Doing Dignity at the Grace Café: An Ethnographic Exploration of a Homeless Outreach Program

Homeless outreach programs vary widely in their approaches to client treatment. At the Grace Café, an organization that serves daily meals to people who are homeless, the concept of dignity is central to guest treatment. According to the café's ideology, the importance of providing food is secondary to serving with dignity. This research explores dignity as an ideal of client treatment at the Grace Café. Based on ethnographic research, this paper explores how dignity is communicated to volunteers, implemented in service, and challenged at the Grace Café.

Grantor dc:publisher

Digital Commons @ University of South Florida

Year dc:date

2008

Author dc:creator

• Glover, Courtney A

• institutions
• sympathy
• charity
• homelessness
• poverty
• volunteer
• dignity
• organization
• ethnography
• American Studies
• Arts and Humanities

Statement dc:rights

• default

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/263

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.usf.edu:etd-1262