One of my favorite sites on the web is a video blog entitled Invisible People.  It was created by a man who knows all to well the story of homelessness — he was once homeless.

Armed with a video camera, Mark Horvath takes to the streets making those who are invisible visible.  In the About section of his blog, he tells how he came to doing this project.  If you scroll down the last video on that page you will learn Mark’s story of drug addition and homelessness.

Mark developed InvisiblePeople.tv to tell the stories of the homeless and his videos are raw, personal and thankfully humanizing.  I visit the site often and he has opened my eyes to much and he has shattered some stereotypes I previously had.

I once heard a story about a homeless man on Hollywood Blvd who really thought he was invisible. But one day a kid handed the man a Christian pamphlet. The homeless guy was shocked and amazed, “what! You can see me? How can you see me? I’m invisible!”

It isn’t hard to comprehend this man’s slow spiral into invisibility. Once on the street, people started to walk past him, ignoring him as if he didn’t exist… much like they do a piece of trash on the sidewalk. It’s not that people are bad, but if we make eye contact, or engage in conversation, then we have to admit they exist and that we might have a basic human need to care. But it’s so much easier to simply close our eyes and shield our hearts to their existence.

His reasons for creating the vlog are to “make the invisible visible” and he hopes that by our viewing the stories of those who are homeless, they will connect and resonate with us.  He says “I hope their conversations with me will start a conversation in your circle of friends.”

As an aside, Mark was featured earlier this year in a Mashable article entitled 5 People Who Broke the Rules of Social Media and Succeeded.  The article mentions how Mark got many of the homeless social agencies online with Twitter.  Unfortunately, the article mentions Mark was laid off from one agency and was warned “by homeless service agencies and government officials that there are legal consequences to what he’s doing and he should simply stop.” Though he was warned numerous times to “be careful, people are watching,” he has continued on.  For Mark, it is more about getting people off the streets, not who has the best marketing plan.  What a guy.

If you are not one to avert your eyes then check out Mark’s site at InvisiblePeople.tv. The following is one that was most compelling for me.  It’s a story about Janine, a woman living in a tent city in Sacramento.  The following is a piece from her story:

When I met Janine one month ago, she was living in one of Sacramento’s now infamous tent cities. She works as a gardener, but does not earn enough income to afford or sustain permanent housing. She says she cannot stay in area homeless shelters because there are not enough beds to meet the demand. Janine has been closely involved in the debacle surrounding Sacramento’s tent city. She even spoke about the issue to city council.

Janine works but does not make enough money for an apartment.  At the end of this video Janine tells us her three wishes.

Janine from InvisiblePeople.tv on Vimeo.