'Sesame Street' Character Will Be First To Experience Homelessness

Source: STAN HONDA / Getty

The Show Hopes To Bring Awareness To A Serious Issue

It’s real out here in this debt ridden, capitalistic U.S. of A.

Even the folks on Sesame Street are trying to do the best they can.

According to New York Daily News, the show will tackle the subject of homelessness with their 7-year-old Muppet character Lily.

Lily was first introduced in 2011 to help viewers understand food insecurity and hunger. Now, a new series of videos will show how Lily learns to cope when her family loses their home and she’s forced to stay with friends on Sesame Street.

“Everyone else is going home. And well, I miss our apartment and now we don’t have our own place to live,” Lily says in a clip. “And sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever have our own home again.”

*Tears*

Lily we not ready!

Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind the show, is launching Lily’s storyline as a way of offering “help and hope to the growing number of young children across the United States who are experiencing homelessness,” the org said in a press release.

The goal is to show what homelessness is like from a child’s perspective. Lily will learn the importance of talking about her feelings and discussing the idea of what “home” truly means.

The new storyline is apart of the show’s Sesame Street in Communities program and it won’t air on T.V. for now, but only in separate online videos and materials.

“We know children experiencing homelessness are often caught up in a devastating cycle of trauma,” said Sherrie Westin, the president of Global Impact and Philanthropy at Sesame Workshop. “We want to help disrupt that cycle by comforting children, empowering them, and giving them hope for the future. We want them to know that they are not alone, and home is more than a house or an apartment – home is wherever the love lives.”

The National Center on Family Homelessness reports that 2.5 million kids (one in every 30 children) experience homelessness in the U.S.

Hopefully, Lily’s new storyline will bring awareness to the pressing issue.