By Felix Marquardt It was when humans stopped being nomadic that we became estranged from our environment - and that brought with it an obsession with growth, suspicions and damaging addictions.
Most of us moderns think we know what home is and therefore think we know what homelessness is too. I wonder whether we genuinely understand either. I am an addict in recovery. I had my last drink, my last cigarette, my last joint and my last line of cocaine on the eve of Saint Patrick’s day 2014. In my case, as in the case of many others, active addiction was about denial.
It wasn’t until the very end of my using that I began considering the possibility that I was an addict. Even when I came to admitting it, I saw myself as a high-functioning addict. I lived in an expensive apartment, had a good job, lived the high life. It took several years before I realised that addiction had made me homeless.
Big Issue North was a weekly magazine sold by people who have limited other ways of earning an income in the north of England. Staff now contribute weekly content to The Big Issue, supporting vendors in the north, and run Street News.