- Can I be honest with you.
I've been in this alley trying to record a standup
for the last hour.
You got helicopters, and police sirens, and people going by.
Oh gosh,
recording video outside in the public, in Los Angeles,
is so much fun.
But the truth is, I really don't know what to say, except,
I love you.
A million subscribers.
We have a million subscribers.
And it all happened because of you.
You make Invisible People happen.
12 years ago,
when I first interviewed John on Hollywood Boulevard,
I wasn't trying to make the world a better place.
And there's no way, even in my wildest dreams,
I could have imagined that this YouTube channel
would hit 1 million subscribers.
I was just trying to give myself a reason
to get up in the morning.
I was unemployed.
It was an extended period of unemployment.
I didn't know where my food was gonna come from.
I didn't know where rent was going to come from.
I had this idea of helping to empower homeless people,
to share their own stories, because as a homeless person,
and as somebody that had worked in homeless services,
I saw how leadership,
and people making the decisions that affect homeless people,
were completely disconnected from homeless people.
I had this idea to empower homeless people,
to share their own stories.
And I had no way to make it happen.
I lost my workstation when I lost my house to foreclosure
in the '08 crash.
And back then, laptops couldn't cut video.
So I almost didn't do it.
And then one day I just decided to go out
and interview John, and I couldn't edit the video.
So when John started to crawl,
I really didn't know what to do.
It was, you know, scary.
And I knew John
from when I was sleeping on Hollywood Boulevard.
Uploaded it raw, unedited.
And that was the magic.
Authenticity has replaced production value.
Today, we hit one million subscribers, thanks to you.
You guys did this.
Invisible People's work has never been more vital
than it is today.
Our world is filled with propaganda,
and misinformation on homelessness.
We have to make the truth louder.
There's a direct connection
between what people believe on homelessness,
and policy change.
Criminalization is growing.
Around the country,
they're making it illegal for somebody to sit,
for somebody to lie down.
They're making complete sections of cities illegal,
when homelessness is growing.
What's insane about that is,
they're putting more effort
into getting homeless people out of sight,
than actually helping them get out of homelessness.
And since homelessness is growing, this is crazy.
It is just going to make everything worse.
Invisible People's work, thanks to you,
is helping to change the story of homelessness
12 years ago,
what just started as me interviewing homeless people,
raw and edited, is now we're on Google News,
and we're on Apple News,
and we're posting journalism daily.
We do mini documentaries.
We now did scripted films.
We have a film coming up
about a black family being evicted in Vegas,
all thanks to you.
Invisible People reaching one million subs,
is a performance metric,
but it validates that we're having impact
in changing the story of homelessness.
We're changing the conversation and the culture
surrounding homelessness.
And in 2022,
we're going to grow more than we have in the past decade.
All thanks to you.
For eight years,
Invisible People only had 20,000 subs/
For a nonprofit, 20,000 subs is good.
For a nonprofit that's working
to educate the public on homelessness,
20,000 subs is a miracle.
So today, hitting 1 million subscribers, I'm blown away.
I'm blown away, grateful.
Thank you, because you guys did this.
And you did it in the last couple of years.
All the growth that we are seeing
is the last couple of years.
And what's so awesome about this,
is it's increased our impact in reaching people,
and to help tell the authentic story of homelessness,
a nonprofit that works to educate the public on homelessness
with 1 million subscribers on YouTube?
It's a miracle.
And you help make it happen.
As we go into 2022,
we're believing it's going to be our biggest year yet.
We're working on some new content ideas.
If you have some suggestions,
something that you'd like to see more of or less of,
we're always listening to your feedback.
Please let us know in the comments.
And again, thank you, thank you so very much
for believing in me,
believing in this work.
We are doing something special.
We're making miracles happen.
(bright music)