A Way To Help The Homeless

Brut America

This storyteller hopes video diaries will help people empathize with those experiencing homelessness. The founder of Homeless Stories spoke to Brut about the creative way the company is providing meaningful change to the community.

Transcript

00:00I don't really have the solutions to homelessness, it's such a broad issue,

00:05but I wanted to try and apply my knowledge and my skills to the problem

00:09and see what I could do to try and build awareness.

00:11I'm a storyteller, always looking at digital marketing, digital media and social media,

00:32and how to tell authentic stories with our artists.

00:35And it's just something that I'm getting to a certain age where I wanted to start doing something and give back.

00:51I think when you're homeless, I think people shun you.

00:54You can sit outside places and people can go past you and they'll throw you money,

00:59or they can throw you a sandwich, you can put you a cup of tea,

01:02but not many of them will actually get down beside you and say, how are you?

01:06The first charity we work with is Glassdoor, who are based in South West London.

01:11We shot six films for Glassdoor.

01:13When we sat down and they shared with us that directly and indirectly on the back of our films,

01:19they had raised over £40,000.

01:22And that was amazing to us to hear, but when we actually went into detail,

01:28they said that £40,000 is equivalent to basically having 65 homeless people given shelter for a month and counselling,

01:37which is enough to, they quote, a period of a month is enough to make a difference and get them off the street and get them rehoused.

01:45Just acknowledging people, even if you don't have any money on you, just acknowledge these people.

02:03Sometimes they don't get spoken to for days on end, they feel anonymous, they feel invisible.

02:07So just either basically stopping, sitting down and having a conversation if you have time.

02:13If you don't, maybe buy them a coffee.

02:15Just something simple like that, it means a hell of a lot.

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