'It's almost impossible to escape' homelessness in London, but this man did

For most of us, home isn't a place. It's a feeling.

For Reinhart Gauss, as he steps over the threshold of his first apartment after 18 months of homelessness, that feeling is joy, but it's tinged with guilt. 

"I feel a little bit ashamed that I'm here," he said. "I'm here and they're not," he said, referring to those still without homes. 

"That's got to be the first thing I got to be able to try and handle. When you're out long enough you really care. You care deeply." 

"It's heartbreaking," he said. "When you live with them, eat with them, sleep with them, you get a whole new perspective." 

Perspective is something Gauss thinks about a lot. After a year and a half of sleeping on couches, sleeping in shelters and sleeping rough, he's grateful for a space of his own, a warm bed, a place to put his toothbrush; all the things most of us take for granted.

"The hardest part is when you're trying to find a place to live but you're on the street. It's almost impossible," he said. "When you're hungry, cold, the last thing you want to do is go to the London Library and go find a place."

"You're too busy wondering what's going to happen in an hour, two hours, one day," he said. "You have to plan where going to sleep, stay, eat, get warm, stay dry. That takes up more than 24 hours. That takes up your life." 

Gauss knows he's one of the lucky few. The 65-year-old landed his one-bedroom apartment thanks to a little help from his friends and the Canadian Mental Health Association's Housing First program. 

Gauss says without his friends or connections, he might still be on the streets. 

"It's almost impossible to escape," he said. "With the friends that I have, look what I had to go through. Just imagine an ordinary person. They can't do it." 

It's why the normally chatty Gauss can't express how grateful he is. 

"I can't even put it into words and I've always got words for everything."

Gauss said he plans to pay it forward by advocating for people who are still sleeping rough, but before he takes on the world there is one thing he's going to do. 

"Have the longest shower in history," he said. "So if the Guinness World Record people are watching this, send them over because I'm going for the Guinness World Record."