Mustard Seed campaign uses airbnb ads to raise awareness for homelessness

Travellers looking online for a short-term rentalin Calgary over the holiday season may be offered a few cheap but less-than-appealing listings.

For $20 dollars a night, the listing reads that you can sleep next to a garbage dumpster.

It's a part of a campaign to raise awareness about the lack of affordable housing in Calgary.

"At first they're probably going to think what is this? Is this a place? And then it looks like a real booking and it's for 20 dollars," said Karen Taylor-Binnie, who works for The Mustard Seed.

"We don't expect anyone to book the space."

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Three campaign ads on airbnb.com depict where homeless people in Calgary actually spend their nights.

"Twenty dollars is approximately what an individual gets from social assistance a day, which isn't much to survive on let alone be able to afford a place to live in Calgary," saidTaylor-Binnie.

If anyone actually does book, the money goes back to the organization.

The campaign I'll Be Homeless for Christmas,was created by TriggerCommunications in Calgary on behalf of The Mustard Seed. It's the first ever PSAdone on airbnb.com.

Trigger also placed a few cardboard signs around town depicting park benches for rent as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign using the hashtag#givehopeyyc.

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"Tonight, there will be 3,500 Calgarians without a place to live. And certainly to us,thats not acceptable in a community as prosperous and as healthy and as vibrant as ours," said Kim O'Brien.

O'Brien is the chair of Resolvea group of nine social service agencies working to build 3,000 new affordable housing units in Calgary over the next three years.

"Christmas 2018 will hopefully be a much brighter one for an awful lot ofCalgarians," said O'Brien.

She says the vacancy rate in Calgary is 1.4 per cent and 15,000 households are at risk of becoming homeless.

Its really tough and you try to make sure that hope still stays alive," she said.

"Its important to make sure that they know that theyre in a community that supports them, that has decided together that this is not acceptable in our town and that we are working to come up with a solution."

The airbnb.com listings Dreaming of a Warm Christmas, A Not So Silent Night, and I'll Be Homeless for Christmaswill be up until Christmas Eve.

ON MOBILE? Watch the I'll Be Homeless for Christmas campaign video.