When the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals that more than 116,000 people are homeless, it can be easy to get lost in numbers.
But every single one of those numbers is a person who doesn’t have a safe place to sleep tonight, or tomorrow.
In the new edition of The Big Issue, we go beyond the statistics to hear from the very people these numbers represent – Big Issue vendors who share their lived realities of homelessness, from rough sleeping to couch surfing to boarding houses and crisis accommodation.
Their stories are illuminating and devastating, at times hopeful, and evidence that homelessness is more than not having a place to sleep.
Plus, we show that homelessness is not unsolvable, by investigating some of the initiatives around the globe that are tackling homelessness head on.