Jessi Marquez

In New York City...

• Each night more than 40,000 people -- including more than 16,000 children -- experience homelessness.

• Currently 38,400 homeless men, women, and children bed down each night in municipal homeless shelters, and thousands more sleep rough on the streets or in other forms of shelter.

• The number of homeless families has nearly doubled over the past decade.

And now...they are on twitter. A new campaign to raise awareness.

Underheard in New York is an initiative to help homeless New Yorkers speak for themselves through Twitter. Four homeless people — Danny (@putodanny), Derrick (@awitness2011), Albert (@albert814) and Carlos (@jessie550) — were given their own prepaid cell phone, a month of unlimited text messaging and a Twitter account.

Read more on Mashable!