On This MLK Day of Service, Street Art Intended to Spark Talk About Homelessness

By Robert Wilonsky Mon., Jan. 17 2011 at 12:18 PM

Categories: News

Just got the heads-up: At this very moment, volunteers with the bcWORKSHOP are out and about installing cut-outs like those you see below across the city, from North Dallas to downtown to White Rock and points in between. They're intended to raise awareness about how to end homelessness.

The cutouts will be carrying cardboard signs like the one you see above. Says one, "A Frozen Yogurt Store Sells $250,000 Worth of Product Every Month. That Could Buy 50,000 Meals For the Homeless." Another reads, "One Super Bowl Ticket Gives You a Seat for 4 Hours. That Money Could Give a Homeless Person a Bed For Two Years." Still others feature quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. -- appropriate, of course, on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

You can see what bcWORKSHOP is up to -- and where -- by going to the just-launched 5750Dallas.org. That number represents the number of homeless men, women and children presently living in Dallas.

bcWORKSHOP, of course, is the same group responsible for, among other things, Congo Street's extreme makeover and recent efforts to overhaul O.M. Roberts Elementary in Jubilee Park without encroaching upon the neighborhood. But Brent Brown, who oversees bcWORKSHOP, doesn't want to say much about the effort, only that the silhouettes and accompanying signs are intended to spark a conversation about consumption, ending homelessness and how a solution just might lie somewhere in the middle.

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Elconquista

We cannot fix homelessness if we don't acknowledge it is all of our problem. This project is not meant to fix it, but to raise awareness, to make you think and start debate and controversy. It worked.

Deb

I saw one of these when I went for my free walk at the lake yesterday! Thanks for spreading the word and making us think.

Useless Libtards

So stupid. What an absolute waste of time

Heart of tin

To all those complaining about the cost of the awareness campaign: at least it got you thinking about the plight of the homeless... albeit in a sanctimonious, no-other-action-felt-necessary kind of way.

Oak Cliff Townie

How many 5750 Homeless could sharing a meal off the $1.00 menu if the money wasn't wasted on this installation.

3rd Wheel Marketing

Or $240 worth of puddin' aww yeah! we had the $240... we had to have the puddin!

Scruffygeist

How many bottles of booze would my iPod and tunes buy the dude panhandling illegally at that Dallas corner?

Mr. Hip S. Terr

How many pairs of shoes could you buy with the money spent on the cutouts telling people how many shoes they could buy?

Carla Marie Weir

so proud of fellow AmeriCorps program bcWorkshop!!!! what an amazing group of people!

Mattie Huffman

Your Americorp Volunteers had NO CLUE as to the purpose of these signs! I incountered 3 of them. And they could offer no information as to who bcWORKSHOP was or what they have done for the community..way to collect on that money for school guys!

Carla Marie Weir

so proud of fellow AmeriCorps program bcWorkshop!!!! what an amazing group of people!

J. Erik Jonsson

Does buying shoes and food fix homelessness? Is yogurt the enemy of the homeless?

Also, that shoe poster would be 7 1/2 times funnier if it read "1195 shoes."

cleveridea

If the yogurt business goes out of business, there would be potentially more homelessness. Unless this group abandons it's irrationality, everyone should just ignore it. There's more intelligent organizations that deserve your attention.

warden62

Seems like bcWORKSHOP is sort of making fun of the homeless by misspelling the word "buy" for their yogurt sign.

Robert Wilonsky

Warden, that's my bad. Thanks for pointing it out -- my fingers got ahead of me. Not for the first time today; not for the last. Fixededed.

warden62

You're the hardest working man in showbidness.

G_David

I'm all for the world having shoes and all, but I'd personally rather have my Zune and my music collection first, then buy some shoes if there's anything leftover. Does that make me a selfish a-hole?