‘It’s hard coming home to a tent’: the rise of Australia’s working homeless

‘I work full-time. I should be able to get a home’: Cheryl Rowe, who is living at a campsite in WA’s Margaret River region. Photograph: David Dare Parker/Photograph by David Dare Parker

At 5am most mornings, Cheryl Rowe’s alarm wakes her up in the camping trailer where she has been living for three months. It signals time for the 63-year-old to start her work day as a cleaner.

Torch in hand, she gets ready and packs the car at the caravan park in Western Australia’s Margaret River region. She has been asked to be quiet so as not to wake the tourists. Then she spends the rest of her day cleaning, part of it scrubbing holiday homes that sometimes sit empty.