A SIMPLE smile.

That was all Tracy Polson needed to make her feel like a human being again.

Tracy, now 48, has her life together and bright hope for the future. She is settled in a flat, she is sober, has a volunteer job she loves and plans in the pipeline for a career as a support worker.

But just a few short years ago Tracy's reality was very different.

She was one of the 2500 people sleeping rough on Scotland's streets, spending nights in Glasgow City Centre, Paisley and Renfrew.

Tracy had been a hairdresser, trained by her aunt and cousin Maxine in the trade.

At 19 she was working hard, winning competitions, and playing hard.

She said: "My problems started years ago when I was out in the clubs, from about the age of 19. My friends were all the same, my hairdressing friends.

"We would go out and take drugs but I was functioning. I looked alright.

"But then I had depression and started to take a drink. I thought I was alright to take a drink because I wasn’t educated in addiction but instantly I was a chronic alcoholic. Instantly.

"And I just couldn’t do anything. It took complete control of my life. It was only within a space of a couple of years of hitting the drink.

"My family, my mum and dad tried to help but there was no helping me.

"It was only a couple years until I become homeless and my family couldn’t take any more."

It is hard to believe that someone in modern Scotland could know what it is like to be thirsty and without access to water.

But that was Tracy's reality and it is a hard time for her to recall.

She said: "I made friends on the streets. I did learn how to survive because I had to.

"The worst thing was the absolute hurt of not seeing my family.

"What I remember most was my face, my face was constantly cold.

"See, when you’re homeless everyone takes for granted the things you don’t have.

"[I didn't have] a tap to get washed or even for a drink of water. I do know what it’s like in this day and age to be thirsty.

"Not for alcohol but for water."

It took years, Tracy said, for her to be given supported accommodation in Paisley and the process was not easy to navigate.

She said: "I had to go [to the council] a few times but the last time I went I got an appointment and I was determined to go, to make that appointment, and I don’t even remember how I got there.

"With God's help I got there and I got a place. But that was after many, many years."

While she was in supported accommodation she was approached by the charity Turning Point Scotland.

Tracy said: "I got a chap at the door and this woman greeted me with a smile, which was very important because nobody smiled at me."

Through Turning Point Scotland Tracy was given her flat and took part in a citizenship course, which led her to volunteering with Social Bite.

At this point she also decided to fight her addictions.

She said: "When I was in my flat I had to go cold turkey off everything because I was addicted to alcohol, Valium, the lot.

"So I went cold turkey because I was dying. I couldn’t walk.

"And that’s when I got down on my hands and knees and prayed because the only person who could help me then was God.

"I was in the house for three weeks and I could walk again and bit by bit I got better and now my liver is restored, everything is restored."

At Social Bite, Tracy mentioned she was a trained hairdresser and now she uses her skills to cut hair on Tuesday nights in the charity's hub on St Vincent Street.

She said: "Ladies love coming in here. It’s a safe place for women to be.

"When I was heavily in addiction myself I felt that I was an outcast to society. Society treated me really badly.

"If somebody [had been] giving me that one-to-one personal touch with an ear to listen to it would have made me feel like a person, like a human being again.

"Not an addict or an alcoholic or a homeless person but a woman."

Tracy is pleased for people taking part in Social Bite's Sleep in the Park but while the event isn't easy, it's nowhere near the reality of rough sleeping.

She said: "It is removed from the reality. Everyone has a home to go to.

"When you're on the streets it’s the feeling of complete emptiness. You have no home. Most people don’t have their family.

"[They have] no hope. They are broken people. Broken.

"Broken with complete emptiness, emptiness of everything."

"It is very lonely, very cold, very dark, scary. I was treated as an outcast. I was called names."

Tracy would like the government to do more to support rough sleepers.

And, after seeing First Minister Nicola Sturgeon stop to speak to a homeless person in Glasgow last week, Tracy says: "I really don’t think the government is empathetic. They really, really don’t know.

"I would tell Nicola Sturgeon to try sleeping out on the streets one night and see how she gets on."

Tracy is clearly filled with joy when she talks about being back in touch with her family.

Sadly, her father died in June this year but he was proud of her, as is her mum and her twin sister.

Tracy has been sober for two years and eight months. She attends church, is job hunting and goes round the streets in the evenings to offer support to rough sleepers.

She added: "[People think] they deserve it, they brought it upon themselves, it’s their own fault.

"The message I would get across is that every single person who is out there on the streets and homeless is a person, a human being and they’ve got the same human rights as everyone else.

"The thing when you’re homeless is to be treated like a human being, with a smile."