I spent the weekend with a homeless community in New York to see what it’s really like to live on the streets

48-year-old Malian immigrant Moustafa is homeless, but still plies his trade as a mechanic to stay afloat.Daniel Brown/Business Insider

Take a walk through any borough of New York City and you’re likely to encounter people living on the street.

Homelessness is on the rise in the city, up 39% from last year. And even more are opting to live in the city’s streets, parks, and alleys than shelters — nearly 4,000 as of July, the most since 2005.

There’s a vast diversity to the people living without secure housing, and the various situations they find themselves in.

In central Brooklyn, a flashpoint of gentrification in the city, we met Moustafa, a 48-year-old mechanic who lost his shop and his home three years ago.

Moustafa now lives nearby in a community of about a dozen homeless mechanics who live out of their vehicles and try to get work when they can. He invited us to spend the day and night with him to get a glimpse into what it’s really like to be homeless in New York.

Here’s what we saw: