the reader to love, and that is a good thing. I am grateful that this book was written by a man whose personal belief system allows him and requires him to see and love humans, rather than by an administrator who just has a job to do.