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.”
The work was motivated by homelessness reaching the highest levels since the Great Depression, but to get people to actually pause during their morning commutes, Bombas wanted to offer a narrative that turns distant concern into urgent empathy. The campaign stresses that work ethic does not make wages any higher or housing any cheaper: A New Yorker earning minimum wage would need to work 110 hours per week to afford a basic one-bedroom apartment, according to the landing page.
“What you encounter when you’re living in New York and walking around the city is not really the full picture,” said Bombas co-founder Randy Golberg, referencing the 70,000 New Yorkers who stay in shelters compared to the 3,500 who sleep on the street. “We’re trying to create a little bit more of a nuanced understanding of a very complex issue.”
The landing page presents viewers with both volunteer opportunities and prompts like “How to talk to kids about homelessness” and “How to introduce yourself to your unhoused neighbors,” highlighting that these individuals rarely hear their own names out loud.
Trixie MacKinnon, who experienced homelessness after leaving the military sector, said that surviving the instability means “you have to love yourself more than you think you deserve.”
“Attach yourself to that feeling of being lost, where things don’t make sense,” said MacKinnon. “Feel that, amplify it and then take your roof off your head. That’s what homelessness is.”
