WeAreVisible.com, created by homeless advocate Mark Horvath, offers tutorials on using Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and WordPress as survival tools for people living on the streets, and those facing homelessness.
It’s the kind of help that Kerry and Sabrina Veazey and their 13-year-old son Keifer got (pictured below). After Kerry, 41, was laid off from his job as a machinist in 2008, the family lost its home, bounced between relatives and finally landed with a thud in a small trailer without air conditioning or running water in Dayton, Nevada. Kerry joined Twitter (@alleycat22469), initially to “yell at anyone and everyone I could,” he says. When that strategy proved ineffective, he began reaching out to other homeless people and eventually found Horvath and WeAreVisible.com.
Tweeting for Survival
Before a local homeless outreach event, Kerry collected $3 worth of cans, cashed them in and used the money to make 21 copies of fliers for WeAreVisible.com. “I had nothing better to do,” Kerry says about becoming an evangelist for the site. “I was tired of being angry at the world.” Followers of the site, its Twitter feed, its Facebook page and the hashtag #wearevisible, use it to rally support for each other. Recently, they got word of a diabetic homeless man who had lost weight and needed new pants. Kerry and others posted the man’s plea. The pants started pouring in.
Kerry even used the internet to finally find help. After searching for resources for homeless vets, he came across a VA housing voucher program. While showing him a two-bedroom apartment that was being renovated, a landlord said, “You gotta picture it after it’s done.” “Well, it’s a lot better than where we are now,” Kerry replied laughing. ”Without the computer I don’t know where we would have been,” he says. Two weeks ago, the family moved into housing.
They’ve got similar hopes for their friend Rd Plasschaert, who lives one state over in California. She says she received more help in seven days online than she did in eight months in the real world. After getting nowhere calling shelters, a homeless woman told her to try Twitter. “Twitter? You’ve got to kidding,” Plasschaert, 55, remembers saying. But she gave it a shot (@lostawareness). Twenty-four hours later, there was Horvath, tweeting simply, “What’s your story?”
She told him she was about to be homeless. He guided her to the PATH Achieve shelter in Glendale, where she has lived happily for the past 90 days. Seeking a safety net on the web helped her avoid her greatest fear. “Quite frankly, I would be sleeping on the streets if I hadn’t opened myself up to social media. I’m off the streets because of it,” she says.
With about $221 a month in government assistance and less than that in food stamps, Plasschaert can’t afford to move into an apartment, where she can use her juicer again. Until she can, she’s spreading the word, online and in her shelter, about We Are Visible. She says she tells them, “People, do you realize what we have available to us?”
This week, her time at the shelter runs out. She doesn’t know where she’s going but, strangely, she’s not scared. She’s visible now.
Homeless advocate Mark Horvath was recently cruising down Sunset Boulevard when he saw a homeless man on the sidewalk fiddling with his laptop. Being formerly homeless himself, and now devoting his life to getting homeless people online, Horvath pulled over to see what the man was doing. He was playing chess.
It’s these unexpected revelations that Horvath lives for. In mid-September, with help from a $50,000 Pepsi Refresh grant, he launched WeAreVisible.com, a slick website with simple tutorials for the homeless on how to use Gmail, WordPress, Facebook and Twitter as survival tools.
Because He’s Been There
“When somebody is about to be homeless one of the first things they do is go online and start researching homelessness,” says Horvath. “But where are the resources for homeless people?”
Well, he’s one. A Twitter obsessive (@hardlynormal), Horvath often takes donation requests to his 9,500 followers ($345 to get a vet’s RV out of impound please?). “Over time I saw how social media could be used to really help people,” he says. “At the same time I was getting frustrated with the nonprofit world.”
The original idea was to streamline the way America’s three million or so homeless people find services like open shelter beds. Along the way, homeless people began connecting to each other through the site, sharing resources and encouragement. “This is gonna happen anyway,” Horvath said. “I’m just expediting it.”
Horvath is already known in the community for an engrossing and ongoing series of video interviews with homeless people featured on InvisiblePeople.tv. In the two years he’s been doing them, he has spoken to people sleeping in parks, underground tunnels, motel rooms, RVs and more. More than a year ago, Horvath interviewed Angela, a woman living — and dying — under a bridge in Atlanta, and had an epiphany: The church workers with him gave her food, but nothing else. “It was at that point where I realized sandwiches aren’t enough,” he says. “It’s OK to feed people in the park, as long as you’re doing something to get them out of the park.”
It’s the kind of help that Kerry and Sabrina Veazey and their 13-year-old son Keifer got (pictured below). After Kerry, 41, was laid off from his job as a machinist in 2008, the family lost its home, bounced between relatives and finally landed with a thud in a small trailer without air conditioning or running water in Dayton, Nevada. Kerry joined Twitter (@alleycat22469), initially to “yell at anyone and everyone I could,” he says. When that strategy proved ineffective, he began reaching out to other homeless people and eventually found Horvath and WeAreVisible.com.
Tweeting for Survival
Before a local homeless outreach event, Kerry collected $3 worth of cans, cashed them in and used the money to make 21 copies of fliers for WeAreVisible.com. “I had nothing better to do,” Kerry says about becoming an evangelist for the site. “I was tired of being angry at the world.” Followers of the site, its Twitter feed, its Facebook page and the hashtag #wearevisible, use it to rally support for each other. Recently, they got word of a diabetic homeless man who had lost weight and needed new pants. Kerry and others posted the man’s plea. The pants started pouring in.
Kerry even used the internet to finally find help. After searching for resources for homeless vets, he came across a VA housing voucher program. While showing him a two-bedroom apartment that was being renovated, a landlord said, “You gotta picture it after it’s done.” “Well, it’s a lot better than where we are now,” Kerry replied laughing. ”Without the computer I don’t know where we would have been,” he says. Two weeks ago, the family moved into housing.
They’ve got similar hopes for their friend Rd Plasschaert, who lives one state over in California. She says she received more help in seven days online than she did in eight months in the real world. After getting nowhere calling shelters, a homeless woman told her to try Twitter. “Twitter? You’ve got to kidding,” Plasschaert, 55, remembers saying. But she gave it a shot (@lostawareness). Twenty-four hours later, there was Horvath, tweeting simply, “What’s your story?”
She told him she was about to be homeless. He guided her to the PATH Achieve shelter in Glendale, where she has lived happily for the past 90 days. Seeking a safety net on the web helped her avoid her greatest fear. “Quite frankly, I would be sleeping on the streets if I hadn’t opened myself up to social media. I’m off the streets because of it,” she says.
With about $221 a month in government assistance and less than that in food stamps, Plasschaert can’t afford to move into an apartment, where she can use her juicer again. Until she can, she’s spreading the word, online and in her shelter, about We Are Visible. She says she tells them, “People, do you realize what we have available to us?”
This week, her time at the shelter runs out. She doesn’t know where she’s going but, strangely, she’s not scared. She’s visible now.
