--- title: Sesame Street Announces New Homeless Character Lily description: People took to social media to protest the erasure of Oscar the Grouch after Sesame Street announced a new homeless character. canonical: https://time.com/5478902/homeless-sesame-street/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-12-13T18:18:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:56:24.710Z og:title: Sesame Street Announced the New First Muppet, Lily og:description: And people have feelings about Oscar the Grouch og:url: https://time.com/5478902/homeless-sesame-street/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd3d86ebc4e75aa46/698941718fd2eecf4035d617/Homeless_Lily-Sofia-Hug.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 6000 og:image:height: 3375 og:image:alt: Homeless_Lily Sofia Hug og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sesame Street Announced the New First Muppet, Lily twitter:description: And people have feelings about Oscar the Grouch twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd3d86ebc4e75aa46/698941718fd2eecf4035d617/Homeless_Lily-Sofia-Hug.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _Sesame Street_ Officially Announces the First Homeless Muppet, Lily > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Dec 13, 2018 6:18 PM UTC  Lily on Sesame Street Lily on Sesame Street RICHARD TERMINE/Photo by RICHARD TERMINE  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Dec 13, 2018 6:18 PM UTC [_Sesame Street_,](http://time.com/5400427/bert-ernie-sesame-street-writer/) the long-running PBS children’s show released a [statement](https://sites.google.com/view/ssic-homelessness-initiative/home) on Wednesday in which it revealed that the storyline of the muppet Lily, who was first introduced in a 2011 episode that dealt with hunger, now includes that her family has lost their home. “We know children experiencing homelessness are often caught up in a devastating cycle of trauma—the lack of affordable housing, poverty, domestic violence, or other trauma that caused them to lose their home, the trauma of actually losing their home, and the daily trauma of the uncertainty and insecurity of being homeless,” said Sherrie Westin, 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.” Following the show’s announcement that one of its characters is going to experience [homelessness](http://time.com/5455757/couple-homeless-man-gofundme-scam/) for the first time, some people took to social media to protest what they saw as erasure of [Oscar the Grouch](http://time.com/5426960/caroll-spinney/). Some fans couldn’t help but bring up the fact that Oscar the Grouch has lived in a trashcan for the nearly 50 years the show has been on the air. “Does this mean that oscar the grouch was not homeless because he lived in a trash can?” questioned one Twitter user. > [](https://twitter.com/jackdwagner/status/1072997270893678592) See some more responses to the announcement below. > [](https://twitter.com/natemcdermott/status/1072937812813586432) > [](https://twitter.com/YoungQwan/status/1072892835400171521) > [](https://twitter.com/101miss%5Flien/status/1073141408742211584) > [](https://twitter.com/FootPoundForce/status/1073247894327709702) > [](https://twitter.com/GrillVogel/status/1072993486020861952) > [](https://twitter.com/ImNotJamestho/status/1072913080835825664) > [](https://twitter.com/SpencerJayCase/status/1073112126275764225) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5478902/homeless-sesame-street/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5478902/homeless-sesame-street/"},"headline":"Sesame Street Officially Announces the First Homeless Muppet, Lily","datePublished":"2018-12-13T18:18:35.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:56:24.710Z","description":"\"Oscar the Grouch has lived in a trash can for 50 years\"","url":"https://time.com/5478902/homeless-sesame-street/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Television","Sesame Street","TV"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd3d86ebc4e75aa46/698941718fd2eecf4035d617/Homeless_Lily-Sofia-Hug.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd3d86ebc4e75aa46/698941718fd2eecf4035d617/Homeless_Lily-Sofia-Hug.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Homeless_Lily Sofia Hug","caption":"Lily on Sesame Street","creditText":"RICHARD TERMINE/Photo by RICHARD TERMINE","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5478902/homeless-sesame-street/","name":"Sesame Street Officially Announces the First Homeless Muppet, Lily"}}]}] ```