Better than Happiness (ePub)

Gregory Peel Smith was born into a dysfunctional and abusive household in Tamworth, New South Wales, in 1955. His formative years were variously spent in a brutal Catholic orphanage, foster care and juvenile detention centres. He became homeless and a rough sleeper for much of his adult life.


At thirty-five Gregory withdrew from the world to live in near total isolation in a rainforest in northern New South Wales. After ten years he finally emerged in 1999, close to death, to 'give society another chance'. Hampered by a poor education, Gregory set his sights on studying - first for a Certificate I in Information Technology at a community college, then for a bridging course at TAFE. In 2004 he began a degree in sociology at Southern Cross University. Although he remained homeless during much of his studies, Gregory graduated in 2007 with first class honours.


In 2016 he was conferred with a PhD for his landmark research into the 'Forgotten Australians' - the estimated 500,000 people who, like him, suffered abuse in institutional out-of-home care during the twentieth century. Gregory was subsequently employed by Southern Cross University, where he is a research fellow, a senior lecturer in the social sciences and chair of the faculty of Business, Law and Arts.


Gregory is one of Australia's foremost lived experience experts in post-traumatic stress disorder, mental illness, domestic violence, alcohol and drug addiction, rough sleeping and homelessness. A sought-after public speaker and policy advisor, he is a specialist consultant to a number of government initiatives including the End Street Sleeping Collaboration: a New South Wales Premier's priority project to end street sleeping by 2030.


A leading advocate for the disenfranchised, disadvantaged and disconnected around the world, Gregory is a patron of numerous homeless vulnerability service providers in New South Wales and Queensland, and a global consultant for the Institute of Relational Health

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