According to data from before the pandemic, the NGO estimates that there are at least 20 million people living without a home in Europe. In Spain their numbers are estimated at 33,000 and in Madrid the figure is more than 2,000 living out on the street, even those where the square maters and shops are most expensive. When the state of alarm was declared as a response to the pandemic, the situation took on an even more grave nature and living conditions became more precarious.  Furthermore, the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic drove a variety of new types of people out of their homes, many of whom had never ever lived near the brink of homelessness. 

Homelessness generates many problems of varying degrees of severity for those suffering from this predicament who live an average of 20 years fewer and have 50% more health problems than the rest of the population. Their situation leaves them at prey to lonliness, humiliation, poverty, dispair, stress, deteriorating mental health, isolation, invalidation of their dignity, social and systemic discrimination, difficulty in accessing social and health services, inviability of securing a job, physical and moral violance and, for women, sexual aggression as well. Their vulnerability puts their lives in danger and we as a society simply cannot tolerate that.

Against this backdrop, Médicos del Mundo called a competition to design a communications strategy for a creative concept and awareness raising campaign to spotlight what homeless people have to face and its impact on their mental health at a time made even more difficult by the impact of the pandemic. The campaign was to be run for the European and World Homelessness Day.

 Two specific goals were put to us. One was to spotlight the extreme vulnerability of the homeless, and alert about its impact on mental health and the imminent risk that many more people will be affected by these disorders. The other was to contribute to a change in society’s perception of the homeless by constructing a discourse against prejudice. 

 To do away with prejudice and stereotypes, it is essential for the homeless to be accepted as part of our community. This is the only way for us to empathise with them and understand the vulnerability they are exposed to. That is why we based our campaign on three pillars: dignifying the homeless; showing the homeless as members of our society; and realizing that any of us could wind up in the same situation. 

 We looked for a clear, simple idea that would help us redefine their image and make us feel closer to them. It consisted of a new way to call and see them. What if we put forward for society, the media, organizations and institutions a different way of referring to “the homeless”? From now on, they would be our neighbors with no house.

To completely change terminology is to completely change what these people mean for us. It is to take first step towards including them in our lives as vulnerable members of our community rather than as an alien problem. 

We built a digital strategy with the help of the Agua de Lurdes women’s group around the hashtag #VecinasYVecinosSinHogar. It was based on a series of graphic pieces with portraits of several of these different neighbors. The messages explore the irrefutable fact that these people live on our streets and therefore belong to our neighborhood. Yet the tremendous injustice is that they have no dignified place to live. 

Each piece of the campaign addresses a different type of vulnerability. This enables us to address nearly the entire issue respectfully, guided at all times by dignifying these neighbors and their reality. All of this digital material was created to be disseminated through a package of communication tools by different groups and communities hinging around Médicos del Mundo, thus generating ties with kindred entities such as neighborhood associations. 

As our first humble approach to this grave problem that requires more and more people to consider it socially unacceptable, this campaign was local, regional and international at the same time, adaptable and exportable.