Whenever I see a homeless person begging on the street, my first thought is: “That could be me.” Former Tory MP Sir George Young, however was infamously claimed to have described the homeless as “people you step over when you come out of the opera”. Do you feel his pain? How irritating to have a night of high culture so hindered.

But the thwarted entertainment need not be grand. Labour MP Simon Danczuk recently tweeted his vexation after encountering “beggars” close to a pub: “Begging – counted 4 beggars between Rochdale Exchange & Wheatsheaf entrances last Tuesday. Should at very least be moved on.”

Begging - counted 4 beggars between Rochdale Exchange & Wheatsheaf entrances last Tuesday. Should at very least be moved on. https://t.co/iFRhMDFCsf — Simon Danczuk (@SimonDanczuk) January 12, 2017

Annoyance at finding your way blocked by people some regard as subhuman underpins the mental gymnastics required for those who believe that homeless people are outliers and that being without a roof to sleep under could never happen to them. In the UK the biggest single cause of homelessness is a short-term tenancy ending, with no need for tenants to be at fault. Live under an assured shorthold tenancy? You could be served two months’ no-fault notice. Anyone defaulting on mortgage payments faces losing their home in a similarly short timescale. If your landlord insists on turfing you out and you have no guarantor while on low/no pay, the dreaded sofa-surfing will seem like a blessing.

If you are unable find another place to rent (or to buy? Please …) previously understanding friends soon tire of your downbeat presence in their spare room, imagining that you have control over your life and aren’t trying hard enough, when in fact even the prospect of life on the streets undermines even the bravest person’s ability to cope with ordinary everyday challenges. Add to this another myth: that emergency housing such as hostels (memorably described by a friend who had worked in one as “the closest thing to a Turkish prison”) are in truth positively luxurious, and if you avoid their charms you must be a fusspot.

I have on two occasions been moments away from actual, roofless homelessness, once when I was evicted without proper notice

Tenants are especially vulnerable if their relationship has broken down, after moving to another city while on low pay, or if they are ill (especially mentally ill, due to both prejudice and perhaps concomitant chaotic lifestyle). There exists a notion that some wonderful massive magic giant angel hand gathers homeless people to comfort them before making everything better. And so another wrong-headed idea arises: that it’s possible to “go to the council” who will supply a lovely home. Dream on. Right to buy has devastated council housing stock, and those lacking guarantors or steady incomes hurtle back under the dastardly threadbare cloak of the private rented sector, a situation heightened for those without deposits or rent in advance, and further worsened by even a faintly tainted credit reference.

I have on two occasions been moments away from actual, roofless homelessness, once when I was evicted without proper notice. Everyone I knew believed that since I have a chronic health condition I would be swiftly housed by the local authority. I knew better, but still applied. A kindly council officer jumped through logistical hoops to record me as vulnerable, but I was insufficiently ill, apparently. (Mercifully in Scotland, where I now live, being homeless is in itself considered vulnerable).

It is also necessary to demonstrate a “local connection”. Consequently, anyone who has, for example, moved recently to a new area to find short-term work could slip through fraying safety nets to find themselves sleeping outside. Add to this the fact that applicants must navigate councils who “gatekeep” – in other words, try their best to avoid responsibility for housing them because they have nowhere to place applicants, not even basic emergency accommodation. If you are poor and in arrears, you will be considered to have caused your own homelessness, which permits authorities to escape responsibility.

I was once homeless after a landlord sold my rented flat. Friends (including some who had enjoyed my hospitality prior to moving into the homes they were buying) grew intolerant of my frazzled presence in their spare room. I explained that I was struggling, but nobody grasped that my situation was serious, that the council wouldn’t house me and doubted my insistence that the private rental sector was closing its doors. Desperate and with nowhere else to go, eventually I found a cheap hotel, which devoured my dwindling resources. Just days from the pavement, I found a flat. I was saved, but it was a near miss. Otherwise you might have been stepping over me.

People such as Danczuk are misguided when they openly disdain the poor beggars enduring a cascade of problems of which homelessness is only the beginning. When you step over someone on the way to the pub, opera, shops or your own home, think about this for a while: there but for fate go all of us.