Mark Horvath is the creator of InvisiblePeople.tv (www.invisiblepeople.tv), a video-blog, in which he shares stores of the homeless. Currently he is traveling across the nation in order to help bring understanding and knowledge to the growing homeless crisis. You can find out more about InvisiblePeople.tv Road Trip U.S.A. by visiting http://invisiblepeople.info. Below are some excerpts from our recent interviews with him.
What is your definition of passion?
Mark: “I don’t know that I’m driven by passion. I don’t see any other choice in what I do. I really don’t. I help homeless people. I didn’t wake up one day and say “this is my career move…” It just happened. I once had a great career in television and I ended up homeless on Hollywood Boulevard…I did everything both good and bad a person can do in Los Angeles. When I first hit the streets homeless I didn’t know how I was going to survive. I had a 6-foot iguana…I was sitting on the wall (by the Chinese theater), with my head in the lap…and asking “How am I going to live?” Some tourist
s pull up and they get out of the bus and ask “Can I take a picture of your iguana?” I said “for a dollar,” and they all started handing me dollars. That’s how I became the lizard man of Hollywood – that’s how I survived.
I got kicked out of shelters three or four times. The last time I got kicked out, I found the Los Angeles International Dream Center (www.dreamcenter.org), a faith-based church that truly is a model of compassion others should follow.. It’s an amazing place. That’s where I started rebuilding my life. Fast-forward a few years and once again I have a successful executive career, three bedroom house with two car garage and pool. Then I lost my job right after having ten inches of my colon removed. I lived off my credit cards for 9 months. Wish I knew back then I was going to lose the house. Now I have a foreclose and huge dept. I accepted a job In Los Angeles for $80k. in LaLa Land money that is peanuts and it was a huge cut in pay for me. I didn’t know how I was going to make it on ONLY $80k. I laugh now because I don’t have a job or income. For the most part I’ve been out of fulltime work for 20 months now! The job in LA only lasted 3 months. They had to layoff a mess of people. I don’t know what to do. Honestly I was very scared! But I took an insane action: With $45, a laptop and a little camera I started something I’d always wanted to do: InvisiblePeople.Tv. I use media to give people with little influence and face and a voice.
Part of it started 10 years ago after I got off the streets when I was working as a nonprofit TV producer, I was doing a lot of homeless stories. Put they all had an agenda. They were the truth, but they were never the persons story. Out of frustration, I went to Santa Monica with a camera and was going to produce a raw documentary of life on the streets from the homeless perspective. I remember I interviewed these little punk rock kids. I call them “gutter punks.” One was a young runway girl and just looking at her your heart breaks. I turned around and there was a homeless lady from Cambodia with no arms. She said “those kids are spoiled. WHAT! So I rolled tape and she said, “even being homeless in America with no arms, is better than being in Cambodia.” Right there and then I realized the power of the media. Depending if I cut this lady in or out I could make you love or hate these kids!
When I originally started doing this InvisiblePeople.tv I couldn’t edit the videos, so I had no choice but to upload raw unedited footage. It’s real life in your face raw! To my shock people started to watch. Now I can edit the videos, but I won’t because you need to see the good and the bad. Life is that way.
Over the winter I found a 3 month temp job helping a homeless shelter but the grant ran out so I was laid off (again) this past March 15th. I currently live without an income, I am borderline homeless
myself. I don’t know where rent is going to come from, I don’t have any health insurance, I don’t eat right, just like many I often sit in my crisis. But I have a choice: I can lay in my bed which I call “blanket time” and cry, or I can get up and take action and help someone else. And that’s what I choose to do. And in doing that, I’ve been flown to New York and Seattle; I’ve been to Phoenix, to Sacramento. And I’m a guy that doesn’t have an income! If you do the math, this shouldn’t be happening! I do look for work. I haven’t given up. In the meantime, I scream real loud about homelessness and poverty. During this trip housing programs have been started, feeding programs, kids who don’t have shoes to go to school now have NEW shoes. It’s been amazing. And the road trip is still only half way done!
We’re all too busy. We don’t stop and get the neighbor’s story. In Los Angeles, we have a saying that you don’t get to know your neighbor until there’s an earthquake…..We don’t notice our neighbor. So when you see the guy at the exit sign with his cardboard sign, you don’t stop and talk to him. You just roll up your window or maybe you give him a quarter or dollar out of guilt. You don’t engage. Some of the greatest feedback that I got was on America’s Next Top Model: there was a blog post on their forum of some girl that said ‘I used to hate the homeless and think they were bums,’ and then I went to InvisblePeople.tv and now I know that they’re regular people like you and me.
I bet you know someone who is going through foreclosure; you know someone that’s been laid off. They don’t raise their hand. Now you might not be able to pay their mortgage, but you can take them out of their crisis. People in poverty sit in their crisis because they don’t have money to distract. Take them to the movies, take them out to dinner.
Twice in my life I chased money and both times I failed. When I focus on helping people, I can’t help but succeed. …I can sit here and look at my problems or I can get out and help people. It’s almost like a selfish act…In helping other people, I don’t think about my problems. I’m grateful. I meet people every day who are homeless and I have an apartment. Now, because of the economy a few of my sponsors were not able to keep their commitment so I do not have enough money to get back to LA. But I am counting on you all to not leave me homeless in the Midwest. PLEASE! Honest, I run out of money very soon. But I’ve made it across the country helping others along the way and that alone for an unemployed guy who lost everything is a miracle.
That’s going on in the world is crazy. …it’s almost paralyzing. I can’t help the people in NY or in Florida, but I can help the people right in front of me. I think what’s happening in the economy is a good thing. Because we’re going to have to wake up. My hope is that we start taking care of each other.
Maybe homelessness isn’t your thing. Maybe its AIDs or human trafficking. Pick something. Find something. By changing your world – the world directly around you, we will change the world. It’s about helping people…It’s about compassion.
What I do is not really about the homeless people. It’s about us. It’s about the people who can change things. It’s about the people walking by the homeless and not looking. I’m trying to not change homelessness as much as I am trying to change people who aren’t homeless…so they actually do something about it.”
Thank you Mark for your time and awesome story!
Can I just say, amazing?! Love this guy.