ON THE STREETS OF CENTRAL LONDON

I've been homeless since the age of 15

I've been in London for seventeen years and I've been on the street for six years. The reason why I'm on the street is because my mum passed away. Before my mum died my mum and dad had split up so I went into foster care and I didn't like it, so I have been on the street ever since. When I was in foster care I was fourteen and it was horrible. I didn't like the people, I didn't like the family and I felt outside. So I went living out on the street.

I have been living on the street since I was fifteen and it has been horrible. It's freezing cold and you don't know what is going to happen. You might get a couple of hours sleep if you are not hassled by police in the morning. In town there is a tube station where I sleep that wakes up at seven in the morning and you've got to move on. You don't know whether someone is going to come along and set fire to you, kick you and anything like that. I've had people throw stuff at me, spit at me, my mate has been set alight while he was asleep and could have died and I've had two mates who have been in their sleep and they have both died. At the moment I am waiting for a flat and hopefully I will get one.

On a daily basis I get up, get moved around by police, beg enough food for something to eat and sometimes I just sit down and think. At night I do the same thing and just try to earn me some money. The police move you on and actually arrest you for it; it's actually an illegal offence. In my eyes that should be wrong. Fair enough if you are abusive or drunk but not people such as myself who is respectable and polite. In my eyes it should be up to that individual person whether they want to give you something or not. I don't like people when they just rush by you, ignore you and things like that. I hate it. To me It makes me feel even worse. I know I'm down but I don't see myself as no different to anyone else. The only difference is that I haven't got a roof over my head. I'm still the same person.

I have been in prison because the police arrest you and you go to court and they fine you, or it's one day imprisonment. On a day to day basis you've got to forget about those sort of things. You ain't exactly got an alarm clock to wake you up in the morning for those sorts of things. They sent me to prison for one week which was horrible. That was for begging and failing to appear in court.

I've met a lot of people on the street. I've met close friends. One of my friends is in the hospital at the moment with an abscess in his mouth and he nearly died. That gave him an infection in his heart and he nearly died. I knew him from where my mum used to live and since then I have been with him. He's o.k. He's a lot better than what he was but he's got to come back out here to the same thing though. I'm missing him because I'm on my own.

There was a thing on the news yesterday about they are stopping people giving out food and they say they are going to try and help people with accommodation. To my eyes it's wrong because they should have both. We shouldn't stop charities giving out food and things like that because we need it. They are trying to just sort out permanent accommodation and not things like Crisis who sort out accommodation from Christmas through New Year. They are trying to sort it out all year round. That's good but there are people who have been out here longer than what I have, fifteen to ten years, and this is the only life they know.

Christmas is just another day for me. I don't see Christmas as anything else. It's a time when I wish my mum and that were with me. In London there are no people around on the streets because they want to be with their families and that.