8. Nowhere to Call Home

Tonight, thousands of young people, 2 000 of them girls, will be sleeping rough on the streets of London. As the bitter cold of winter blows round them they will keep warm by walking, finally settling down in a shop doorway, a park bench or railway station for a fitful sleep.

The story of 22-year-old Janice is typical. She had just arrived at a hostel in North Kensington when I spoke to her. After months of sleeping rough she had spent her first night in a bed she could call her own. This is her story:

"My parents were separated. I still see my Dad sometimes, and he gives me a bit of money. But he's in lodgings and he's got a tumour on the brain.

My Mum died in 1975, so I had to leave home.

I had a baby, a little boy called Mark, so I lived in an unmarried mothers' home in Wimbledon for a while. But I couldn't stick that, so I found a family to look after him and took a job making lampshades. I stayed with a friend for a couple of weeks, but she wasn't supposed to take lodgers and when they found out I got chucked out. No one could help me, so I had to sleep rough.

It was early summer, but the nights were still cold. I'd sleep in bus-shelters, shop doorways. But I'd only sleep for half an hour, then I'd hear a noise and wake up. The worst thing about being a girl sleeping out is all the men who approach you.

Sometimes I'd go to the police station and ask for a bed. When they did put me up it was on a hard chair, and they kept waking me up and asking me if I was on drugs. People didn't believe I was sleeping rough because I looked so clean and tidy. I used to walk from Wallington to the public toilets in Sutton every day for a wash—I even used to wash my hair there. I kept all I needed in a plastic bag and used that as a pillow at night.

After five weeks of this I couldn't keep my job any longer. I spent my days walking round the shops, which was really depressing because I didn't have any money to buy anything.

Then I moved in with a friend in a hostel, sleeping on the floor in her room. After six weeks I was sleeping out again, till I met a man who let me sleep in his car. Then I stayed with friends. Next I went to a hostel in Cheam, but I was the youngest there and I couldn't stand it. Next day I came up to London to look for my brother. He wasn't there, but his friends suggested that I come to this hostel.

Now I've discovered that I'm expecting a baby again. I suppose I'll be in a mother-and-baby home somewhere, because I couldn't bear to have an abortion. Then I don't know what will happen. I'll be back in the same old situation again, going round in the same circle."