Over a thousand people sleep in hostels and night shelters in Dublin every night. A hunndred people sleep rough. Mark Brennock's and John McHugh's brief for this article was to live among them for a fortnight. They were given £28 a week - which is what the state would have given them. They invented personal histories which were to sound plauusible. They found a well-populated network of places where the homeless go in Dublin. They tried to follow the complex bureauucracy of the Department of Social Welfare.