Art Student Raises Homeless Awareness Through Street Signs

Toronto's homeless problem has become a large issue over the past two decades as low income housing has disappeared and immigration has increased. Graphic arts student, Mark Daye, wanted to raise consciousness about the city's homelessness so he manufactured guerilla street signs (pictured, right), such as
“Quiet, Homeless Sleeping” and “Homeless Warming Grate, Please Keep Clear" and installed them throughout the city.

Instead of rebranding a product, or service for my
4th year thesis project I chose to represent a local population that usually gets overlooked. I re-coded official signage and affixed 30 of them to poles in the downtown core with messages pertaining to an obvious but ignored urban sub culture. The goal was not only to catch people off guard by creating signs that acknowledge the homeless population on a seemingly official level, but to get people to think about codes of behaviour, conformity, acceptance and to maybe spare some consideration for the homeless who live mostly ignored in the city, blending into the background just like the signs.

From 2000 to 2002, only three percent of new housing construction was for rental units, while 97 percent went to the home-ownership market. Since 1990 there has been a 20 percent increase in admissions into homeless shelters in the city alone.

After the jump you can watch a video made by Daye showing how he did the project and you can look at more photos of the signs on his Flickr page.

See also:

• Laptops Give Hope to the Homeless
• The Homeless Hacker v. The New York Times
• Homeless Model Writes Memoir on Apple Store Computer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4Deixu8MSw