Sunday, May 20, 2012

Updating us on your current project

Before class on Monday, I'd like you take a few minutes and give the rest of us an update on your current project. What topic or issue have you chosen to write about? Who are you directing your writing to? What's your purpose in writing to them? How is your argument, claim, or main point evolving? What resources have you found helpful thus far, and what resources would you like to find and use that you haven't yet? (Please feel free to contact each other, too, if you find you're working on similar issues, and share resources!)

12 comments:

  1. I decided to write a children’s book for our current project. The purpose of my book will be to get children to think about homelessness in way that they may not have before. More specifically, I am trying to introduce the idea that anyone can become homeless and that a lot of the images surrounding homelessness are serotypes. The resources that I have used so far include mostly other children’s books about homelessness, as well as some articles discussing how homelessness can be explained to children. As I continue, I would like to find some research on how elementary school students perceive homelessness and if it is interpreted as a good, bad, or neutral thing.

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  3. I am using my first essay on the benefits and drawbacks of public housing and the effects of relocation as a starting point for my second essay. I am analyzing the HOPE VI policy. I will incorporate personal experience from the soon-to-be-renovated South Lincoln housing project where I have tutored all year. I think my essay is meant to educate the public on the issue, perhaps in Denver, perhaps on a national scale. I'm not sure that I can argue for or against the policy in general because I see so many aspects of the issue. I plan on offering some considerations for upcoming proposed HOPE VI projects. I may even bring in some ideas for a new type of policy about public housing. So far I've read academic studies, but I also want to read in more detail the renovation plan for South Lincoln, find relevant articles in the newspaper, and look for any new proposed legislation/policies.

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  4. For this piece, I am going in a completely different direction from my first essay. Currently, I am examining stereotypes of and perceptions towards homeless people. I am using a combination of academic research and data I have gathered from asking people one simple interview question: "What do you think of the homeless? Phrased another way, what are your perceptions of homeless individuals?" By talking to people, I have found that they either hold deeply entrenched stereotypes regarding the homeless population OR immediately begin talking about systemic, structural, and/or societal inequalities. Going along with the idea of negative stereotypes and antagonistic attitudes towards homeless individuals, I am following Kozol's lead and also examining the Reagan administration's effects on the poor and homeless population, both socially and fiscally.

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  5. For this paper I am looking at mental illness and homelessness as well as how society uses this stereotype to give justification to being homeless. I have not gotten too far on my researching but what I have found so far has been interesting. The most interesting article that I have read has dated homelessness back to the 1950's and talked about the progression of the poor/poverty level Americans no longer having roofs over their heads. I also have learned about the percentage of the homeless that are believed to be mentally ill and living on the streets. The next step I would like to take in my research is to find out what kind of programs are in place to help the mentally ill considering they are most likely not able to hold down a job or participate fully in society. I would also like to find out what other programs or ideas are out there that could be implemented in the future to help those that are unable to help themselves. What I am specifically looking for is programs where the mentally ill can receive medicine, or therapy or even a permanent group living home where they are taken care of, or at least supervised so that their conditions dont worsen and they arent living on the streets.

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  6. okay so this is really long but I just wanted to get all my thoughts out for my children's book based on research from my first lit review and also from my interview with Sandy........I have the idea of making a children’s book entitled “Henry the Homeless Hippo”. Henry will have lived a good life with a family but one die his dad gets in a accident when bulldozer was destroying their home and his mom dies in the accident. This leaves Henry with very little money. One day the government kicked Henry out of his home after his dad from being very sick and hurt from the accident. Henry didn’t have any place to go. He found a shelter to go to and stay where there were some very nice people that could help him find a job and give him all the tools he needed to be successful and live a happy life. Henry wasn’t too sad about being homeless. He realized that he’d gone through a lot in his life and this was just another phase for him. He believed that thus far in his life Henry had been fortunate when we grew up he went to school, had 2 loving parents and traveled the country. He was grateful to the people that let him stay at the shelter at night and gave him room. He was also grateful to the people who let him play on sports teams. Being able to play sports gave Henry and outlet. Sports allowed Henry to feel included and be a part of a team since he was constantly being moved around from school to school. He felt included instead of the usual excluded feeling he usually got when people looked at him. It helped him “connect and interact with one another in a positive manner.” These sports allowed Henry to make more friends. Henry the Hippo was homeless, but eventually gained all the resources he needed in order to find another home and continue another chapter in his life.

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  7. My paper is going to focus on the benefits and reasons for implementing nationwide “housing first” programs. I started out planning to focus this essay only on the efficiency and economic benefits of the program. However, through my research, I began to shift focuses to include the nationwide trend of criminalizing the homeless. This trend, which those in Denver are now very familiar with, is actually occurring in many cities and states throughout the United States. Many cities have cited it as a way to decrease homelessness, though it obviously does nothing of the sort. So my paper will look at the new trend of criminalizing homelessness, the ineffectiveness and harm of these decisions, and why “housing first” should be the method employed by all states to en d homelessness.
    So far, I have found more than enough information on “housing first” and other very useful documents and papers. However, I have had trouble finding personal stories and accounts to really assist the paper, which is what I will be looking extensively for today.

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  8. I my last paper, I am going to be writing about stereotypes of the homeless. I am going to focus on both positive and negative stereotypes, comparing and contrasting them and coming to the conclusion that homeless people are human and therefore can not be stereotyped either positively or negatively. I am going to be directing my writing towards the uneducated public, or those that have accepted these stereotypes as the truth. Through the use of several different articles about homeless people, both those that are hardworking and simply unlucky and those that have made life choices that caused them to become homeless, I hope to quickly educate people on the wide spectrum of problems and causes of homelessness in the homeless community.

    In my research, I have found major newspapers to be extremely helpful because they have several articles about individual stories of homelessness. I will also use the interviews that we did at the Gathering Place for examples of hardworking women and women that are mooching off of the resources offered there. Some of these women also made statements about stereotyping and gave examples of times when they have felt stereotyped.

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  9. As I approach this final paper I have made the decision to write on the same topic as my first paper, LGB homeless youth. I chose this topic because the research that I collected for my first paper was jaw dropping, in every example I looked at (prevalence, survival sex, drug use, abuse, and psychological disorders) LGB were severely over-represented. At first I wasn't going to write about this because it seems like recent pushes into the area of LGB youth are starting to help, but then I found several articles from earlier this month highlighting New York's proposal to pull almost $7 million dollars from shelter/housing that directly benefits LGB youth. With that loss of funding even more LGB youth will be forced out on the streets at night and as my data showed, will be more likely to end up in terrible situations. Thus the writing of my essay will serve to persuade the reader that the issue of LGB homeless youth is a significant problem that warrants discussion and that actions such as New York's should be condemned as this group needs more funding instead of less.

    Thanks to my earlier research I feel that I am adequately prepared with facts and statistics. Over the weekend and as I start writing for Wednesday I intend to find more human stories like that of New York and search around to see if I can find some quotes from homeless LGB youth. I'm sure they're out there, even if I have to take them from other news reports.

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  10. For this paper I am planning on writing about mental illness and how it affects homelessness. Coming from a family where mental illness is very prevalent I cannot imagine what it would be like to struggle with mental illness and not have a strong support system. I have not really figured out who I am writing to, but I think the purpose of my writing would be to evoke empathy. The “crazy old homeless man” is a commonly misunderstood stereotype. At the moment I am using a lot of my research from literary review because I am planning on looking at mental illnesses through different ages. I know a lot of homeless youth are diagnosed with mental illness often times from trauma they face as abuse and my previous research definitely exemplifies that. I have not had a lot of time to look through new resources but some things that I want to take into account is how are young children with mental illness handled on the street, and also how many of the chronic homeless have a mental illness.

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  11. I am going to use my first paper as a basis for a less-scholarly approach to the issue of mental health and homelessness. Within this, I want to really focus on stereotypes about the homeless and how this becomes extra damaging when someone is dealing with mental illness. I'd like to address some more broad philosophical questions, like why do we have such a stigma against mental illness in this country? So far I have just been reviewing the resources I used in my first paper, but I would like to find some news paper or magazine articles that deal with the issue. I am also going to skim through our transcripts to see if there is anything about mental illness that could provide a personal narrative for my paper. The interviews I conducted personally didn't really touch on the subject, but I would love to incorporate some personal stories form the Gathering Place. My overall argument will be centered on the dual stigma associated with homelessness and mental illness, and the challenges mentally ill homeless individuals face compared to the housed population.

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  12. On my first paper I talked about homelessness and African American women and i focussed on the many different pathways that lead African Americans into homelessness however, I also talked a lot about the effects of homelessness on African American women. This time around I would like to really go in depth and discuss the many pathways into homelessness rather than focussing on the effects. I want to follow Kozols methods where he has either facts and statistics in the beginning then a personal narrative at the end or vice versa. I think I have a really compelling personal narrative about homelessness that will be really powerful and a great opener. I'm stuck at the so what part. telling the story, and listing the facts is not difficult but the "where do we go from here" part is kind of what I'm stuck at.

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