I survived care, criminality and homelessness to become an award-winning journalist – but the system I endured makes such success stories vanishingly rare
When I zipped up my tent on my first night sleeping rough, I felt no despair. It was 2013 and I had picked a grassy patch near a bridle path, where I listened to the wind rustling through the trees as raindrops bounced off my nylon roof. I had always assumed something like this was going to happen to me. It had felt almost inevitable for years.
When viewed in isolation, my journey to the streets seems entirely of my own making. I had racked up considerable rent arrears, I was drinking heavily and I had left my flat without being evicted. I went to live in a tent and on random sofas for a few weeks, before moving into a charitable homeless hostel. Surely it was all my fault?
