A rough sleeper who was homeless on the streets of East London for over a decade says he had himself thrown in prison just so he could have somewhere to sleep at night. Michael David Norman, 55, was in-and-out of custody for 15 years, struggling with addiction on the streets of Newham, home to the most rough sleepers in the city.

In the borough a staggering one in 21 people are homeless, according to research from homelessness charity Shelter, from 2023. This figure is over twice as high as the average across London – one in every 58 people.

Michael became homeless after his relationship with his partner broke down. His journey with homelessness has featured in a BBC documentary, which followed his time serving in Pentonville prison.

Michael used to live at the shopping centre in Stratford with 200-300 people a night (Image: Katherine Gray)

“I came out of Pentonville and I deliberately got myself arrested. The reason I did the prison documentary was to highlight, ‘I’m coming back for somewhere to live’,” he told MyLondon.

“Because I’m only getting three or four months at a time as a shoplifter, I thought that’s the least crime I could do, it wasn’t burgling houses or breaking into someone’s car or something, I thought that was the worst thing I could do. So I’m going into prison, then I’m coming out homeless again.”

According to Shelter, Newham has an estimated 17,710 people who are homeless and living in temporary accommodation. This is around 10,000 more people than Westminster which is the London borough with the second highest number of rough sleepers – 7,720.

“Until Covid-19 started I was living in and around the shopping centre in Stratford with 200-300 people a night,” said Michael.

“I’ve slept with my friends in Stratford shopping centre and I’ve woken up without my cash card and that – it’s all gone – and my shoes, and that’s my friends [taking them].”

Michael is now a resident at charity-run accommodation Your Place, which helps rough sleepers get off the streets for good. He moved there during the Covid-19 pandemic, when there was a dedicated effort from governments to move homeless people off the streets. Despite having lived on Newham’s streets for 15 years, Michael says the crisis is now so bad that he prefers not to go out after dark.

“I don’t go out anywhere at night, once it’s dark the furthest I’ll go is the front door. There’s nothing good out there at night, it’s scary. Newham’s got a real bad homeless problem. It’s a big borough with a lot of issues.”

Speaking about how the former ‘tent city’ he inhabited was cleared, he said: “We had a tent city at Stratford for quite a long time, I lived there and I went back with BBC [after Covid-19] and it was empty, and that showed what money can do.”

Amanda Dubarry is the Chief Executive of Your Place, and has worked in homeless services for around 30 years. She says the demand for their services is higher than it’s ever been, with the centre being full and often having to close their waiting lists.

She said: “It’s incredibly difficult, I think a lot of London councils are under similar pressures, I mean in Newham, I think the statistics talk for themselves, there’s more people in Newham experiencing homelessness than anywhere else in the country.

“It’s really depressing as a professional working in the sector, I’ve been Chief Executive for a very long time, over 20 years in this sector, and it’s really grim looking at how much knowledge and skill and will and commitment there is from the sector to tackle the issue, and yet how far we’re stepping every quarter, when the statistics come out, the numbers are getting worse and worse.”