Watford New Hope Trust

People just don't understand us. They call us winos and drunks, they don't see us as human or belonging to their society. We have to be family to each other because our real family walk past us in the streets and ignore us. We share and share alike. That's the code of being on the street; sharing your last roll-up, your last bottle of drink.

We'll never forget them
Too many people have died on the streets this year, Nobby, Pete, Gill, Dino, Lorraine..... The hurt you feel inside when someone dies is indescribable because these were your friends. All the time you're thinking 'who's going to be next'.

We'll never forget them because we shared our lives together. You think about them every day. They were our best friends. It should never have happened.

It is hard to keep out of trouble with the police. Most of us have got an ASBO and that means that we have nowhere to go; nowhere safe to sleep. We can't even go to the loo because it's on the wrong side of the road!

Drugs and alcohol blot out the pain
We are beaten up by gangs. At the weekend they spit at us, swear at us, throw empty cans and if we are asleep in a doorway they will just come and kick us. I've had broken ribs, black eyes and even my fingers stamped on.

Drugs and alcohol become a prop to help you survive. It's your medication to help you sleep at night, to stop you feeling cold, to blot out the pain...

For a while you can forget about everything. I don't feel responsible for being homeless. It's just circumstances, death of my children, broken marriage, failed relationships, loss of my home as I couldn't pay the rent.

The Night Shelter helps a lot. We have beds to sleep in, it's safe and warm and we can keep clean. But most of all we wish that we could stay longer than 28 days before we have to go out again on the streets.

* Sadly Glen died in March 2008.