There’s various different reasons why I’ve been made homeless in the past.

On one occasion I got made homeless, I’d moved out of my flat to help look after a friend’s children because she was going through a major depression. And then one day she just kicked me out.

Another occasion I’d had this amazing landlord, he owned two properties on one street. He went bankrupt, sold to a bigger company, and they issued us all with a section 21 – ‘get out, we’re putting students in’ – and I couldn’t find anywhere to move into quickly enough.

Your whole world just drops out.

I lost all my teeth because I couldn’t look after them. Try brushing your teeth in a public toilet and just see what people are saying to you. Try having a wash in a public toilet. 

Luckily in Salford Loaves and Fishes, they’ve got shower facilities and laundry facilities and everything. But some of the other places out there, there’s absolutely nothing.

You’re walking around – even if you are walking to the day centre to get your clothes washed and get a shower – you are walking from where you’ve slept to that place in dirty, smelly clothes because you’ve been asleep in them all night. You get looks then.

I’ve been spat at, I’ve been kicked, I’ve been urinated on.

The whole reason I came into the Manchester area, the night before I came here I got kicked awake at about four o’clock in the morning. Some guy with a Rottweiler and a loaded needle. I mean, there could have just been air in it, it could have been anything in it. I didn’t know.

‘Give us all your money’ of which I had like 50p. 

‘Give us your phone’, which wasn’t a smartphone, it was an old Nokia, which he then threw back in my face.

And ‘Give us all your medication.’ And all I had on me was paracetamol you know.

So I then got a few more kicks ‘cause I had nothing for him. And basically got told to leave the town, which I duly did the next morning.

Somebody that has just started coming into Salford Loaves and Fishes recently, they said when they were a teenager they would’ve been one of the ones doing that spitting at people that are homeless and what have you. Because they didn’t know any better. But now they’re homeless and they understand now just how easy it is.

One guy I know used to be a lawyer, ended up getting a divorce, started drinking, which spiralled totally out of control. Lost his house because of it. The ex-wife took him to the cleaners with the bank account and everything and he ended up homeless. It is so easy.

It’s only gonna get worse.

Stereotypes? We’re all lazy, don’t want to get a job. All just sit on the park bench with bottles of whatever in brown paper bags. Haven’t got an education. Can’t be bothered doing anything with their lives. Can’t be bothered trying to get out of the situation. 

But once you are in that situation, your life just spirals further down until you get somebody that will help you out of it. And there is nothing you can do about it until somebody is gonna help you. Yeah, you’ve gotta do it all for yourself. But you need somebody to point you in the right direction.

Especially if you do have addiction issues, that just makes it worse because you can’t sleep on a night, because you don’t feel safe. So you’ll have a drink to help you sleep and then the next night it’ll be a bit more, and then a bit more. And then before you know it, you’re a full on addict. That’s why there’s such a big spice problem as well around here, I believe. Because it just numbs the brain.

I know people who have never touched a drug in their life – not even smoking cigarettes – until they were made homeless and they ended up getting addicted to something just to help them get through it. To help them get to sleep at night.

I think for women as well, it’s harder. You walk around like Manchester City Center, you will see men in sleeping bags on the streets, but you won’t see many women unless they’re with a group of people. And that’s because we hide away. I wouldn’t have slept on the streets in full view of everybody. I would find somewhere tucked away where nobody could see me.

I never went anywhere without a baseball bat.

if you are one of the outreach team, if, especially if you’re on your own, you don’t wanna be looking in, you know, all the nooks and crannies because you wouldn’t be safe.

And if to make yourself safe, you go out in a group, 2, 3, 4, then people are gonna hide even further away to keep themselves safe. Because if you see a group of people walking towards you when you’re homeless, the first thought in your head is, they’re gonna do me, they’re about to attack me. So you hide even further away.

I still wake up on a night having had a dream where I’ve been hiding under a bush or whatever. The strangest thing is though, I can be on a bus going somewhere and pass somewhere and I’m thinking, oh that’d be a good place to sleep.

Even though I haven’t actually been on the streets for five years, I still think, oh, that would be a good spot to sleep.