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CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK years. It is an early literacy effort that really gets kids ready to read and get a formal education. We've known that for a very long time it is really important to have that dialogue with children and teach them how to do that. In the new spaces, though, we hope to do a lot more partnering. There are a lot of partnership efforts we have going on right now that I would be happy to talk about but we want to do more with our teens. One(1)of the things teens told us when we did focus groups was that there was no real teen space at the library. We are putting things in place to begin a series of adulting classes. And adulting is classified as how to not be thirty (30) years old and live in your parent's basement. We teach things like going to a job interview and other things that normal education doesn't necessarily teach. We teach things like managing finances. Libraries are also a safe space for teens. Because they look like adults, people don't consider them vulnerable but they are one (1) of the most vulnerable populations we really have. We have about forty-two (42)teen volunteers we use for all kinds of programs.They also help with a lot of the teen programs we do, too. She continued, We've talked about the idea of having gathering s ace in this library for people who are socially isolated,too. So we are talking about seniors.We take calls from seniors everyday who don't have anybody else to talk to. They are asking us questions and we answer them,but we know our regulars and we know who those people are and I suspect if they didn't call us,we would be wondering whether or not they were alright. Again, the gamut, but I would love to take any questions. There are a lot of partnerships. We partner with Notre Dame for income tax assistance. So for households under $35,000 a year, Notre Dame's business students work with vulnerable populations to file taxes. Committee Chair Ferlic opened the floor to questions from Committee and Council Members. Committeemember Oliver Davis stated,I had sent a note to some of our members regarding articles I have been receiving that talk about public libraries adding social workers and social programs regarding the homeless population. That is one(1) of the areas of interest that I would like to look at given the fact that the library is one(1) of the only places where people who are billionaires or who are homeless feel safe at the same place. What are your initial thoughts regarding that? Ms. Duta replied, I've been following those same articles. Right now, a lot of those homeless programs where there is a social worker in the library are happening at larger libraries such as Denver, Los Angles and Chicago. A lot of those are partnership efforts. We've reached out to DTSB already because they have the social worker who is on the streets and we've let them know that their population is in the library. We would be happy to welcome them in to meet with those folks. Also, with the new space, we will be able to provide the kind of meeting rooms that people require for that privacy. My staff goes through three(3)hours of training to dealing with vulnerable populations and we also maintain the list of resources on our desk. So when someone comes in asking about meal service, beds for the night, mental health information and substance abuse, we have all of that. I will also tell you that our security staff knows a lot of them by name and they engage in conversation. So we know when someone needs a little more help because they know who is in the library. I'm not saying that in a bad way but they are reaching out to that population. Those are the things we are already doing but I would be more than happy to think about that partnership further. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION j EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend.Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 2