An eshay sleeping in the wild in Australia has made the sad admission that life behind bars would be easier than on the streets.
The Australian made the honest comment during a conversation with TikTokker Jamie Zhu in Belmore Park, in Sydney's CBD.
Mr Zhu had been investigating Australia's homelessness crisis when he came across a group of men who were struggling.
One of the men, wearing a Versace shirt and upside-down cap, gave a brutally honest six-word confession.
“It's easier to go to jail,” he said. 'Because you get food three times a day and a roof over your head. You're with the boys.'
An eshay (pictured wearing Versace t-shirt) sleeping in Australia has made the sad admission that life behind bars would be easier than on the streets
The sad admission comes as Australians are struggling to secure a place to live due to a lack of rental properties and a sharp increase in prices due to inflation and interest rate increases.
Families have been forced to take desperate measures and live in their cars or caravans, while tent cities have sprung up in parks across the country.
The eshay said he came to live on the street after a difficult childhood.
Another member of the group, wearing a Lacoste T-shirt, said addiction was the biggest problem for those sleeping rough.
'We need to go to rehab. It's hard to be clean in this life we live,” he said.
“Some of us have nowhere to go. Many people are gone.
“We just gotta get off this street, man, it's a big thing. We can't sleep in tents because we're paranoid, we can't close our eyes.'
He said he has been on the housing priority list for 15 years and still doesn't have a roof over his head.
Another man, wearing a white bucket hat, claimed he had received no support after leaving prison in August.
“We get out and we don't get shelter. What do they expect from us?' he said.
Another man, who was shirtless and had a cross tattooed on his chest, said it was common for people on the street to become addicted.
“If you had the choice between addiction, because that's so hard, and a place to live, a lot of us guys know nothing better than to escape this trauma that we've been through,” he said.
There were 122,494 homeless people across Australia at the 2021 census.
Lately, major cities have been flooded with tents as residents struggle to find a place to live.
Images have recently been shared of groups of tents set up along the Brisbane River between the William Jolly and Go Between bridges in the inner-city suburb of South Brisbane.
Another man, who was shirtless and had a cross tattooed on his chest, said it was common for people on the street to become addicted
Many of the tents were crowded under large trees, while benches and seats in the park seemed to be used as drying racks.
In November, the RBA decided to raise interest rates for the thirteenth time since May 2022 to 4.35 percent, the highest level since 2011.
Annual repayments on a typical Australian mortgage were $18,744 higher than at the start of May 2022, when Reserve Bank interest rates were still at a record low 0.1 per cent and banks were offering mortgage interest rates starting with a 'two'.
Several landlords have passed on the costs to tenants, some of whom cannot afford the price increase and are forced to live on the streets.
The latest PropTrack Market Insight report shows that the average national rent has continued its rapid rise, rising 1.8 percent to $580 per week in the December quarter.
This is an increase of 11.5 percent compared to the previous year, meaning rental prices are $60 per week more expensive than at the start of 2023.
Prices in the capital were 13.2 percent higher than the year before, taking the median to $600 a week, while units in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane rose 15 to 17 percent.
In the final quarter of 2023, Sydney's average asking rent rose 1.4 per cent to $750 per week, as reported by PropTrack.