WATCH: Homeless and white - 'I am bones and skin and poephol alone'

Bad choices, bad luck, bad karma — sometimes even a white skin is no passport to prosperity in South Africa

Michael catches sight of the press camera. "Hang on, I have to make sure I look my best."

He unleashes a tobacco-stained smile, with virtually no teeth - he lost his teeth because he swears too much, he explains. Michael fusses with his receding hair, a muddy thatch of mayhem, to prepare for his close-up.

His turf is a corner of Oak Street in Oakdene, a suburb in the south of Johannesburg.

He is one of a growing army of beggars who ply their desperate trade on street corners throughout South Africa. We are desensitised to their poverty and barely give them a second glance.

But when the pitiful person at your car window is white, it jerks you out of your indifference with the question: Waar was jy? (Where were you?) When a white skin was the access card to all of South Africa's opportunities, waar was jy?

Life on the streets has taken its toll on Michael, a former salesman and car mechanic. He is inclined to ramble incoherently, and his personality shifts and changes.

At times he seems to believe he is God and he curses the church for having stolen his name, Michael.

Then he switches to his dagga-smoking, rock-song-bellowing alter ego.

"I am that son. In the beginning, Lord God Michael, I gave everyone the sun," he says. "You know what keeps you healthy? It's because of the sun."

His psychological problems do not end there.

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"My whole life I was cheated," he complains.

"You know how when you read a book, you hear your own voice? When I read a book, I don't hear my voice. I hear the author, not me. I searched and I found lots of people.

"Even when I shook hands with people, I could feel that I wasn't shaking hands alone," he says.

He is haunted by unpleasant memories.

"I was not happy with myself. I had attitude problems and I would pay a deposit, then take the goods but I would never pay the monthly instalment."

Michael takes out a joint rolled with newsprint.

His battered clothing blows in the wind, showing his thin, frail frame. His thighs barely fill his size 34 sweatpants. "I am bones and skin and poephol alone. Maergat Michael, that's what they call me," he says, laughing.

LESLEY WILLIAM LOCKE, 76

Locke, 76, stations himself at a set of robots in Norwood's busy food district.

"I go to church every week, at St Luke's, because I've got to believe in something and [Jesus] died on the cross for our sins apparently ... it helps," he says.

"I've been battling for the past 10 years but I don't do anything about my position. I just sit here all day, trying to figure out what is going on upstairs.

"I don't want to live like this, like a monkey standing here every day.

"I want to make music ... I'm a drummer. I like rock, I like blues, I like boeremusiek, whatever I can play, I'll play any bloody thing I like."

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Locke, who was born in Hillbrow, says he is a bit better off than some of the other people he comes across on the streets because he at least has a roof over his head.

"I sleep in a back room down the road with a bunch of other people, but I used to have my own space.

"I used to get home to my own space, shower and everything, but now ..."

It's 4.45pm and he may still go and have a bath "somewhere in Highlands North", he says. "There's no facilities to bath where I stay. Well, there is, but there are so many people there and they do drugs and all that. The last time I bathed was when I was in Putfontein, a couple of months ago."

Locke's life started spiralling out of control soon after he fell in love years ago. "Her and I went on holiday and her ex-husband started attacking me and stole R2-million from her and it was a whole ordeal. "

block_quotes_start I want to make music ... I'm a drummer. I like rock, I like blues, I like boeremusiek, whatever I can play, I'll play any bloody thing I like

Attempts to extract further details are met with a sour "Let's not talk about it".

He describes how, during his childhood, his father punched his pregnant mother in the stomach, an attack he is sure was the cause of his brother having been born disabled.

"I wanted to shoot my father in the mouth," Locke says.

The father of six children - "that I know about" - says he would rather live on the street than "burden" his children with his problems.

"My youngest is in Yeoville, I believe, and has three kids of her own ... she's about 30. She used to come here and bring me a pizza, but I'm not going to meddle in her lifestyle."

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Leon Coetzee, 59

Soft-spoken Coetzee sells newspapers in Melville to get by.

Originally from Florida on the West Rand, he says he has been on the street for 15 years; before that he was in the defence force.

"I was in the defence force in Oudtshoorn, Bloemfontein, Bethlehem and Heidelberg for five years."

His white beard has earned him the nickname "Santa" among students and regulars in the neighbourhood.

"I sleep all over," Coetzee says. "I sometimes make a plan for sleep, then I collect my blankets and sleep nice."

A favourite spot is at the nearby squash courts. "It's a nice space where I'm not in nobody's business and [there are] no problems."

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He has no children and his parents died long ago. He has siblings who he refuses to ask for help.

"They visit me sometimes, sometimes they don't. One is working at Nedbank, one is a defence force guy, the other is retrenched from the mine," Coetzee says.

"My other brother works in a post office, my other sister is a businesswoman in Pretoria."

His favourite meal is a Mochacho s hamburger and chips. "If I don't sell papers, I don't eat."

People are generally friendly, Coetzee says. "I hate fights. I have never smoked in my life ... sometimes [I have] a cold beer.

He says he wants to get married. "I'm looking for a nice wife, but nothing. I'm single - I eat money alone," and he roars with laughter.

Cora Groves, 60

"I'm begging for years already and it's too much for a person at times," says Cora Groves, breaking down into quiet sobs. She and her husband, Dale, are panhandlers in Randburg.

"I'm 60, he's 57 and we've been begging for years. My husband before, Lottering, was very aggressive with me and he would take my money and force me to get him money. And my kids were small then.

"I knew people who were doing this begging and I asked them to take me with them one day because I didn't know how I was going to manage to see to the kids' bus fare to school and we didn't have food," Cora says.

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"And my husband was lying in bed the whole time and dominating and hitting me all the time."

Dale says that his begging days began after the death of his only son - from a drug overdose in 2012 - and of his previous wife, who had Aids, the following year.

"I was suicidal and later I met Cora and now there's happiness again.

"But we have to beg for food and we are fighting with Cora's ex-husband who expects R3,000 a month when her pension is only R1,500. My stepson is not working and we aren't either," says Dale.

"There's such trauma," adds Cora, "especially for the kids, especially white people. We don't really get work, there's a stigma now to get us work and I don't know if it is that the companies are only allowed to take a certain amount of white youngsters ... But that breaks them spiritually."

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The two find solace in each other's company. They usually sleep at a petrol station in the area.

"It's hard, I mean look at the food prices, even the vegetables; I can hardly afford it," Cora says.

"We always pray that God will help us and open people's hearts. It's not easy. There are times here when I felt I wanted to faint with the heat. But anyway, I think God has given me the strength to do what I've got to do. I wouldn't think anybody would like to do this kind of thing, in such a permanent way."