He'd Rather Work Than Panhandle

by Mark Horvath · 2010-07-25 12:02:00 UTC
Topics:

This new video comes from Mark's InvisiblePeople.tv 30-city, 11,000-mile, 75-day road trip, going on now.

It's summer and many people have a second home to get away from the heat. Well, so does Rick. He lives in a tunnel underneath Las Vegas. When the weather is hot like the day we visited he lives near the end of the tunnel because there is a breeze. When colder weather comes he goes deeper into the tunnel for warmth.

Rick has lived in the tunnels off and on for six years. He survives by panhandling, pumping gas, washing windows and doing other odd jobs. He tries to work instead of begging for change.

As we were walking down into the tunnel one of Rick's friends told me Rick helped him get off the streets by giving him hope. When I asked Rick about this he says, "that's just what I do."

I wonder what the world would be like if every person just helped one person get out of homelessness.

Special thanks to Matthew O'Brien

Mark Horvath is an activist for the homeless. He vlogs at invisiblepeople.tv and blogs at hardlynormal.com. He was formerly homeless in Hollywood.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Chicago Pays Lots of Teachers $100K, Lays Off Lots of Others
NEXT STORY:
Is the NCAA Putting Student Athletes at Risk?

COMMENTS (0)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.