David Fussell used to sleep outside the Heal’s furniture store in Tottenham Court Road

IT is wonderful news for David Fussell – the street homeless film director – that he has been accepted to study for a degree at university, (It’s university for homeless film director, August 4).

This move will bring the curtain down on ten years living in a tent in Tottenham Court Road and Fitzrovia.

For the first time in a decade he will have a roof over his head and – though saddled with a large debt through the student loan system – money to eat and live his life as he should be able to.

Over the years he has seen his dream of his horror film – shot before he became homeless – being shown in a proper cinema.

And despite what has been a hard period in his life, he has never given up on creative pursuits – either through music or art or cinema.

But those reading the story should not assume that every person on the street can find a route out in the same manner as Mr Fussell. There is no easy map.

People look with disdain on our other neighbours on Camden streets and wrongly think to themselves: ‘why can’t you do something like that?’

Services do exist, but they are threadbare and by no means a panacea, particularly for the kind of people who have lost so much hope.

Almost everyone after a few days on the street would find themselves so beaten down it would be hard to think straight let alone mastermind a way out.

Many find some solace in escapism of drugs and alcohol, and become dependent and desperate. Depression and mental health conditions dominate and, without help, become entrenched. So many people are trapped in a world of pain and neglect.

Faced with this reality, who could blame anyone who did not get up each day and with relentless optimism search for a way to change things?

In a truly progressive future, the government might look at Mr Fussell’s story and think about what talents are being wasted through our failure to tackle homelessness in this country – and make it a priority to find solutions.

Jeremy Corbyn – in his manifesto for the 2019 election – had said a Labour government would “end homelessness”. The current stewards of the party are, intentionally we must assume, not making any bold statements like that.

In fact, the shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell is already trotting out the line ‘there’s no money left’ for a new Labour administration.

They must know, deep down, they can do better than that and now is the time to be saying sleeping bags on our streets shall no longer be accepted as the norm, as simply a part of life.

We wish Mr Fussell all the best with his new life in Cornwall, while knowing that he is a special case.