Lost and Left Behind: The Struggle of Homelessness

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Key Skill: Compelling Introductions

This week you will learn: how to deliver introductions that jump start your speech by applying them to your building block speech method.

RECAP OF LAST WEEK

1 Elements of Introductions

Background, urgency, and relevance

Interesting Facts: The Short Supply

2

The world is in short supply of organs, which means governments have to make trade-offs about who they should help first

Critical Thinking

3

How should we assess priority in life or death situations?

SYMBOL OBJECTIVES:

Learn a special skill Activity time

Key takeaway

Tell Us:

What would your bed be like?

What colour of the walls would it be? Would there be a theme?

What fun things would you have in there? A waterslide? A dog?

lots of light shining through the windows, and it would be white and green My bed would be big and covered in velvet pillows It would have a separate section for my sewing machines, so I could design and make my clothes

Warm Up Activity: Introduce Yourself

Time 1 Min (Prep)

If you could have any bedroom in the world, what would it look like?

My dream bedroom would have..

PART 1 The Crisis of Homelessness

What Is Homelessness, and What Does It Look Like?

Learning Facts

Homelessness is a state of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing, which results in individuals or families being without a permanent place to live.

Homelessness can look like different things:

1

Street Homelessness

Living on the street, often begging for money in central areas. Everything you own, you carry with you

Shelter Homelessness

Living in a centre for people who do not have a place to live These shelters sometimes provide food as well as a bed, and often have strict rules you just follow in order to stay there, for example curfews

2

Car Homelessness

Living out of your car instead of a house/apartment. Sleeping in the back seat, usually in parking or industrial areas

Couch Surfing

Living periodically in the houses of other friends, sleeping in a guest bedroom or on their couch.

What Are the Causes of Homelessness?

Identifying Causes of problems

Most of the time, homelessness is not because the person is bad/lazy - there are lots of reasons why someone can be homeless, and most of them can be out of a person’s control

Economic

if a person loses their job, they don’t have the money to pay for rent or mortgage repayments on their house as well as food and other basic necessities. The landlord or mortgage kicks them out of their home.

2 Societal

certain groups face discrimination, which makes it harder for them to find housing. For examples, certain marginalised racial groups could have issues being accepted by a landlord, or getting a job so that they have enough money for rent

Social

some people are subjected to violence within their own homes towards them or their children - this is called domestic violence. Even though they have a house to live in, they have to escape to keep themselves or their loved ones safe.

Political

governments have the ability to set policies and regulations (rules) that affect how we live. Governments can do lots of things to change the accessibility of housing, which affects homelessness. Examples include building regulations, zoning, and rent controls

Personal

sometimes, people can have issues that affect their ability to function as part of society, such as mental health or addiction issues. These issues take over their lives, so that they can’t do things like keep a normal job and make rent payments.

Activity

Invisible Stories

You are a politician, arguing that we should spend more money on housing the homeless.

Your job is to explain how each of these people may have ended up without housing, in a way that encourages us to feel sympathetic for them.

Storytelling

Use emotional language to help us empathise with the different people we are discussing

Think about which factors are within your character’s control, and which were active choices they made. Is there a way you can find an explanation or cause for the choices they made, or what happened to them?

Person A

A B Person B

Tony washed car windshields for a living, and has done this for 20 years. Over time, it became easier for people to buy products to wash their own cars, so he couldn’t earn enough money to pay rent.

Sharan got married to Henry and had a baby. While their relationship was great at the start, he started not letting her leave the house to see her friends, or get a job to earn her own money. She left him with her baby, but did not have any savings to afford her own apartment

Person C

Seoyeon was a teacher, whose house burned down while they were on holiday Because they did not earn very much money, they did not have housing insurance or savings to afford a new place to live.

Person D

Holly was a bank manager, who lost their child in a tragic accident To help them cope, they started drinking alcohol, but became addicted They kept showing up to work drunk, so they got fired from their job and lost their house

Fact Recall

See if you can remember what we’ve learned about homelessness

1.

What is homelessness?

2.

3.

The lack of warm and dry housing

a) The lack of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing

c)

b) Not living in the same house for more than 6 months at a time

Which of these is an example of a type of homelessness?

a) Sleeping in your car at night

b) Going camping and sleeping in a tent for a month

c) Staying in an Air BnB

Which of these is not correct?

a) Homelessness can be caused when people move out of their homes to avoid domestic violence

b) Everyone has the ability to earn the same amount of money, so homelessness only happens when you make poor spending choices

c) Problems like addiction can make it hard to maintain full-time employment, leading to homelessness

Fact Recall

See if you can remember what we’ve learned about homelessness

1.

What is homelessness?

2.

3.

The lack of warm and dry housing

a) The lack of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing

c)

b) Not living in the same house for more than 6 months at a time

Which of these is an example of a type of homelessness?

a) Sleeping in your car at night

b) Going camping and sleeping in a tent for a month

c) Staying in an Air BnB

Which of these is not correct?

a) Homelessness can be caused when people move out of their homes to avoid domestic violence

b) Everyone has the ability to earn the same amount of money, so homelessness only happens when you make poor spending choices

c) Problems like addiction can make it hard to maintain full-time employment, leading to homelessness

PART 2 The Right to Housing

Is the Right to Housing a Valid Human Right?

Philosophical Thinking

Human rights are like special rules that are made to protect all people, like freedom of speech, the right to life or the right to education. Some argue that all people have a right to safe housing

Human rights are based on the idea that every person is valuable and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, no matter who they are or where they come from. These rights help protect people's well-being, safety, and freedom, and they make sure that everyone has a fair chance to live a good life.

Examples:

The right to education

The right to bodily autonomy

The right to freedom of expression

The right to equality

If this is true, then it makes sense that everyone should be given a place to live. So, why are people still homeless in the real world?

For the right to housing

Dignity and respect:

everyone deserves the dignity and safety of having a place to live society isn’t fair, so we should actively provide housing to compensate for the injustices that cause homelessness

Social justice:

Housing lot of mo vote for governm their mo vote for funding, homeles

everyone costs a oney, and people how the ment should spend ney. If they don’t more housing then sness still occurs.

Against the right to housing

Cost and affordability:

houses are really expensive to build, and public housing has to be paid for by the government

Property rights and individual freedom:

people should be responsible for making their own money and providing their own housing

Are These Rights Right?

Last week, we learned that an introduction can focus on three different things:

Background

Providing some background can help the audience understand the topic and its significance. If you are speaking about a problem, tell the audience how the problem came about and what the problem is like

Urgency

What are the consequences of the problem and why are they severe?

Relevance

Give reasons why this topic (or the problem) is important to the audience. Will they get affected by it or will their family members get affected by it too?

Rules

You will be assigned one human right, and one of the three introduction styles (background, urgency or relevance) Deliver a snappy 20-second introduction about your right and your introduction styles.

Practising starting a speech using background knowledge, urgancy or relevance

Round 1

A The right to free speech

B

Background

The right to education Relevance

C

The right to housing Urgency

D

The right to equality Relevance

Are These Rights Right?

Feedback Time! Round 1

C The right to housing

D The right to equality

Are These Rights Right?

PART 3 Solutions to Homelessness

What are some potential solutions to homelessness?

Analysing Policy

Policies are projects that the government does to make a change.

There are lots of different ways the government can try to fix homelessness. There are pros and cons to each policy

What is a policy?

A government policy is like a rule or a plan that the people in charge of a country or a place come up with to help make decisions about how things should be done.

Examples: school curriculums, recycling rules

Policy 1: Public Housing

The government builds houses, and allows people to live in them for free or for a subsidised rate.

control over allocation

Cons:

Pros: inefficient and expensive

Policy 2: Price Controls

The government sets a maximum rent for houses, so landlords can’t charge less than this.

Pros:

less government infrastructure required

Cons:

under-supply of houses, less people renting their homes

Policy 3: Shelters and Welfares

The government builds safe shelters for people to stay in for a short about of time.

easier to have many, relatively low cost

Cons:

Pros: only temporary, doesn’t address the route of the problem.

PART 4

Introductions & Speech Building Blocks

PART FOUR: INTRODUCTIONS & SPEECH BUILDING BLOCKS

Introductions and the Building Block Method

Delivering Powerful Introductions

We’ve already learned about our speech building blocks:

Introduction 1 - outlining what you are going to talk about in a persuasive way

Reason 1 2 - explaining your first point in support of your speech

Reason 2 3 - explaining your second point in support of your speech

Conclusion 4 - wrapping up you speech with an overview of what you have discussed

This week, we are going to focus on making excellent introductions using either:

Background Urgency Relevance / /

That Everyone Has a Right to Public Housing

Description Choice

Example speech

Introduction Relevance

We all go through times in our life that we are vulnerable Maybe we lose our job, or maybe we face a lifechanging injury. In a blink of an eye, everything can be taken away from you, but housing should be an inalienable right.

Choose between:

Here’s an example speech template: /

Dignity

Reason 1

Freedom

Choice: Dignity

Choose between

Government Duty

Reason 2

Cost

Choice: Government Duty

My first point is about dignity Everyone is equal and deserves to be treated with respect You need housing to feel safe and valued, so you don’t get sick or get into danger

Conclusion

My second reason is that the government has a duty to provide housing The government is elected by the population who voted for it, which means they have a responsibility to all citizens Having housing also makes it easier to provide healthcare and education, because people are healthy and safe.

Every person deserves the dignity of having somewhere they can call home, and the government has a duty to make that happen This is why housing is a human right

PART 5 Recap

RECAP

Homelessness is a state of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing, which results in individuals or families being without a permanent place to live.

Kinds of Homelessness:

Street

Car Shelter

Couch surfing

Causes of Homelessness

Personal

Societal

Economic

Social Political

Human rights are based on the idea that every person is valuable and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, no matter who they are or where they come from.

Potential Policy Solutions

Public housing

Pricing controls

Shelters

Special Skills

Learning facts: the crisis of homelessness

Philosophical thinking: human rights

Analysis: weighing up policy options

Delivering introductions: background, relevance and urgency