The 45-year-old, who returned to Shepparton recently after 20 years away, had never experienced homelessness before this year.
He says one workplace bullying incident set off a quick chain of events that saw him unable to pay rent for the Wodonga share house he was living in when his annual leave ran out.
“I couldn’t afford rent anymore, I ended up on the streets,” Mr Cooper said.
“I was sleeping in parks, scared, thinking about where I was going to go, where I was going to eat.”
He spent a couple of weeks on the streets, where his mental health deteriorated rapidly, to the point the parks that had become his temporary home didn’t feel comfortable even in daylight, because they were full of other people then.
“I couldn’t go somewhere private to be by myself until night time,” Mr Cooper said.
The stress caused him a mental breakdown and he wound up in Nolan House, a mental health care service, at Albury Hospital.
He said he’d never experienced adverse mental health problems until then, and has now been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Mr Cooper’s cousin, Jarvis Walker, reached out to him while he was at Nolan House and convinced him to move home.
He is now living with his aunty.
“Jarvis has been great, he’s been really supportive, getting me help from services,” he said.
In the three weeks Mr Cooper has lived back in Shepparton, the father of one has engaged in community work and been reconnecting with his culture.
He has joined Aboriginal dance groups to perform at events such as Converge on the Goulburn last weekend and the healing event for Aboriginal deaths in custody in Collingwood.
He’s been running workshops at men’s sheds and doing advocacy work.
“It took one little thing for my mental health to decline, but I’m in a really good headspace now,” he said.
In a return of support, he was at the April 16 Under the Same Stars event with Mr Atkinson, who was a guest speaker detailing his own story of youth homelessness and disengagement.
When asked how he was feeling about sleeping on a sheet of cardboard, Mr Cooper said: “This is luxury compared to what I went through”.
“I can do this easily.”
Mr Cooper acknowledged that being faced with homelessness as a young person would present further challenges, as they had not yet learned adult skills to live in an adult world.
But he wanted to highlight the hope that it is possible for life to pivot positively quickly after a rock-bottom experience.
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