Los Angeles Homeless Family Living in Weekly Rate Hotel

If you'd like to help support Olivia here is her GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/Break-the-po...

These days, a growing number of families are turning to ‘weekly rate’ hotels as a way to stay off the streets. But don’t let the roof fool you, many of these motels-turned-homes are shoddy, small, and unkempt. Hardly ideal living conditions for any person, nevermind young children.

Olivia and her son Alex live in a small hotel room in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County. The area is filled with miles of weekly rate hotels that provide refuge for low-income families. Prostitution, drug use, and violence often occur in the same hotels. Often called the "hidden homeless', families with children that cannot afford adequate housing call these hotels home.

Olivia shares an often too common struggle low-income single moms have to go through on a daily basis just to survive. The strength and resilience Olivia has going from hotel to hotel and job to job are beyond commendable. Olivia is an amazing young mother giving her all to raise her son against all obstacles.

Most people hold on to the belief that homelessness is an older man with a cardboard sign begging for money. They also hold on strongly to the false belief that the solution to homelessness is the homeless person just needs to get a job. Olivia and her son living in a hotel are the homelessness you don't see, but you need to see. Olivia also is employed but still cannot afford an apartment.

Family homelessness, once viewed as episodic and situational, has become chronic, with families accounting for 37% of the overall homeless population and 50% of the sheltered population.

1 in 30 American children experiences homelessness. They live with or without their families, in shelters, cars and abandoned buildings. Families are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population, accounting for almost 40-50% of the nation’s homeless. Lack of affordable housing is a primary cause of homelessness in families; often one or both parents are working, but not making a livable wage. Additionally, events such as illness, unemployment, accidents, and violence limit the ability to secure stable housing and affordable housing.

Olivia is an amazing young mother and an inspiration. She has a dream of going to law school to become a lawyer and eventually, the first African woman to be a Supreme Court Judge. I have a feeling she'll make it happen.


Very special thanks to LA Family Housing https://lafh.org
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Since its launch in November 2008, Invisible People has leveraged the power of video and the massive reach of social media to share the compelling, gritty, and unfiltered stories of homeless people from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. The vlog (video blog) gets up close and personal with veterans, mothers, children, layoff victims and others who have been forced onto the streets by a variety of circumstances. Each week, they’re on InvisiblePeople.tv, and high traffic sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, proving to a global audience that while they may often be ignored, they are far from invisible.

Invisible People goes beyond the rhetoric, statistics, political debates, and limitations of social services to examine poverty in America via a medium that audiences of all ages can understand, and can’t ignore. The vlog puts into context one of our nation’s most troubling and prevalent issues through personal stories captured by the lens of Mark Horvath – its founder – and brings into focus the pain, hardship and hopelessness that millions face each day. One story at a time, videos posted on InvisiblePeople.tv shatter the stereotypes of America’s homeless, force shifts in perception and deliver a call to action that is being answered by national brands, nonprofit organizations and everyday citizens now committed to opening their eyes and their hearts to those too often forgotten.

Invisible People is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to changing the way we think about people experiencing homelessness.