When Ivan became homeless for the first time in his life in June, he tried to “take it as an adventure”. “It was summer and I thought maybe I can be like that guy in the movie Into the Wild,” he said. “I am not scared of the dark and I thought I could camp out in my sleeping bag in parks around London. How bad could it be?”
But after a few months, Ivan, 34, a tradesman in construction who had lost his job and fallen on hard times, started to struggle. “I experienced real hunger,” he said. “I would eat people’s unfinished pizza discarded on park benches. One day I found some little garden allotments where people were growing onions and I ate them raw from the ground. I learned that having no money for food and the hunger that gnaws at you day and night is no joke.”
