The ejection of a homeless man from a library at Cambridge University’s largest college has highlighted the city’s shortage of shelter space, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported.
The mysterious library user, described as having a collection of supermarket bags and a habit of napping, had been the subject of speculation at St John’s College over several weeks, students told the newspaper. Staff asked the man to leave the facility after he failed to show that he was entitled to use the library or the college’s other ancient premises.
Access to St John’s “working library”, which is separate from the 17th-century Old Library where rare books are kept, is available 24 hours on a card access system which means that students are often going in and out. The man is thought to have slipped in during busy periods, including at least one visit late at night. The city has had serious problems in providing emergency overnight beds. A report late last year suggested that attacks on homeless people had also increased by five times in the previous 12 months.
The college, whose alumni include six prime ministers and three Catholic saints, said: “The presence of a male in the library was reported to the porters who asked him to leave when he was unable to identify himself as a student of the college. He has not been seen in St John’s subsequently.”
Historically, St John’s has reason to be sympathetic: a former master, Dr James Wood, was so poor as an undergraduate that he slept in straw in his unheated room, couldn’t use candles as a result and so studied on the staircase outside.
