Michael was a resident of Peter McVerry Trust’s youth homeless service in Dublin, which caters for young adults aged between 18-24.

He is a talented artist and says that painting and drawing are a form of therapy for him.

“I just love drawing. I think I’ve drawn for so long that it’s become so normal to me that I don’t know how to talk about it anymore,” he says. “I think when I draw…it takes me away. It makes me think, this is who I am and if I don’t leave anything else behind, at least this is something that people can remember me by.

Michael’s mother also experienced homelessness.

“My mother was homeless and was so entrenched in homelessness that she couldn’t sleep in a bed, she had to sleep in a doorway. She’d have hotels she’d go back to, or my uncle’s sometimes, but she was entrenched so much that she’d be up out of the bed at five in the morning and you’d find her on the street in St Stephen’s Green asleep on the road. So it was kind of sad to think that she went through that and I’m going through it,” he explains.

“My hopes for the future are to basically overcome the homelessness situation I’m in. I have no doubt that I am going to overcome it.”