Real Stories: Meet Joanne

Published June 04, 2009 @ 12:53PM PT

I found Joanna via Twitter. I was contacted asking for help moving a homeless woman's belongings into storage. I documented the story within the story and the crisis that happened behind the scenes on Whrrl. (Please take a moment to view it and send to a friend. It's an important story people need to be familiar with when working with people living on the streets.)

Joanna's story is powerful... and common. Thirty days ago, she was "kicked to the curb" (literally) by sheriffs carried out foreclosure orders. Since then, she's been living on the streets with all of her wordly possessions.

Sadly, Joanna is not new to this predicament. She has been in and out of homeless for nearly 20 years. She wants to work, but claims she is "financially and physically disabled," she says she has a PhD in homelessness.

This interview was not easy for me; it hit really close to home. But she shares some valuable insights, the most important being that homeless people are exactly that... people.

I hope you watch all the way through, her closing sentence blows me away!

Joanne from InvisiblePeople.tv on Vimeo.

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Author

Sixteen years ago, Mark Horvath was homeless on the streets of Hollywood. Today, he works in marketing/communications and is an activist for the homeless. He vlogs at invisiblepeople.tv and blogs at hardlynormal.com.