Until he found a job at the Big Issue which was “a ray of hope in the middle of that dark misery”. As I listened to his story I found myself wondering how many Matt’s were there in the UK? How many other people had lost their homes and found themselves begging, selling magazines or just stumbling from one street corner to the next? How many of them could be someone like me? Government statistics talk about hundreds of thousands but in actual fact, they only include people who have applied to local authorities for help – usually families with children and especially vulnerable people. This means that people like Matt are not included in these figures and they represent 40% of homeless people. Homelessness includes all sorts of people, from those who are literally roofless to those who are forced to live in places such as bed and breakfast hotels, hostels, women’s refuges, squats, friends or relatives floors, etc and may also include women with no option but to remain in abusive or maltreating situations. How many people are then not taken into account? And, more important, how do we help all these people, because it is our duty as fellow citizens to transform these people’s miserable lives into prosperous and happy ones. Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, the problem is far more substantial than it