Nathan Beer knows what it is like to be homeless.

The 23-year-old has returned to his warm Canberra bed after spending almost a month sleeping rough, in the cold, on the streets of Melbourne.

It was an experiment to experience what life on the streets is really like, after coming dangerously close to ending up homeless himself earlier this year.

His aim was to raise awareness about homelessness and show how easily it can happen.

Armed with nothing more than a sleeping bag, a notepad, a camera and the clothes on his back, Nathan arrived on the streets of Melbourne on July 10.

"For the first two days I was without. I didn't have any food and the shelter I had was in the Botanical Gardens sleeping underneath a bush," Nathan said.

"That was not only awfully cold, but it was extremely scary.

"The lack of security and the petrified feeling you get when you are sleeping out in the open, with nothing separating you from the thugs on the street, or the animals around you, or the cold."

Nathan says his experience opened his eyes about the changing nature and meaning of security.

"You live in a completely open environment," he said.

"You're absolutely vulnerable. There's no safety net to catch you. There's no safety barrier keeping people out.

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"You're in the most vulnerable situation anyone could ever be in and that's the most frightening thing.

"I was frozen stiff some nights, just petrified of someone coming up and attacking me. Every single noise would bring me to a flight or fight feeling."

Nathan says one of his most memorable moments came from a conversation he had with two other homeless men on a park bench.

"One of them asked me if I had any coin to put in for some alcohol," he said.

"I snapped at him and said 'no I don't have any coin for alcohol' and he said 'you'll learn pretty fast that there are only a few ways to sleep through a cold night on the streets'.

"It opened my eyes that [being homeless] was not just a product of alcoholism, but the alcoholism was a product of their survival. They were drinking to stay warm and numb the elements that were so harsh."

Nathan says frontline homelessness services played a large role in his time on the streets.

"I wasn't aware of where to go to get help, so for the first two days I walked around the city looking for some sort of service for homeless people," he said.

Nathan eventually found an organisation which acts as a point of contact for homeless youths, but says more needs to be done to stop the cycle of homelessness.

"Homeless people have had hugely traumatic experiences in their lives, living on the streets compounds that," he said.

"Every night you're marginalised and made to feel less worthy of a life, you die a little bit more.

"Someone needs to go in there and give them therapeutic care and give them an extreme amount of counselling and get them back to a state where they can actually go find a house themselves or they can go find a job.

"Applying for Centrelink or applying for housing is not something that a lot of [homeless] people are able to do and it's not because of their education, it's because of their psychological state."

Loss of self-worth

Constantly being told to move along by police and being searched by protective services made Nathan feel like he had no place in the city.

"It definitely felt like my self-worth was absent and I had no place in society, I was almost not wanted," he said.

"A couple of times I was struggling and I really wanted to give up, I had a couple moments when I broke down.

"I'm not sure if it was the weather or having my stuff thrown out or getting moved along too many times, but you definitely get emotional and without anything there to comfort you you're left feeling like a torn rag sitting out in the cold weather."

Nathan says if he could pass on one lesson he learnt during his experience it would be to be kinder to one another.

"It's too easy to judge a book by its cover," he said.

"Stop and have a chat with the person you're about to judge or walk past because you have no idea what they've gone through and you have no idea about what you're actions are doing to them.

"Ignoring someone or turning away or refusing to acknowledge someone can really hurt someone on the inside and, you may not notice it, but walking by and turning your head is probably the worst thing to do to someone who really needs to just be acknowledged or smiled at."

Nathan was raising awareness and fundraising for the Lighthouse Foundation during his 20 Cold Nights campaign.

Watch a special 7.30 ACT program giving voice to the homeless of Canberra.