Life on the Streets

Every person sleeping rough has a different story to tell. These stories belong to former prisoners, addicts both current and recovering, the chronically unwell or disabled, and victims of family or business breakdowns.

• Hayley has been in and out of homelessness since she was 14; “I got addicted to drugs at a young age to deal with how I was feeling about my life. It hurts when you have to sit in a service waiting room all day to see if there’s somewhere for you to go, and then be turned away at the end of the day with nowhere to go.”
• Stoney was married for 8 years and after the divorce, his life started to fall apart; “when you’re homeless you’re desperate. You’ve got nothing. You’ve got no loved ones around you, you’ve got no roof over your head. It’s more or less a dog-eat-dog world on the streets.”
• Ash has been without a home for two years, he is 17; “All my mates would be walking down the street and they’d be like ‘I’m going home’ and I’d think to myself, well I’m going to walk around for the next 5-6 hours until I catch a bus back to where I’m staying, it’s embarrassing. There have been times where I’ve asked everyone, and have had a room at all my mates houses and I’ve no more options. I’ve had to go and buy a tent and a sleeping bag and sleep down in the public toilets. It’s not the nicest thing and it’s pretty scary and cold. I remember feeling numb.”
  
  ABC News. (2016). Surviving homelessness: Realities of life on the street. [online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-04/how-i-survived-homelessness-abc-open/7679622