I was homeless, I was in the prison system, I was a rough sleeper and I am 60 years old and I still haven't got over it.
If you're a rough sleeper in the city of Sydney or inner suburbs, you're more likely than most urban denizens to face the effects of a "nanny state" concerned about your longneck.
"Loads of people on the streets swear by tents," says Steve, 27, who has been a rough sleeper since the age of 14. "I mean, they give you a bit of extra warmth, so it's a lot easier to stay out in the open than it is if you're just using a sleeping bag". The average age of death for a rough sleeper in England is just 47.
There's a rough sleeper asleep in the corner.
Asleep across four seats is a rough sleeper.
Unless, of course, your first sight after walking out of Finsbury Park tube station – towards the health and wellbeing festival for homeless and vulnerably housed people – was a rough sleeper, apparently lifeless and surrounded by paramedics, as mine was this Monday morning.
One journalist, obliged to speak to DeMarco while seated in a King's Cross doorway so the 23-year-old singer-songwriter could chain-smoke, became increasingly concerned that passers-by might think that, rather than interviewing a hotly tipped new artist, he was pestering a rough sleeper.
He had, in fact, been sleeping under a tree in a nearby park, but had managed to avoid being recorded as a rough sleeper so far, so was eligible for help from NSNO.
What I came to learn here is that there is a world of difference between someone who is homeless and a rough sleeper.
What I came to learn is that there is a world of difference between someone who is homeless and a rough sleeper, and this housing project doesn't focus on the latter.
Passers-by thought she was a sleeping homeless person and did not call for help, and it was not until a rough sleeper went to check on her that paramedics were finally contacted.
