Tonight You’re Homeless:

How it works

Homelessness is a situation. Not a person, not a family. This homeless activity is designed to put yourself in the situation of someone or a family who has recently become homeless.

Step 1 – The Situation: Everyone in the group – you are homeless tonight. You have no family you can go to. And, you are too ashamed to call on any friends. You have nothing but the clothes on your backs and $5.00 in cash. It’s 5:00 pm and you need to come up with a plan.

Step 2 – Item Gathering (2 minutes): Each team member will have only 2 minutes to gather up to 4 items from their own home office (or surrounding area) that they each would want to take with them for support during their homeless evening.

Step 3 – Creating the Plans (5 minutes): As you return from grabbing your 4 items, come back and write down an hour by hour plan from 5:00 pm to 8:00 am on what you would do to be safe and survive. This forces us to think through the situation and what we will be doing each hour. You have 5 minutes to do this.

Step 4 – Review and Reflect: After everyone has finished, discuss the following questions as a group.

1. Why did you collect the four items that you did?
2. What did you spend your $5.00 on?
3. What are 2 or 3 of the most significant actions you made in your hour by hour plan?
4. Putting yourself in the situation, what were some of the emotions and feelings that you had?