Raising the Roof is Canada's only national charity devoted to long-term solutions for homelessness. In 2010 it approached Leo Burnett with an objective of generating awareness for homelessness in Canada.

But there were two major challenges. First, with more than 85,000 registered charities in Canada, how do you break through to people in the age of donor fatigue, and give them a reason to support this cause versus another? Also, given homeless people are a stigmatized group that others would rather ignore than help, how do you create empathy and incite change?

The objective was to get Canadians to stop and think about the homeless and consider the truth behind the issue. The insight was that people walk by and sometimes step over or around homeless people without thinking twice. They are almost immune to the struggles of the homeless and assume they are all troublemakers, lazy or drug addicts. So what's the point in helping them?

The Street House was an innovative act that people could not ignore. An act that would function as the message itself; re-humanizing the homeless by demonstrating their struggles in a meaningful, digestible and thought-provoking way.

During Doors Open Toronto (a weekend where Torontonians are invited to tour normally off-limits spaces), people were invited to tour the Street House – a house made of cardboard and built in a city alleyway. The Street House provided an experiential walk-through that showcased the day-to-day struggles of the homeless. People could feel and interact with real hard facts and stories, and were put in the shoes of the homeless they walk past every day.

Over the course or two days, over 2,000 people toured the Street House. Millions experienced it through media or word of mouth. Coverage included page three of the Toronto Star, the 6 p.m. news on CBC, CBC online, Inside Toronto and hundreds of blogs. The goal of the act was to get Canadians to stop, think and act, and that goal was achieved – thousands of people walked through the Street House spending an average of four minutes engaging with the issue of homelessness – four minutes more than they had probably ever spent thinking about it in the past. People donated money on-site, shared their experience and signed the wall in support of the issue. All this from a budget of $0.