Jennifer from invisible people on Vimeo.

She panhandles to get money for transportation, visits clinics for prenatal care, gets food from churches, and does whatever she can to survive. Despite the fact that she’s pregnant and sleeping on the streets of New York, she’s hopeful about her family’s future.

Despite all the hardship she’s faced being homeless for two years in California and in New York and being pregnant. Jennifer is going to college! She wants to finish her education. She was going to school out in California and she is going to continue it in New York. I find that really inspiring. What’s also good to know is that she is going to get housing from PATH which started the day she did this interview.

Tony from invisible people on Vimeo.

As I watched this video I saw that Tony is actually a homeless veteran. He served in the United States Marine Corps. While it’s sad that a lot of veterans end up homeless and in poverty it did not surprise me to see that Tony was in this situation.

Here are some hard facts for you:

The U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) says the nation’s homeless veterans are mostly males (4 % are females). The vast majority are single, most come from poor, disadvantaged communities, 45% suffer from mental illness, and half have substance abuse problems. America’s homeless veterans have served in World War II, Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), Operation Iraqi Freedom, or the military’s anti-drug cultivation efforts in South America. Forty-seven percent of homeless veterans served during the Vietnam Era. More than 67% served our country for at least three years and 33% were stationed in a war zone.

The next question which the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans highlights is also important. That question is why are veterans homeless?

In addition to the complex set of factors affecting all homelessness — extreme shortage of affordable housing, livable income, and access to health care — a large number of displaced and at-risk veterans live with lingering effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and substance abuse, compounded by a lack of family and social support networks.

A good documentary on this problem is When I Came Home. I remember listening to Heorld Noel on WBAI in NYC when this documentary was being promoted in 2007.

Tony also mentions that there are a lot of homeless veterans out where he is panhandling.

Invisible People is a great website for getting the word out about homelessness and poverty throughout the nation. Anytime they put up a new video I try and blog about it to help draw attention to the work the people behind the site are doing. I’ve missed the last few videos so I’m going to do a catch up post.

Eddie

Eddie is a homeless person living in Binghamton, NY. He picks up cans and bottles for spending money. The cold weather makes it hard for him to sleep and he’s been up the past two nights he says in the video. He lives outside and had his tent and sleeping bag stolen from him. He’s been sleeping with a blanket in the twenty degree Binghamton winter. As far as help goes in the city Eddie states that if you don’t have an ID Binghamton will not do anything for you. If any elected official in Binghamton is reading this you might want to take note and work to do something about changing that.

Eddie also brings up the Social Services department of Binghamton where he says it takes 45 days for the department to “think about doing anything.” Again, the Councilpersons and Mayor of this city may want to look into that. Eddie goes on to say if you don’t have an address that “they” won’t even talk to you. It would also appear that there are no cold weather shelters unless you count the Alcohol Center and that is usually full. Eddie dreams of getting back with his girlfriend and children. He also wants to open a homeless shelter in Binghamton to help people that find themselves in the situation he’s in now.

Out of curiosity I looked at the population of the city on Wikipedia and saw that the city has 45,217 people (2007 census). It’s metro area 252,320. Comparing that to DC with its population of 591,833 (in 2008) and a massive metro area population of 5.3 million, it’s obvious that Binghamton probably doesn’t have as much resources available to it as a bigger city would. Yet I think that there has to be something that can be done to help its homeless population (which can’t be as high as other cities).

Brianna

Brianna is 24 and recently became homeless. It really goes to show you how close many of us are to ending up like this. She is very bright and cheerful in the video. She’s on Twitter and also blogs about her homelessness. On her blogger.com profile she lists “survival” as one of her interests. As of March 16th she’s been homeless for twelve days. She’s living in an RV with a dog in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

From her blog:

I suppose I am a typical Orange County girl. Due to multiple factors, I have suddenly and unexpectedly found myself homeless – with a giant, goofy, hungry dog tagging along for the ride!

I am an educated woman with stable employment and residence history. I am a career executive assistant – coherent, opinionated, poised, and capable. If you saw me walking down the street, you wouldn’t assume that I live in a parking lot. In short, I am just like you – except without the convenience of a permanent address.

Like I said this is scary and it can happen to anyone. One minute you think you’re stable the next you’re not. Doesn’t her situation shed some light on the lack of a safety net for many Americans? In the video Brianna threw out an interesting statistic. She said that most people think of a homeless person as being either a drug addict, mentally ill or a “lazy bum.” However that only makes up 25% of the homeless population! That is scary. Yet even as she is in this situation Brianna is hoping the economy rights itself so that she and others can get back on their feet  and the “real people” who need help, like the addicts and the mentally ill, who can’t help themselves will get it.

John

John used to have a business and when the economy took a turn for the worse he found himself in a dire situation with no work available. Contributing to John becoming homeless was a medical issue that cost him $20,000 leaving him with nothing. He lost his apartment and left the state he was in to come to CA where it was a little warmer.

If you think “professional recycling” sounds tiring, dead-end, and downright nasty, you’re right. Although John says it’s “good honest work,” he admits he’d gladly jump to a minimum wage job if given the opportunity. See, John used to be just like you, he never thought he’d become homeless. But thanks to our economic nosedive, John went from being a small business owner to a homeless can collector.

He now makes $15 a day recycling cans and bottles. He is currently staying at a shelter. John has been homeless for a couple of months now. The really scary thing is that John is having problems even landing a minimum wage job. Is this the Great Recession? It just goes to show you no one is safe.

Marco and Cherese from invisible people on Vimeo.

As a society it comes down to this: what do we do for those who fall through the cracks? Marco and Cherese are not invisible. I for one see them all the time here in Washington DC. I have a Conservative friend who says people are poor because they want to be poor. Obviously, he hasn’t met people like Marco and Cherese.  Cherese has worked at jobs in the past and Marco tries to find work whenever he can. They both live in an RV right now.

Meet Marco & Cherese. They are living in a small RV and their primary income is panhandling. Cherese was the victim of a hit-and-run on an exit ramp, suffering a broken collar bone and a broken arm. Since she doesn’t have health insurance, the hospital just let her go, assuring her that the breaks will heal on their own.

Marco & Cherese are just like you and me. They’ve made a few mistakes in life (who hasn’t?), they’re extremely faithful, and they are good people just trying to survive the nightmare of homelessness.

Cherese was also a drug addict which obviously contributes to the predicament she finds herself in. She got counseling and was clean for a long time as she mentions in the video. She is human after all and humans make all sorts of bad choices. We’re bailing out Wall Street bankers like John Thain at Merrill Lynch for their failures, but we can’t help others? They talk about more and more people hitching trailers onto their trucks because homelessness is growing. This economy may very well send more to those ranks. So how do we as a society deal with this?

Many people would rather ignore it all. We simply cannot ignore it. Whenever a society becomes so polarized with its economic classes there are repercussions. Those gated communities and security guards cannot protect you forever. There has to be a balance. While we all can’t be millionaires (actually from what I understand its more like billionaires now) we all should be at a certain economic equilibrium. Talking about the middle-class can at sometimes seem cliche to me, but I think this is where we should strive to get everyone who isn’t already there to. We also have to support the middle-class and not let it shrink. I think the Middle Class Taskforce is very important in this regard. Can we also have a Poverty Taskforce too?

Mark from invisible people on Vimeo.

I just saw the latest video on the Invisilbe People videoblog.

On a recent trip to Phoenix, Arizona I met Mark. He is 22 years old, lost his job four months ago, and has been on the streets ever since. Mark’s one and only wish is to find a job.

Mark spends every day that he is homeless looking for a job. He hits all the stores and many of them are not hiring. If we’re going to stimulate the economy we have to get people like Mark help as well.

Viper from invisible people on Vimeo.

Everytime the Invisible People video blog puts up a new post I try and blog about it. I would like to see them getting a lot of traffic. They must not remain invisible any longer.

Wordle art generated from the words in the RSS feed of the website Invisible People.