ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how developing and teaching a service-learning course both broadened the appreciation for historical analysis and, at the same time, revealed the limitations of history as a way of understanding a contemporary issue. The linkage between historical and contemporary poverty in America’s cities provided the intellectual bridge for introduction to the study of homelessness. Students in a small group course were assigned, depending on their particular interests, to one of six or seven different sites. These sites included family shelters, drop-in centers, and out-reach programs for homeless youth, large temporary winter shelters for homeless individuals, and a public school classroom organized specifically for children of homeless families. University faculty are generally not very well prepared or trained to handle the intense personal and extremely difficult ethical situations that students are likely to encounter when they serve as interns at a homeless shelter over a six-month period.
