A huge thankyou to everyone who has donated so far. Your contribution makes a big difference. I know this from experience. Ive been 'encouraged' by my daughters to say a little bit about my own homeless experiences. I didnt really want to but I'll say a bit. I left home at 17 and this started several years of homelessness on and off. I am 58 now  but have never been able to forget those experiences so I just accept it as it is. I often hear homeless people  saying how they can live on the streets ok as part of a 'community' of homeless people.  That's where they find their support. Helped by food banks, handouts and maybe even drugs or alcohol. Well thats bravado. Most suffer a lot more than they let on. When I first became homeless in 1977 I can tell you it wasnt so common. Homeless law had only just been introduced and meant very little. No food banks and support was hard to find. My experience walking the streets of Bristol was of one of lonliness, fear, hunger, tiredness and hopelessness. I was hungry, virtually always. During the day I wasnt too bad in that I could find someone to talk to if I wanted to - I rarely wanted to. At night, everyone disappeared. I'll never forget the devastating isolation. Being left outside as everyone else in the world went 'home'. Although I didnt sleep outside very often, when I did, I didnt cope with it very well. There was no-one else. Other times I slept in terrible hostels or on the floor of a squat or ocassionally I would be offered a bed. I refused drugs always. I rarely drank alcohol. I didnt want money. I wanted something to eat and for someone to tell me everything was going to be ok because it wasnt ok for me. I didnt want to get into a fight with other young men all the time just to survive. People thought I was coping but I wasnt. I needed an organisation like the YMCA. I didnt have that and so it has taken me 40 years to try and deal with those issues. Of course, homelessness at a young age nearly always starts with some other traumatic issue and that also needs to be dealt with. So thats why I support the YMCA. They can give help to young people today and tell them it's going to be ok and start the process of helping them find their way in life.

Sleep Easy is part of a national YMCA England campaign where local YMCAs across the country organise events to raise money and awareness of homelessness in the local areas where we work. For more information please find a video on the YMCA England website here: https://www.ymca.org.uk/get-involved/events/sleep-easy