The participants of this project had various opinions on homeless people prior to watching the film. When we asked them to write everything that came to mind when they thought of the word homeless they wrote down things like Detroit, MI, veterans, dependent, minorities, lonely, ill-mannered, begging, unemployed, financially irresponsible, dirty, STDs, and misrepresented. While most of these terms carry a negative connotation, not all the participants believed homeless people are drug addicts, alcoholics, and complete bums. They expressed some knowledge about the homelessness crisis, saying the closing of mental hospitals in the 1980s was very detrimental to the lives of the mentally ill. In addition some believed not all homeless people are to blame for their situation, that there are other factors at work; they acknowledged the fact that the system is the real problem. Overall the participants’ views on homeless people ranged from fairly positive to quite negative; however, we then proceeded to watch The Pursuit of Happyness and afterward asked them if the movie had changed some of their opinions on homeless people. In our post-film discussion we heard more terms and phrases like “hardworking,” “loving,” and “trying to do the best with what they’ve got,” uncommon associations with the homeless. One participant then said lack of public awareness is a significant reason why there is such a stigma on homeless people, and that it is important for the rest of society to recognize where these people come from, what their situation is, and what their lives are like. In response to this we had them write down all the solutions to homelessness they could think of. This activity yield vastly fewer ideas than the first one, but in addition to increased public awareness they believed reducing the number of incarcerations of drug users and homeless people, giving homeless a place to live, rehabilitation centers, and food banks are all ways to improve the lives of the homeless. At this point we introduced the participants to some concepts we have been learning about in class such as housing first, as well as the fact that shelters and service agencies are not nearly as impactful as they need to be or could be because of the way society is structured. They were quite surprised to hear how people wait weeks, months, even years to get into shelters because of waiting lists and all kinds of complications and hoops to jump through. None of them were fans of the leaf blower effect and agreed it is the laziest way to go about dealing with the homeless population. Housing first was a more popular topic. They all believed housing first was the most obvious change that needs to be made and that its is probably going to have a significant impact on getting homeless people off the streets and on a better path.