Cautionary tale: crass PR stunt makes fun of homeless

Author: CIMCOM

Recruitment company, City Calling, faced a public backlash for its ill-conceived PR campaign this year. The company staged fake homeless beds dotted around London, complete with a blanket, dog’s bowl and plastic sandals, apparently left abandoned with a cardboard sign stating “Found a job” showing the brand logo and web address. The move has been widely criticised as being in poor taste and making light of the plight of London’s homeless who find it almost impossible to get a job without a home address.

City Calling’s cardboard sign: “Found a job”

The campaign was spotted by Londoner, George Alfie, and City Calling was shamed on Facebook with users calling the stunt offensive and sick.

This recruitment publicity campaign, comes at a time when London is experiencing a crisis with high levels of homelessness and rough sleepers. According to housing and homelessness charity Shelter around 30% of the homeless in England are in the capital, which equates to over 24,500 households homeless in London.

As well as a slew of negative comments on social media, negative reports on the PR stunt appeared in the media including Mashable, The Independent, the Evening Standard and The Mirror. 

City Calling, responded to criticism in a statement on their Facebook page:

“We are a job board that facilitates every individual jobseeker no matter their personal circumstances. We have remained and will remain a free service for both jobseeker and employer. As an organisation, we do endless amounts of charity work throughout the year that certainly does not go unnoticed by those that we help.”

Collaborative homeless project creates fonts from cardboard signs

In complete contrast, Arrels Foundation, the charity supporting Barcelona’s homeless, created a project in collaboration with homeless people, together with advertising agency The Cyranos McCann. A collection of typefaces were developed for commercial use, based on the handwriting of people who were homeless. Their writing, which had been mainly seen on their handmade cardboard signs, reflected different written styles with clear personality shining through in the use of lettering. The project aims to raise public awareness of the issue of homelessness. All profits from the project help the 1,400 people that the Arrels Foundation supports. The project has been a positive experience for those involved.

You can find out more at www.homelessfonts.org

Loraine shares her experience as a rough sleeper and outlines her hopes for the project.

LORAINE HOMELESSFONTS from HOMELESSFONTS on Vimeo.