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In the middle of her interview, Air Force veteran and single mom Colleen Bushnell pauses to ask someone behind the camera if her responses are helpful. After facing three years of homelessness, it isn’t that she doesn’t know how to articulate her experiences—she just isn’t sure what to say to get people to care.
“If workaholism is sexy, then compassion is an inconvenience,” says Bushnell, who likens homelessness to being in arm’s reach of people who are watching you drown.
Bushnell shared her story as part of Bombas’ campaign that aims to challenge attitudes around homelessness. In honor of reaching its 100 millionth donation—the apparel brand gives a clothing donation to a shelter with every one purchased—the initiative highlights society’s indifference toward people who are searching for their next place to sleep.
Bombas presents jarring statistics, including the fact that 1.1 million American students are homeless, an employee making minimum wage cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment in any city in America, and 1 in 6 homeless Americans is a child.
The campaign features out-of-home ads across New York City and redirects consumers to beebetter.com, which spotlights 15 people with diverse circumstances that led them to homelessness, including twin sister girl band Aint Afraid. The brand is also launching a paid initiative with social media page Impact to dispel myths among a younger demographic.
Interrupting indifference
With creative agency Kingsland, out-of-home shop Quan and University of Illinois Chicago professor Dr. Nyssa Snow-Hill, Bombas anchored the campaign around a human truth: People choose to consider extreme hardships as foreign and far-fetched concepts that they could never personally relate to. MRI studies have shown that the brain function that recognizes and empathizes with other humans does not activate when participants are shown images of people who look stereotypically homeless.
“How do we make sure that when we see these individuals, we understand that this is a human being that is probably a victim of fate?” said Kingsland CEO Douglas Brundage, highlighting that 40% of homeless youth identity as LGBTQ+. “They are losing their home in 2023 for being who they are and deciding who they want to love. Thinking about these issues differently is step one.”