My brother & his wife asked me to move in with them so we could save money. This was just before the recession 2008 . . . I moved in. The recession hit & I lost my job.
They kicked me out & I was homeless for 2 years. When I say I was homeless, I don't mean I lived in a shelter or crashed at a friend's house or even had a car to live out of: I slept on the streets. I slept in parking decks, public restrooms, and at the airport (whenever I could).
Try living in a public restroom for a while. It isn't anything like the movies portray it to be. It really makes you feel like you aren't part of the human race. You sneak in to the restroom at night hoping not to get caught. You don't want to get caught for 2 reasons: you will go to jail and for someone to know you sleep in a public restroom is a degrading feeling.
I wasn't one of the lucky(?) ones who had a job but just didn't make enough to afford an apartment, I had no job, no money, or a car . . . and at this point I had no friends.
I had just recently (2 years prior) returned from being deployed to Iraq. I always thought I could never be homeless much less a homeless vet who had just returned home. Guess what? Anyone can become homeless.
Just as I was starting to get off the streets, I ran into an old friend I hadn't seen in ages. As much as I tried to keep my situation private he figured it out and gave me a place to stay until I got completely on my feet. I went on to earn my graduate degree, married, moved to London, and now have a daughter.
This has really hardened me and made me reevaluate not just my life, but the role of society and how it fails most of the time.