For my teaching project I decided to skype my family and talk to them about some of the root causes of homelessness. I was originally going to a report on Redlands/ San Bernardino area. I was going to talk about the area specific problems and policy. Then I changed my mind because I thought about my audience better. My dad is a politically engaged person and I thought it would be more likely to be a meaningful discussion with him if we talked about government root causes of homelessness. So I took information we got in our readings, discussions, and during class and made a verbal presentation ment to get him engaged. My mom is an occupational therapist and has worked with a variety of jobs, the majority having clients with different mental and physical disabilities. Many of her jobs have been at schools with kids who come from low-income families. I also made sure to talk about mental illness and addiction as susceptibility factors in homelessness because I knew that would catch her attention and she would have more things to say. As I suspected my dad would always flip the argument on me- for example when I was talking about Clinton’s Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 and how it reached less people, he talked about how that was intentional, the program existed to motivate people to get back into jobs because you were only able to get assistance if you were employed or taking steps in your education to reach that.He talked about how if you were not able to find a job the government would give you one. I thought there was definitely some merit to his point. But I responded by explaining that homelessness need more help than that to actually fix the problem. There are other factors that could prevent someone from participating in this program like mental illness, transportation, family circumstances, location, and following a bunch of rules and regulations is not always the best route to go.

If I could do this project again I would change some of the details in the way that I presented my information. I think that I was very used to our classroom setting where we have the background knowledge to automatically be sympathetic to situations. I think that I started the discussion with some very strong opinions and it was contant heavy. If I started with some background knowledge first I think it may have gone slightly smoother. Overall I enjoyed our conversation. I think it’s important to have these discussions with family even when it gets difficult. The disagreements are valuable because we will never make progress just preaching to the choir. I learned that I need to look at my arguments closer and take my opinions out a little and incorporate a more whole explanation of what I’m trying to say. My dad had many points that he was able to counter mine with because I failed to look at the whole picture. For example, Clinton’s plan, how globalization in many ways is a good thing, and the flaws of unions. While simple, I believe the discussion was successful in making people who don’t normally have to think about homelessness pause and get a new perspective, which was my goal.