A makeshift memorial for Courtney Herron in Royal Park. Credit:AAP

But what I also felt was shame. Shame because I knew that in society people will be asking what that girl was doing sleeping in a park alone at night, what was she thinking putting herself at risk like that? Some may be smugly tut-tutting that she allegedly had substance issues. I also know many – too many – will be thinking that it couldn’t happen to them, that homelessness is something that happens to “others”, read in to that classification what you will. And I realised that my silence regarding my own experience was through the shame of not wanting to be viewed through a similar prism of scrutiny and supposition, to be judged as inferior or undignified. I didn’t want to expose my ugly emotional scars in fear others will look away.

Well, bugger that. No more! I am better than that. It’s time to put my hand up and say this was a small part of my life but is not its sum total. I want to lose the stigma that surrounds homelessness, not just for me but for all the women, men and children in that perilous position today, and those who may find themselves there tomorrow. And there are too many of them in this so-called “lucky country” of ours, the disenfranchised who have fallen through cracks that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

There are 116,427 people homeless in Australia on any given night, according to Mission Australia. This includes 15,872 children under 12. Only 7 per cent of people who are homeless are sleeping on the streets. The rest are hidden away, couch-surfing with friends, moving between emergency shelters and hostels and sleeping in cars and makeshift dwellings. Domestic and family violence is one of the top reasons people end up in this situation.

I don’t want to dwell on how and why I ended up homeless. It was an escalation of parental circumstance from which I felt I had no choice but to flee. No one chooses to be homeless, it is forced upon them when there is no alternative to be found. Despite my school acknowledging I had no home and allowing me to be my own legal guardian while I completed my education – a feat for which I shall forever be proud – no one in authority stepped in to help me or even ask if I was OK. And I am still angry this was the case.