Life on the streets is a traumatic experience. It saps people’s confidence.

Yet more and more people are finding themselves sleeping rough. Annual figures released yesterday showed numbers had tripled across Greater Manchester since 2010 and have soared tenfold in the city itself.

Manchester’s Booth Centre has been trying to pick up the pieces as those figures soar with advice, hot food and help with housing.

But it has also decided to do something completely different.

Homeless people who attend their art workshop were given a disposable camera on a Wednesday and sent out to make some art.

The results will go on display next week - and everyone involved says it has been a huge boost to their self-esteem.

“It’s like the opposite end of the scale to taking drugs,” says Dave Kelly, himself formerly homeless but now a volunteer at the Booth Centre. “You get to express your feelings.”

As well as a huge range of Manchester-inspired photography, there’s also Mr Streetwise – a sculpture of a homeless man, created by a homeless man.

Mr Streetwise has been taken out onto the streets and an image capturing the public’s reaction will be among those on display, as well as the statue itself.

The exhibition opens at Chapter One bookshop on Lever Street this Tuesday. Dave hopes it will make people think twice about homeless people.

“Hopefully it will change people’s perceptions,” he says.

“A lot of people in Manchester have forgotten homeless people are human beings.”

Here some of the artists explain the idea behind their work – and what the project has meant to them.

Danny Collins

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Danny, 60, originally from Liverpool, was on the streets for four and a half years after suffering a breakdown.

He was finally housed four and a half months ago.

His sculpture of a homeless man – Mr Streetwise – aims to get people thinking about homelessness.

“It was something I’d had in the back of my mind for some time. I put it to Amanda at the Booth Centre and the staff and it went from there. It’s mixed art, because apart from the statue, which represents the homeless, it also has poetry which is all written by homeless people.”

All of the artwork is made out of things found in skips and wears Danny’s own clothes from when he was sleeping on the streets.

He says the project has been a huge boost for people often hugely lacking confidence as a result of living on the streets.

“Being that long on the streets you lose you self-esteem and confidence,” he says.

“Doing the classes at the Booth Centre, the writing, the performing, making this, 12 months ago I could not have thought of doing this. I had no confidence whatsoever. Now you can’t shut me up.

“And I’ve found out quite a lot about myself.”

Barry Lundy

Barry, 52, from Longsight , landed on the streets after his marriage broke down.

He does not have a lot of the underlying problems a lot of other homeless people have – mental health problems, drug abuse – he says, simply ending up homeless out of circumstances, ‘part of life’s journey’.

He now volunteers at the English Churches night-stop service for the homeless, where churches open their doors at night time during the coldest months of the year.

On his way home at 7am one morning, something caught his eye – this image of a painted door shutter in the Northern Quarter .

“We were taking pictures in Stephenson Square and I spotted it and took one look at it and thought it’s got to be a picture. I did it after a night working in the night shelter – it was peeing down with rain. You can’t guarantee much but you can guarantee that in Manchester.”

He says the exhibition – as well as volunteering at the Booth Centre – has helped him get back his self-respect.

“Once you are on the streets you lose that completely.”

Andy Twarog

Andy, 45, originally from Poland, came to this country for personal reasons but found himself in a hostel in Blackpool, where he was soon robbed – including of his prized camera, which he had at one time used semi-professionally.

In debt and struggling with setting up a bank account, he ended up on the streets for two years.

This image of a nearly-empty stash of M.E.N’s appealed to him, he says.

“It was a day on which there was heavy rain and usually you can see people with their free edition. “But it was just the wrapper with the waterproof thing and I was thinking it was a nice contrast for me, especially as it was near the library.”

At one point he had been pretty depressed, he admits, but the photography project has given him new hope.

“I got down, but now I think I might get some opportunity. You have this feeling the community is finally going to see your work.”

Dariusz Pulc

Dariusz, 41, also from Poland, was one of a band of Eastern European workers illegally trafficked into the country by a gang of travellers several years ago.

Eventually the traffickers were busted by police and the workers were freed from the menial labour they had been doing in towns and cities across the country.

But with nowhere to go, Dariusz ended up on the streets of Manchester for a year.

He is now staying at the night stop homeless shelter but at one time he was sleeping wherever he could lay his head – under bridges in Salford, wherever was available.

Dariusz does not speak much English, but Andy explains that he took his picture of the war memorial because he has a particular love of the city’s gothic history and architecture.

The project was particularly enjoyable for him – as back in Poland he was a keen photographer.