Pasquale Giorgio asked for help while sleeping rough in Surfers Paradise. The next day he died in a police van

Olivia Centofanti holds a photo of her uncle Pasquale Giorgio, who died aged 54, three decades before the mean age of death in Australia, in line with a vast life expectancy gap common to people experiencing homelessness. Photograph: Sia Duff/The Guardian

On the day before he died in the back of a police van, foaming at the mouth, Pasquale Giorgio asked an officer for help.

It was early April 2016 and Giorgio was homeless and far from home.