French campaign challenges apathy towards homelessness

A French charity has launched a campaign aimed at challenging people's apathy towards homelessness by showing the destitute alongside images of them in their former lives, according to dpa. The campaign, which is entitled "They had a past. Help them find a future," includes both a television advertisement - set to be aired in the coming days - and three billboards which juxtapose pictures of people living on the street with images from their past. The television advertisement features a homeless man walking through the streets, pulling an old shopping bag behind him, while images from his past flash across the screen. He is shown posing for the camera in shorts, and in later years, walking down the aisle with his wife-to-be, bouncing a baby on his knee and having a drink with colleagues at his office job. Some 140,000 people in France are homeless, up from 100,000 a decade ago, according to the foundation. The economic crisis has changed the face of homelessness, which increasingly affects young people, senior citizens and families.