Reader\'s Digest Australia - 05.2019

May• 2019 | 31

You’ve been misled by television and

movies: homeless people aren’t dangerous.

Here’s the reality from a man who spent

20 years on the streets

FIRST PERSON

Homeless doesn’t mean

uneducated

When people think of a homeless

person, they don’t usually think of

the star high school athlete or the guy

with a degree – yet that’s exactly what

I am. I have a university Bachelor’s

degree in communications. And I

wasn’t the only one out there with

similar credentials. There are plenty

of extremely intelligent people who,

because of life circumstances, end up

homeless. The ones who don’t have a

formal education have to get smart in

a different way if they want to survive.

Homeless doesn’t always

mean living on the streets

I was homeless for the better part

of 20 years, so I’ve lived in a lot of

places. Some of them are what you

might think of as typical, such as

parks, beaches, shelters and under

BY MARK ANTHONY DIBELLO,

AS TOLD TO CHARLOTTE HILTON ANDERSEN

PHOTO: COURTESY MARK ANTHONY DIBELLO

bridges, but others might surprise

you. When you’re homeless, your

first priority is finding a safe place to

sleep and sometimes that means you

get creative. I spent months living in

an outdoor public bathroom, an air-

port, my car, a deserted cabin in the

woods, and a storage locker (which

felt so plush it didn’t really even feel

like being homeless!). Perhaps the

worst one was when I lived in a semi-

trailer; they accidentally locked me in

for four days and I almost died.

There is more than

one reason why people

become homeless

It might make you feel better if you

can pinpoint the reason someone

ends up homeless – say, drug abuse,

mental illness, or criminal activities –

because then you think, by avoiding

those things you’ll be safe. In some