When The Royal Gazette decided to highlight the issue of homelessness, we picked out 11 words that really summed up attitudes about and understanding of the issue.

There has been an historical absence of will towards ending homelessness.

Those words were contained in the Plan to End Homelessness, a document of almost 25,000 words, including:

“Multiple decades of observing a consistent increase in the homeless population has created community fatigue.”

Those two sentences persuaded us to draw attention to this often hidden issue and to change the narrative around homelessness and the homeless to help bring about change.

Linking up with the homeless charity Home in February, and in particular its powerhouse of an executive director, Denise Carey, we launched the Ending Homelessness campaign.

“Since we launched Home three years ago, we knew one of the keys to advancing our mission of ending homelessness was communication: to shift public perceptions away from negative and misleading stereotypes, and to build cross-community support for the changes necessary to tackle homelessness,” Ms Carey said.

“The Royal Gazette’s Ending Homelessness campaign has helped us make significant progress on both counts.”

She added: “We are immensely grateful for the efforts of the reporters and for the editorial space given to telling the stories of those experiencing homelessness and for highlighting the collaborative efforts of Home, the Government, multiple helping agencies and many others in the public and private sector, who are working collaboratively to realise the vision of the Plan to End Homelessness.

“By giving a voice to people experiencing homelessness, many of whom have suffered traumatic experiences, mental and physical health issues, relationship breakdowns and economic shocks, and who are sleeping outside, in cars, abandoned buildings, or on a friend’s couch, the Gazette has shed light on the true nature of homelessness in Bermuda.

“This has helped to move the conversation on from regarding ‘the homeless’ as a faceless group, to seeing hundreds of human beings, just like you and me, struggling to cope with day-to-day life for a multitude of reasons.

“I challenge anyone to read these stories and listen to these interviews and not feel empathy.

“The campaign has highlighted the reality that homelessness is not personal choice, but rather a policy choice. And a better-informed public are more likely to demand that ending homelessness becomes a priority.”

To start the campaign, the Gazette featured a story about Lorrin, a trained chef who was asked what would help him the most. “Just being off the streets. Stability, that’s all,” he said.

Others also talked of their experiences of homelessness.

A 64-year-old, college-educated beautician, said that because of the state of her apartment, she spent most of her time on the street.

Alex said that when someone had lived rough for so long, it changed the way they thought about things.

“Something as simple as a burger and fries — when you’re living rough, you have to sort of allocate it because you don’t know when you’re going to get more food.

“You're like, ‘OK, I’m going to eat half the burger for lunch. I’m going to eat the other half for dinner, and then maybe I’ll eat the fries in the morning’,” he said.

Chris told us: “I’ve done a lot of spending, I travelled to a lot of places, I've done a lot of things.

“Now I’m homeless. I mentioned this to a friend. We were sitting and talking. It was like, it happened so quick on me as like, yesterday, everything was good.”

We also talked to former finance minister Curtis Dickinson, who is on Home’s board. He said that, importantly, Home had been able to show people that the definition of homelessness “actually extends way beyond those folks you see on the street”.

He said a homeless person could be someone “who gets up every day and goes to work, who dresses like normal people, who are sleeping either on someone's couch or in their cars”.

“I think by and large, unless you’re close friends of these folks, most people just don't know.”

In 2010, the Bermuda Census identified 82 people experiencing homelessness. By 2016, that number had risen to 138.

According to Home, the Department of Statistics developed those estimates based on counting rough sleepers and the population housed in The Salvation Army emergency shelter.

As of December 31, 2023, Home recorded Bermuda’s homeless population as 811.

They, like Lorrin, want stability. Is that too much to ask?