- [Mark] Charlie, it's great to see ya.
- Same here, Mark.
- [Mark] Really sucks you're still homeless.
- Yeah, I know,
but what else am I gonna do?
I'm gonna keep doin' this until,
you know, honestly, there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Faint, but I can see it.
And I'm running to it.
So, I'm not goin' the other way,
I just keep running to it and there's a great possibility
for me to get housing and I just keep looking
for another job and doing the program that I'm doing
so I just after being employed just for
six, seven months I'm starving for it again.
- [Mark] You wanna work.
- I do wanna work, more so than ever.
I wanna be, now that I'm back on the system,
on welfare and everything, I wanna get off of it.
I wanna get off of it.
Y'know, that bandaid can be a crutch for most people.
And I ended up using it as a crutch.
And I don't like it.
- [Mark] People ask for update videos.
So we're updating and some people might not know
you lost your job.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] And you got sick, went in the hospital.
- Twice.
- [Mark] Twice.
- Twice.
Two times with flu and pneumonia.
- [Mark] Oh, my gosh.
- My blood pressure dropped so bad that
they didn't they kept checking my white count
is what they said.
'Cause they were suspicious that it might be something else.
And when they said that, I was,
fearful that it might be cancer or something.
- [Mark] You're okay now?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, actually.
- [Mark] Except for losing your job.
- Except for my, but you know what,
it's just a job, there's plenty of jobs,
there's plenty work out there.
And I'll get another one.
Not worried about it.
- [Mark] That's a great attitude.
- It's the only attitude that I have.
- [Mark] Well people don't understand
when you're sleeping outside,
and we happen to be at the parking lot
where you sleep at night.
- Yeah, yeah.
- [Mark] It's damp, it's rainy.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] You get sick.
Or you get sick and you don't recover quickly.
- Not as quickly as normally would be indoors, yeah.
Don't have the warmth or the comfort or lets your body rest.
- [Mark] And you went into the hospital twice.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] How many times have you been in the hospital
in the last year?
- Maybe eight or nine.
- [Mark] Eight or nine times, you've been in the hospital?
- Yeah, that's also for asthma attack, yeah.
Seizure, 'cause I have a seizure disorder.
- [Mark] Eight or nine times in the last 12 months?
- Yes, yeah.
- [Mark] See the public doesn't understand
we pay for that, tax payers pay for that,
so getting you off the street to an apartment
is cheaper and saves money,
but more importantly it saves lives.
- Yeah, yeah, I don't think, that's what
people really understand, yeah.
I mean, I have medical insurance
and that was one of the first things
that I wanted to get,
I still wanna continue to live and exist.
I'm not gonna give up.
- [Mark] Eight times in the hospital.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] To me it's we need to house people
'cause it saves lives,
but somebody's not compassionate,
we need to house people to save tax payer money.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] It's expensive,
so on a happier note, you're still video blogging?
- Still, yeah, more so, in little over a year
I went from zero to quite a few hundred.
And it keeps going up.
It's not about the money, it's not about the fame,
because I'm not monetized,
they keep switching it over so nothin' that I have
is monetized and I don't care about it,
I just wanna bring awareness to people.
- [Mark] But what I didn't know until this morning
when you picked on me for wearing shorts,
so I'm the New Yorker now in California,
just because it's rainy and damp, it's still warm to me.
But I didn't know you started because of invisible people.
- Yeah, after being angry at the world
and just straight out angry,
I just going through YouTube and on YouTube,
trending videos and your video,
one of your videos was trending
and I watched it and your approach was soothing
and I liked it and I clicked on your video list,
watched it, became a subscriber,
and then I turned on that little bell icon
and I just I been watching you ever since.
I've been following you.
Because of you, your technique,
I've little by little, I've become
a little bit more relaxed to be in front of the camera.
And I guess it's also more therapeutical for me.
- [Mark] It's like journaling.
Some people journal, you're a video blogger,
but I didn't know you started because of my work.
- Oh, yeah.
- [Mark] And I am honored that
and you know this because we do live chats now
and you join the chat room
when I talk to the community live.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] There's a huge amount
of homeless people on YouTube.
- Yeah, there is, there is.
And actually and to my surprisement,
I found out that I have a handful of subs
that are homeless and they even,
the funny thing that really humbled me
is that they say that I'm an inspiration to them.
- [Mark] Well you're an inspiration to me.
- I just, I'm still having,
still having a hard time accepting the fact that
maybe I could be an inspiration to my children, yeah.
But to strangers, to people out there,
that humbles me even more.
And every time I, it's just hard to swallow right now.
- [Mark] Oh, my god.
- But no, whenever someone tells me that
it's just it just humbling.
- [Mark] It's humbling to me that somebody who is homeless
finds the invisible people YouTube channel,
is inspired about it, and starts telling your story.
- Well you're channel is impactful, very impactful.
- [Mark] So, that to me, because
it's not really the videos, it's the conversation
that it starts.
- Right.
- [Mark] And how the video inspires other people
which I've always, in my mind,
thought that was not homeless people.
Although there's been a couple that have been
interviewed and actually went and changed their life.
I'm blown away at how many homeless people
are consuming homeless videos and like you
were inspired by the work and start vlogging.
I mean, my whole work really is to amplify
the story of homeless people.
- Right.
- [Mark] And you're now vlogging yourself, oh my gosh,
it's so aah.
- And when I was working I started doing less and less
and I was missing it.
And what I was really also missing was,
your live streams, let's talk about homelessness
or anything else.
And for a while I was there, all the time.
And then I started working and I would get the notification
after I got off work and got back to my spot
then the next morning the library and logged on
and there was the notification and it's like,
darn I missed it, y'know, and I was lovin' that.
- [Mark] Tell me about homelessness in Los Angeles.
Homelessness in Pasadena.
- Homelessness in Pasadena seems to be getting worse.
I notice that there's an ebb and flow in downtown LA.
People get up early in the morning,
and around six or seven as businesses are startin' to close
you see people lining up to get their spot.
The same thing now, now that I'm back in Pasadena full-time
they're doin' the same thing,
on Colorado and on South Lake
and South Lake is where the locals shop,
that's where the money is.
And Old Town, right across the street from us in fact.
City Hall, right in front in the back walls
of the police station, it's everywhere.
It's just it's not getting any better.
And I never expected it to be this bad in Pasadena,
but the parks, Central Park, Memorial Park,
it's I don't understand, it's like an epidemic
and there's, it doesn't seem like to be a cure for it.
But there is a cure,
it's just they don't want it in their backyard.
They have no problem with solving homelessness
but the way people speak it's just like,
not in my backyard.
We'll give you the money, but not here.
And that's sad, that saddens me.
- [Mark] How does that make you feel?
- It saddens me.
And even more so now, I'm still a little saddened
because Memorial Day there was a rumor that
there was supposed to be a feeding for homelessness
at Memorial Park, so I went there, I was doing vlogging
for Memorial Day, and there were people
at the spots where I used to feed them,
when I was workin' for the non-profit organization.
Word got back that it's back at the church,
we went back there, 'bout 25 or 30 of us migrated
in 81 degree temperature, four blocks
in about 5 minute flat, and by the time I got there
they were people already had some food in there
and then one of the gentlemen from the church
I've never seen him before
and that church I had worked there for about a year,
started yelling at people, berating them,
you gotta get off the property,
take it off the property,
you don't want us to get in trouble.
Meaning, they don't have permits
or the authority to feed the homeless.
'Cause what church would turn away a homeless person?
- [Mark] Oh, my gosh.
- And one of, one of my friends he says,
you know this is why I don't trust it, y'know.
When it comes to something that's religion based
or whatever, people are starting to shy away from it.
- [Mark] There's some great churches doin' some great stuff.
- Oh, granted, yeah.
- [Mark] But it's low and we need all faith based
organizations, what would you say to a Nimbi?
- I dunno.
I dunno.
I just.
- [Mark] I mean, what would you say to a Nimbi
that is not filled with swear words?
- Wow.
- [Mark] I mean, y'know, without anger and emotion.
- Just, don't forget that I dunno
that everybody's human, y'know.
This morning, I dunno.
I think humanity it's sometimes it seems like it's lost,
but it's there, I had a bit of a situation this morning
where I was washin' up,
I was washin' up and one of the maintenance worker
told me, he says, y'know,
those paper towels are for everybody.
I go, yes, I don't take any more than anybody does.
And he's seen me there for the past couple years.
And for some reason he just decided to get snide with me.
But, I didn't get angry,
I just said, okay, well I didn't know
and I just kept going, he says, nobody told you.
I go, no, nobody told me.
So, I dunno, it's I do my best not to get angry
and for the most part I don't get angry.
I'll get a little bit heartbroken and saddened,
but yeah the anger is yeah,
it kind of keeps itself at bay.
But it does flare up once in a while,
but quickly goes away.
- [Mark] You're an inspiration, Charlie.
If you had three wishes what would they be?
- To get a job.
To be reunited with my daughter.
And actually, to take my daughter to Disney Land.
- [Mark] Oh, wow.
- Yeah, I'm a Disney baby and I don't.
- [Mark] So I'm gonna put the GoFundMe link below
and somebody hit that link, donate,
and let's get Charlie to take his daughter
to Disney Land.
And I forgot one more thing,
you got socks in your hand.
- I got socks.
- [Mark] And you ordered those socks online,
it's never happened, I mean that somebody
reaches out to me on Facebook, or Twitter
and says, could you bring socks?
- Well, and also truth be told,
I can't afford socks right now
and neither can my friends.
- [Mark] We're gonna hook them up, too.
- This is worth it's weight in gold,
so socks are very important to us, yeah, yeah.
- [Mark] Well thank you very much for talking to me.
- Thank you Mark and it's been great to see you again.