/>Nicked for the Project Hello
website:

“How did this project begin? What was the basic
idea?

There are a lot of homeless people in Venice, CA. I walked past
one guy in particular to and from work every day. It wasn’t until I learned his
name, Robertson, that I stopped looking at him as a panhandler, but a person
that I wanted to know more about and help. I wondered if my experience could
work on a larger scale.

Originally, the idea was to distribute 5,000
of these giant nametags to homeless in Los Angeles over the course of one
weekend. We thought it would be great if the homeless started a movement, or a
sort of uprising, and every street corner was occupied by people holding up a
sign, demanding that they be seen as human beings and not trash. We wanted the
homeless issue to be front-page news, simply build awareness by giving the
homeless a voice, and give homeless organizations a platform to offer
solutions.

After months of mostly positive meetings with local
homeless organizations to help with the distribution of signs, a unified effort
proved to be impossible due to religious, political, or selfish motivations.
Rather than let the idea die, we thought the idea could even have more impact if
we distributed them to hundreds of photographers around the world and let them
photograph homeless people in their community. Then compile the images for a
website, an exhibition, a book, and whatever else presents itself along the
way.”

(via href="http://www.joshspear.com/index.php?itemid=628">Josh Spear)