Homeless in Vancouver: The homeless are invisible, relatively speaking

Homeless people have become so ubiquitous they are seen as street furniture, which is to say they are not seen at all.

What if you encountered your close family members on the street—uncles, sisters, wives—would you recognize them…if they were dressed as homeless people?

This video clip was produced by the New York City Rescue Mission (NYCRM), a faith-based homeless shelter. It’s an attempt to illustrate something we already know in a way that hopefully makes us think. It’s totally poignant.

Here is an ABC News World item that explains a bit more about how the NYCRM went about it.

It’s estimated right now that well over 600,000 Americans are homeless. About 100,000 are considered to be chronically homeless.

In Canada, with only 34.8 million people—little more than a tenth the U.S. population of 317.8 million—it was estimated in 2013 that 200,000 Canadians experience homelessness in a year.