School: Riverview Junior High

Course: The Reality of Homelessness

Synopsis: Homelessness is very real, and it is local. All too often, homeless individuals are

negatively stereotyped and have no voice in politics. This factual and concrete course explores

the personal and economic realities of homelessness and the difficulties in solving it and moves

students to community action. This course is intended for students in the 9th grade. (If you are in

the 7th or 8th grade, please consult your academic counselor before registering for this class.)

Goals

1. Students will recognize that socioeconomic status is not purely in the hands of the

individual and be motivated to become advocates for homeless individuals politically and

personally.

2. Students will learn to speak for themselves and those without a voice to enact real change.

3. All individuals are deserving of love and respect. We are all equal.

4. Homes are not a fact of life. They are a commodity.

Annotated Bibliography

Banerjee, A. V., Duflo, E. (2011). Poor economics: A radical rethinking of the way to fight

global poverty. New York, NY: PublicAffairs.

In this resource for teachers only, Banerjee and Duflo explain how the stress of living

with so little leads to poor decision-making that perpetuates poverty. Poor Economics will

educate teachers and, through teacher-led discussions, their students the economics of poverty
and of systemic roadblocks to progress. As students recognize how the poor are set up to fail,

they will begin to see their own responsibility in helping them.

Desmond, M. (2017). Evicted: Poverty and profit in the American city. New York, NY: Penguin

Random House LLC.

This is written with the assumption of the “8th-grade reading level,” so we plan to have

students read excerpts from this resource and encourage them to do so with their parents. (There

is an audiobook version available as well.) Desmond provides insight into the fight to avoid

homelessness in Milwaukee while, according to the summary, “providing fresh ideas for

solving” poverty. Through real stories, students will learn how the lowest socioeconomic class is

exploited and the impact it has on their psyche (see Banerjee & Duflo, 2011). The emotional

responses students will have should help them become engaged in class material.

Kahn, O. (2018). Struggling in America. Retrieved from http://www.strugglinginamerica.

com/index.html

This small compilation of portraits and brief interviews with homeless people living on

the West Coast will provide us the material for an exercise in one class period, perhaps the first

or second class of the course. The exercise will consist in looking at and discussing one out of

the twelve portraits with a group of three, then reading and discussing the brief interview

associated with the picture, then discussing the exercise as a class.

Main, T. J. (2017). Homelessness in New York City: Policymaking from Koch to de Blasio. New

York, NY: NYU Press.

Main (2017) follows over 30 years of policymaking and court rulings in yet another large

city, New York City, responding to its homeless population. It shows the struggle and difficulties

in addressing homelessness, but it does show positive change is possible. This resource helps
teachers understand policymaking on the city level for any lectures on the topic and presents a

building block for an exemplar presentation for the final project.

O’Connor, B. (2007). How to steal a dog: A novel. New York, NY: Square Fish.

We will assign this award-winning elementary-level novel as home reading after the first

class and will discuss it periodically class-wide or in small groups. This novel follows a strong,

young homeless girl who, as The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books stated, “will give a

more privileged audience much to ponder.” Students will find the reading much easier than what

they might have in English class, so they should be much more engaged and able to empathize

with the character they follow; on top of that, they will be excited for what will come next.

Rossi, P. H. (1989). Down and out in America: The origins of homelessness. Chicago, IL:

University of Chicago Press.

This will be the class textbook from which we will reference multiple times, but there

will not be any assigned homework reading from it with the exception of the opening chapter.

The first chapter “On the Bottom and Out on the Fringe” provides composite homeless

individuals that will help students see homeless individuals as people deserving of love and

respect; this equips students to be prepared to ask thoughtful and engaging questions in their

interviews. The book will introduce economic and historical perspectives and provide

demographics, and the concluding chapter, titled “Why We Have Homelessness and What to Do

about Them,” will give ideas to students for their final project.

Tingey, T. (2009). Murray City housing market study. Retrieved from

https://www.murray.utah.gov/DocumentCenter/View/885/Housing-Study

This study includes valuable local information on homelessness and low-income

housing. We will use selections from it. There is a large amount of data in the study, so we will
teach students how to read graphs and interpret the simpler statistics. Also included, however, is

some very accessible information. Because the study is from 2009, we will need to contextualize

it in relation to the present day, perhaps by using newspaper stories.

Utah Department of Workforce Services. (2017). Comprehensive report on homelessness.

Retrieved from https://jobs.utah.gov/housing/scso/documents/homelessness2017.pdf

This annual report will provide students essential information on the state of

homelessness in Utah. The text includes hard data, but is accessible enough for students to

read. It will provide insight into political and economic realities of homelessness and present

attempts that the State is making toward alleviating homelessness. One specific valuable lesson

this text will teach is that there are diverse types of homelessness, and what they are.

Waldron, J. (2006). Homelessness and the issue of freedom. In C. M. Koggel (Ed.), Moral issues

in global perspective (2nd ed.) (Vol. 2) (pp. 327-340). Toronto, ON: Broadview Press.

This resource will help us teach how the concept of private property in Western

civilization restricts homeless individuals and how much of legislation is spent trying to hide

homelessness instead of trying to alleviate it, especially regarding use of public property. While

much too advanced for junior high students, this deep dive will work in tandem with other texts

to provide backgrounds to teachers as they seek to open the eyes of students as to how much of

their rights are dependent on their owning property.

Weiser, B. (2018, March 3). A ‘bright light’ dimmed in the shadows of homelessness. The New

York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/ nyregion/nyc-

homeless-nakesha-mental-illness.html

This long newspaper article about homeless woman Williams, who died in 2016, will

provide a week or more of discussion material. It includes a video interview with Nakesha
during her time of homelessness. Also associated with this long article are three follow-up

articles in the New York Times, which respond to letters and comments from New York Times

readers. These resources will help students see homelessness from the wide variety of

perspectives readers take and broaden their view of homelessness to include New York City.

Projects/Major Assignments

Project #1: Interview Reflection (3-5 pages). After volunteering at the Murray Neighborhood

Center, pairs of students will be provided the opportunity to interview homeless individuals or

families we have selected and notified beforehand. We plan for this to change perspectives, and

we want students to witness the process of their own learning. So, they will provide the first half

of their reflection before the interview. Afterwards, they will react to their earlier reflection in

detail and consider the homeless perspective on homelessness as well as what society could or

could not have done to prevent their interviewee from becoming homeless.

I. Initial Reflection and Preparation

a. Reflect on two readings from class and your personal experience with homeless

individuals. (1-2 pages)

b. Prepare at least 5 questions based on biography provided by us (if available) or

readings and personal opinion.

II. Volunteer at Murray Neighborhood Center and Interview

III. Final Reflection (2-3 pages in length)

a. How did the interview change your perspective on what you wrote? What would

you have written about if you knew then what you know now?
 b. What changes to society could be made to prevent homelessness for this

individual?

Project #2: Poem Anthology. We hope to engage students’ voices and put together a

community event at the Murray Library. Students will only need to present two of their three

poems, but each poem will focus on a distinct cause or aspect of homelessness. Each poem and

song will act much like their reflection in that there will be a paradigm shift within the poem or

song. In the case of the sonnet and the prose poem, this paradigm shift will be a volta, which we

will practice in class before the project is assigned. In the case of the song, the paradigm shift

will be the transition from the verses to the chorus or vice-versa. These paradigm shifts will

require critical thinking because they will require students to take on multiple perspectives and

relate them to each other. We will have students critique the poems as a workshop in an

environment of positivity and sensitivity.

I. Sonnet

a. Fourteen lines in Iambic pentameter

b. Traditional rhyme scheme

II. Prose

a. 150-200 words in length (no longer than 200)

III. Song Lyrics

a. Two verses

b. Chorus

IV. Presentation
Project #3: Propose Legislative Change. We will challenge students to become active citizens in

their community by involving themselves in the legislative process on any level—county, city,

state, etc. Students will not be required to follow through, but this project will entail they have

everything “ready to go.” Students will take field trips to see Emma Houston at the Salt Lake

County Mayor’s Office of Diversity & Inclusion and learn how they advise policy, and they will

sit in on city council meetings. As they will learn, they have limited time to present their

message, so they will not have to provide lengthy research and arguments in their proposal;

however, they will need to be persuasive and provide viable solutions. To accomplish this, we

will have them provide multiple drafts before finalizing them. Once finished, they will present

their proposal to the class and explain how they will/can notify their identified policymaker(s). If

students desire, teachers will do all they can to assist in making it a reality.

I. Identify political jurisdiction you would like to cover.

II. Research and identify a structurally discriminating policy.

III. Draft an argument why it is structurally discriminating and propose alternative that

does not discriminate (1-page maximum)

IV. Class Presentation (5 minutes)

Community Resources:

Murray Neighborhood Center, 6110 S 404 W Murray UT 84107, 801-281-4937

Kim Fong, Director, Murray Library, 801-264-2585

Emma E. Houston, Director, Salt Lake County Mayor’s Office of Diversity & Inclusion, 385-

468-7014

Rebecca Heal, Donations and Events, Utah Youth Village, 5800 S Highland Dr Salt Lake City

UT 84121, 801-272-9980