The worst part is at night. 
 

During the day Michael Patton, 33, keeps himself busy and occasionally time passes quicker. But not at night. 
 

When the sun goes down and darkness falls, any small comfort of warmth you may have had during the day begins to fade. 

​

Lying on the cold concrete floors of Leicester is always worse in winter. You have to sleep with one eye open, just in case someone wants to cause a bit of easy trouble. It happens more times than you think. 

​

Michael knows this. This will be the 15th winter that he’s spent under the stars. 

​

He lays out the thin piece of cardboard that will act as his bed tonight and settles down next to the McDonald’s just outside Highcross. 

He didn’t choose this life - few homeless people do. His story is not an uncommon one. Speak to most people living rough and they’ll tell you a similar tale. But with Michael it seems even more painful. The kind of pain that still lingers and torments you 15 years on.

 

“I was brought up in Skegness,” says Michael. “I lived with my mum and dad. We had a small house, but

I was happy. 

 

“It wasn’t a bad upbringing to be fair – I can’t grumble. My dad, Charlie, worked as a roofer. He did what

needed to be done for the family and I appreciated that,” he says. 

​

Michael’s mum, Shelly, was his favourite though. She didn’t work, so was always there for him whenever he

needed her. 

​

She was cheery and funny. Her smile radiated kindness and positive energy. She was only 5ft 2in tall – 5ft 5in

in her heels, she always said – but she seemed taller because of her larger-than-life personality. 

​

Shelly and Michael’s relationship was closer than most mothers and sons. That’s why it hurt him so deeply when

he found out she had cancer. 

“Fucking cancer,” he says. 

​

Michael still remembers the very moment his mum told him as if it was this morning. Countless sleepless nights on the streets does that to a man. All the time by yourself allows you to replay those unbearable moments in your head, over and over again, until it’s harder to forget then remember those dark, harrowing memories. 

​

“She got very ill, very quickly. The doctors said there wasn’t anything they could do, and my dad didn’t know how to handle it. 

​

“I had just turned 17 when I found out mum had cancer. She became so weak. She stopped smiling all the time, she stopped laughing , she stopped radiating joy, and, most painfully, she stopped acting like my mum. 

​

“She died in the summer of 2006,” he adds, with his head buried in his hands. 

​

“My dad completely fell apart. That’s when the drinking began. I’d wake up in the morning and he’d already be pissed - empty bottles scattered everywhere. 

​

“He didn’t even give my mum a funeral. 

​

“One night we had an argument - a big argument. The next morning, he was gone. I haven’t seen him in the 15 years since,” says Michael. 

Michael needed to leave his home. “Too many bad memories,” he says. The house that once had been filled with sweet conversations, simple moments and cherished memories, constantly reminded him of his mother’s demise, and the subsequent fall-out with his now absent father. 

 

The disintegration of Michael’s steady life began here. People like Michael don’t end up automatically on the street. It’s a slow and gradual process. 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

He had no money and no support from anyone. At first, Michael was just staying on a mate’s setter. “Cheers pal. It will only be for a few nights, you say. But it was never just a few nights. And the next thing, you’re in a hostel - and from the hostel it’s a sidestep to the streets. 

​

“I had no qualifications, no family and nowhere to go. Those first nights on the streets were the worst. I knew this was my life now, until I sorted myself out,” he says. 

​

But Michael never sorted himself out. 

​

15 painful years later and he is still trying. But it is a deep hole to climb out of. Sleeping rough has never been a pleasant chapter in Michael’s life. 

It’s a grim life, he says. There is no romanticising the constant struggle of sleeping rough. You can see the struggle on Michael’s face. He looks older than his 33 years. Living like this has a tendency to do that to a man. It’s a hard life and it ages you. 

​

“I think the worst thing to come to terms with is how little people care about you. You feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody. 

​

“People will just step over me or ignore me as if I am not there. It has become socially acceptable to simply ignore those in needs. Those who will die without the help of others. 

​

“You see the same people walk past you, day in, day out, with their designer bags and fur coats. Everything I have owned in the last 15 years – everything I have to account for – I am wearing right now. And they can’t even spare a few coins,” he says. 

​

Michael is an honest and open man. His eyes speak of hard days and even harder nights. The only money he earns is the few pieces of shrapnel that are tossed into his weather-beaten cloth cap that lays on the begrimed, bare concrete floor. 

 

“I made £6.60 today, and that’s a fucking good day. 

​

“You know, I used to believe in God. I used to believe that someone was keeping an eye out for me, and someone was taking care of my mum. I used to believe in that. I don’t anymore,” says Michael, and he waves his hand away, as though he dismisses the thought. 

​

Michael says that in the time he has lived on the streets, he has learnt to be happy. “I don’t think about my mum and dad often anymore, I focus on the here and now, and don’t let anything bring me down,” he says. 

​

It was an impressive façade – but you could see it, the grief, the loss, the sadness, the fact he’d never see his family again, etched on to his face. 

 

Michael is now settling down for another sleepless night under the stars. He once again spreads out his thin, weak strip of cardboard that will host his dreams tonight. Michael isn’t looking forward to it. He won’t get much sleep. He doesn’t like it at night. 

​

The worst part is always at night.