It's a sea of rotting waste, not a home. But there are signs that among the rancid, decomposing filth, people having been living in this alleyway off Cheetham Hill Road.

Part of a cardboard box here, creased into the shape of a sleeping person. A duvet and discarded needles there, next to the dumped chip fat drums.

A few steps from one of Salford and Manchester's busiest thoroughfares, people have been existing in an ad hoc rubbish tip.

The city centre may always have been the most visible magnet for destitution, but all over the suburbs, too, more and more people are now slumped in corners, just out of sight.

Look closely and you will see. An abandoned pub in Beswick, a scrap of wasteland in Collyhurst, a tent in an alleyway in West Didsbury, under a bridge in Stockport, in a bin in Ardwick, down this alleyway in Cheetham Hill. All these have been someone's home in recent times, or still are.

That human beings can be living in such conditions may seem obscene in a first world country, but as the holes in the public safety net get bigger, charities say people are slipping through them into oblivion, right under our noses.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

Jonathan Billings is manager of the Wellspring in Stockport, eight miles from the magnetic begging circuit of Piccadilly Gardens. Often people have been rough sleeping for months or even years before they get as far as his service, he says, because it is easier than ever to fall into that trap and once you're in it, it's hard to get out.

“Someone will present to us for the first time and they might have already been homeless 12 months. You think: 'Where have you been? What have you been doing?', he says.

“But often they've just got themselves stuck in a rut or buried their heads in the sand, decide there's no support out there, or got into problems with the police. There's all sorts of reasons. It's really common to find people who have been homeless for some time.

“And people take risks when they're homeless. They sleep and live in places that are just unsuitable.”

Julie Boyle, who helps run Lifeshare in the Northern Quarter, also sees the very sharpest end of the problem.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

Her organisation – which focuses on young people, often care leavers, often with drug addictions, often in trouble with the police and falling in and out of homelessness – is in many cases the last port of call for those who have been round every single other service and bounced back out again.

How do people end up in these situations? Her verdict is brutal.

“They've been through all the services, ruled out all their options through behaviour or substances misuse and end up on the streets," she says.

“We work with the most aggressive, challenging, angry people and fill the gaps other services don't fill. There's nowhere for them to go."

Ask any homelessness worker and they use the same word: gaps. The gaps in the system, be it mental health provision, addiction support or homeless services, are getting wider and it is charities that are trying – and not always managing – to fill them.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

In some cases they are attempting to do the outreach work that would have previously been done by councils, but there are just too many people in too severe a situation to be able to keep them out of the alleyways and from under the bridges.

Rough sleeping has shot up tenfold in Manchester since 2010, but has also risen sharply in other towns and suburbs surrounding the city. The Wellspring is dealing with three times the number of clients it was six years ago.

“It's just a reflection of where we are societally,” says one weary Manchester charity worker.

“We have spent a long time facing austerity and cuts and welfare reform.

“It's government policies driven centrally and carried out at local level – sometimes with good intentions, sometimes just axing stuff – meaning the gaps are bigger and bigger and bigger.”

(Image: Joel Goodman)

There are attempts to move things forward. In Manchester the city's homelessness partnership is attempting to bring everyone around the table – charities, police, businesses, the council – to come up with answers, but Jez Green, one of the group's facilitators, admits it's an uphill battle.

"We need to try and prevent all this happening, but we also need to realise we are working in a context where there's massive gaps in services,” he says.

“At the same time we are trying to take hope in doing things differently here and working collaboratively."

He insists it is absolutely crucial that homeless people themselves are involved in coming up with answers, adding: “I can't bang this drum too loudly – if we don't include the experiences and insight of the people facing these problems, we won't come up with the right solutions.”

Manchester's homelessness partnership is in its early days, however, and in the meantime deaths on the streets are all too common.

(Image: © Joel Goodman)

Last month a homeless man was found dead in the back of his burnt-out van in Stockport. In November two homeless men who died in a fire in Chinatown. The same month a woman who had been rough sleeping was found dead in a park in Stockport.

Today a body was found in this alleyway in Cheetham Hill, although so far police do not know what happened.

Yet such stories account for a fraction of the tragedies, both in terms of lives and deaths, taking place only just out of view.

Is anyone recording the numbers?

“No, not at all,” says Julie Boyle, who points out people are often sleeping in sub-zero temperatures or facing violence.

“It depends on who finds them or who deals with it, but not many people give a sh*t about the people you find in the canal if they are homeless.”

In Manchester there isn't even a ballpark figure for how many people have died on the streets, even though that tally is only likely to be rising with the current Spice epidemic.

Jonathan Billings believes the current life expectancy of someone sleeping rough in Stockport is 42, based on the deaths they know about.

An official record is 'definitely needed', he says.

“People die when they're homeless. It's really, really sad but it happens. And that's the reality of it.”

The MEN has pledged to support and publicise the Manchester Homelessness Charter at appropriate opportunities.

If you are affected by issues surrounding homelessness in any way, or if you want to do something to help, you can go to: streetsupport.net '