Maria Pazmino Response to House for the Homeless

Word Count: 311

House for the Homeless: A Place to Hang Your Hat by Ivana Nikolic was, in
comparison to Rick Zollos field working paper, much more personal. Reading Nikolics story,
and how it connected to the homeless shelter made the story seem that much more special. Every
person she met in the shelter received a personal opinion from her, and it humanized them. Hope,
Alejandro and Solomon had their stories brought to a much more emotional angle, with her
comparison to her own family, like Solomon and her father, or to people in her life, like Hope
and the high school children she tutored. Despite the fact that she doesnt give very specific
descriptions on how they look, she still provides enough for the reader to picture them. Alejandro
being very skinny, Hope as an 18-year-old white-girl, and Solomon as a well-spoken man from
the Congo.
Even though the field working that we will be doing in class is on a group of people that
we are an outsider on, House for the Homeless served to show that it doesnt have to be
completely unrelated. While Ivana is not a homeless person, and her family does not live in a
homeless shelter like the people shes observing, she still manages to connect to their sense of
hope and to want to live their lifes to the best of her ability. She brings it around to this fact
when she speaks about the older man who was finally moving out of the shelter, with a flash of
hope and happiness in his eyes. House for the Homeless, despite being more personal and
possibly less professional, is a lot more emotional and interesting than the story Rick Zollo
writes about truckers in Iowa, because of the small details anyone can be able to connect to.