This past week, we focused a lot on the history and root causes of homelessness. Tuesday, we did “jigsaw” reading where we each read and reported a specific chapter. My chapter talked about a specific shelter that used to be able to house everyone, but the waitlist continued to grow larger and larger. Because of the growing waitlist, they had to put policies in place that specified how staff members chose/admitted individuals to be housed in the shelter. Should it be needs based or based on chronological order (who called first gets housed first)? I think this is a very important question because nearly every shelter struggles in deciding who gets housed. I know that at the organization I’m interning with this semester struggles with this. What they end up doing, is a little bit of both. When a bed becomes available, they start calling individuals on the waitlist, unless there is someone who called that day who is in dire need for housing. The book talked a lot about fairness and how shelter staff members are forced to “play god” in determining who gets housed or not. I think it would interesting to research different shelter organizations and surveying what method they use for admitting individuals into their shelter.