Sesame Street has introduced its first homeless muppet - meet Lily

It's an iconic children's TV show, bringing entertainment little ones for decades.

And now Sesame Street is aiming to teach kids about homelessness with the help of their first homeless muppet, Lily.

The seven-year-old muppet and her family come to stay with friends when they lose their apartment.

Se tells fellow muppet Elmo about what's going on with her when they paint a rainbow murial together. 

She says, ''I'm not sure I want to paint anymore."

Credit: 
Richard Termine/Sesame Workshop

Lily and Elmo are using the colour purple, which is the same colour as her bedroom. 

She says, ''we don't have our own apartment anymore. And we've been staying in all different kinds of places".

However, the appearance of Lily has caused some disgruntlement with fans, who have taken to social media to ask if bin-dwelling character Oscar the Grouch was homeless.

The non-profit group behind Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop has said that there are more than 2.5 million homeless children across the US. 

They said, ''We know children experiencing homelessness are often caught up in a devastating cycle of trauma.'' 

Lily first showed up on the Street in 2011, when she was shown feeling hungry as her family didn't always have food. 

While she won't appear in Sesame Street's TV episodes, she will feature on YouTube, and in videos and storybooks on the Sesame Street in Communities website.

As the US TV show has been a childhood favourite since 1969, we think that this is a brilliant step forward and hopefully it will help teach young kids about homelessness.

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