A young woman and her baby have been given a voucher for temporary shelter after she lost the apartment in which she was living. She was evicted for back rent, and her rent fell into arrears only when she was laid off several months ago. She has worked, but she cannot earn quite what she was making before. The worker doing the intake interview asks, “What kind of work have you been doing?” What would you ask? 

Put yourself in the place of the worker in the above vignettes, and decide what question you would ask in each situation. Write an open question that you think might work better than the one asked by the worker, and be prepared to tell why you think the closed question is not useful.