Homeless Model Who Survived Sleeping On A Roof

Mark Reay recalls a corner of the park that was once a big part of his daily routine at Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan's trendy...

Mark Reay recalls a corner of the park that was once a big part of his daily routine at Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan's trendy East Village,  Amid a documentary that exposed the rise in the number of homeless people in New York City, we got to hear of Mark Reay, the model and photographer who was homeless and working.

Reay was disguising his homelessness. He was sleeping on the rooftop of a nearby building at the time.
But he was also working a number of jobs - as a photographer who worked for glamour magazines, a part-time model and an extra on film sets. For six years he lived like this.

It started when he was receiving  paycheques but didn't have a home and didn't want to outstay his welcome sleeping on a friend's couch. He would occasionally help a friend who took care of a building in the East Village, and who lent him the keys to the six-storey building.

One day, Reay walked up to the rooftop and decided he would sleep there for some time. The temporary situation became a way of life. "It was difficult to move into an apartment, you need the first and last month's rent plus security," says Reay.

When asked he said he enjoyed his time living "off the grid". What he could afford was a gym membership, which he relied on when he couldn't use the park to preserve that "disguise" of the sharply dressed, affluent man.

"I never wanted my problem to be someone else's by asking for charity or living on someone's couch for free," he said.

Three years ago, he met up with an old friend, Thomas Wirthensohn, an Austrian filmmaker and shared his story. Wirthensohn first saw the rooftop, he remembers being shocked by Reay's bed - a "nest" made with a few sheets of tarpaulin in a seven-foot triangular space, which was wedged between two adjoining buildings. Getting to this spot required some effort.

"I had to crawl out onto a ledge," says Reay, "then scamper around to the other side by holding on to the fence that separated the two buildings."
The spot was well-hidden from view and offered some protection from the weather.
The documentary, Homme:less, was recently released in US theatres, and is expected to come to iTunes next month.

There are many others like Reay who have been homeless but are hardly ever identified. Housing units are in short supply in the U.S and rents are rising faster than wages, which has led to a well-documented increase in the number of homeless. Officially, 57,000 people sleep in homeless shelters. But those living on the street are not even included in the count.