Human attempts to reach the ‘powers that be’ in government hadn't worked, so we had to think bigger. When you’re homeless and there’s no room in the shelter – or worse, no shelter at all – the only place to go is the street! We took over the Sydney CBD with a PR-led activation as a way to create mass awareness and motivate the State Premier to protect SDCH from becoming homeless.

Rescue dogs, in ramshackle cardboard tents were peppered throughout the CBD in protest – outside Channel Seven, in front of NSW Parliament House. The PR-led activation intended to garner mass awareness of the SDCH’s plight and stop people in their tracks. The campaign was supported online with video and images of the dogs and the hashtag #AlmostHomeless which was used to gather online signatures to show public support and further influence action from government.

With time running out for the home, they asked us to act fast. We planned to work with a cross section of general news media to reach both concerned citizens who would sign and share the petition (commercial radio – KIIS FM and Nova, tabloid newspaper, Daily Telegraph and hugely influential and heavily female-focused online news site mamamia), and our government audience (ABC news and Sydney Morning Herald).

We targeted radio the day before to ensure breakfast news on the day was filled with discussion pointing to the activation and their predicament. Broadcast, online and print news desks/photographers were invited down to cover the activation and later that day, imagery including photography and video content of the activation was seeded out to resource-poor media unable to attend.

The simplicity of the idea and the emotive content gave it impact and scale far broader than a petition would have achieved.

• Activation broadcast live from Australia's top-rating breakfast show – Sunrise, the ABC ran an in-depth segment in news and Sydney's most influential newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald ran a key piece on the story.

• Attract celebrities like Jamie Durie (one of Australia's favourite television personalities who had fortuitously been filming for Sunrise to get in one of our pics for Daily Telegraph.

• Video was shared on facebook by online news site, Mamamia and received 55K views.

• achieved target of 10,000 signatures within 24 hours

• Most importantly, we got the shelter's plight on Premier Mike Baird's radar and a comment on the public record when he was filmed by ABC News saying, 'If there is an opportunity to help, we are very keen to do so'.

• Within a week we had a meeting in the diary with a local politician, MP Bruce Notley-Smith who is going to help SDCH secure their land.