Working with Creators to Infuse Stories About Housing and Homelessness Across Social

04/24/2026

By Sarah Armour

What we Learned From 16 Storytellers

The digital content creators filling our social media feeds and taking up air time on podcasts and YouTube have a growing influence on American values, ideas and politics. But organizations working to ensure everyone has a safe and affordable place to live are not reaching people online, where they get their news, information and entertainment.

Short story, we have to talk about the impact of housing issues where people spend their time and form their opinions and beliefs or we won’t be able to shift public beliefs around housing and homelessness.

So the Lab is working with social media creators to share authentic stories about housing and homeless to shape the narrative online.

In one of our most exciting projects, we’re collaborating with Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and its Center for Health Communication and Initiative on Health and Homelessness to educate 16 creators about housing and homelessness.

The creators — a mix of lifestyle creators, people with lived experience, educators and parents — shared their housing stories in organic, nonpartisan ways, talking about personal experiences with unstable housing and homelessness as well as solutions.

Creator Comments

I learned how powerful storytelling can be when it’s done with empathy and intention. It really showed me the importance of being mindful about how we represent people’s experiences and making sure we’re amplifying voices in a respectful and accurate way, not just creating content.

What I appreciated most about the program was how much I learned about the housing crisis in this country — far more than I knew before participating. The depth of insight and practical knowledge I gained has been invaluable.

It taught me new things about affordable housing and the issues within it. It humanized the unhoused community in a way that I appreciated. It pushed me to create something meaningful for that same community. I hope it helped.

The effort builds on Harvard’s research on changing narratives around mental health — and is a first step in the Lab’s larger work to cultivate networks of content creators who can build broad public support for robust investments in solutions that will ensure everyone has a safe and affordable place to call home.

This is a critical piece of building a narrative infrastructure at scale.

We kicked off our project by delivering the Lab’s signature narrative training and sharing our latest research on persuasive messaging, while our friends at Harvard shared data and insights on rates of homelessness and the impact of housing struggles on people’s health.

Impact, Reach and Insights, Oh My – Part 1

In total, the creators reached 5.1 million viewers across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Nine out of 16 of the creators had personal connections to homelessness, which matches the Lab’s research insights about how many people are impacted by unstable housing and homelessness in the US. Some of the creators’ posts had as many as 9,000 comments.

Next up, we’ll be testing the concepts in the most engaging videos to see which messages persuade people to support solutions to housing affordability and homelessness. More to come on that in Part 2.

Meet the Creators

The creators focus on a range of issues — from mental health and disability to real estate and faith, and everything in between. They live all over the country, hold a range of jobs outside of their social media work and have thousands to millions of followers. They’ve been so much fun to work with and we’re looking forward to finding new ways to collaborate with them.

Check out the creators and their posts.