Now that’s a bum steer.

An animal-rescue group will tap the city’s homeless population next month in a program that puts hobos to work as stray-cat lookouts and animal-abuse whistleblowers — in exchange for meatball subs and other grub.

The BARTER (Bringing Animal Rescue to Every Resource) initiative by advocacy group Guardians of Rescue will call upon vagrants to use their street smarts to rat out people mistreating dogs, and to guard cat traps into the wee hours of the night.

“In the middle of The Bronx, I wouldn’t want a regular volunteer staying out until 4 a.m.,” said Robert Misseri, the group’s president. “If I have a 70-year-old volunteer set a trap, I don’t want her out all night watching it.”

That’s because a septuagenarian lady is at risk on the streets late at night, he explained.

But “a homeless guy will be up anyway. The homeless are always on the streets, and wherever there are stray people, there are stray animals.”

To find recruits, Misseri, 43, begins with the power of one — bum.

“I start with one homeless person,” he said, “someone who feels better about [himself] by finding and reporting an animal in need. They introduce me to the whole network.”

Hobos like Gregory Beylin will help the group hit shelters and street corners in every borough to snare like-minded transients.

“A lot of us on our own would want to become involved, but getting food for it is a bonus,” according to Beylin, 22, who said he’s originally from Bensonhurst and has been living on the streets for about four years. “It gives people a reward.”

The rewards will be gift cards to places like Subway, or clothing donations. Bonuses can be earned for exceptional work.

For example, guarding a kitty cage all night is worth a $25 gift card — plus an additional $25 card if a puss is nabbed, Misseri said.

Working with veterinarians, the group will have stray cats spayed or neutered and vaccinated. A cat would be released if it’s healthy, the area is safe and there is a caretaker feeding it. If not, the animal would go to Happy Cat, a Long Island kitty sanctuary with which Guardians of Rescue partners.

Homeless helpers who drop a dime on animal abusers could bring in the mother lode: up to $500 in gift cards, Misseri said.

The homeless will not set the traps or handle animals, nor will critters be put in their care, he stressed.

“They are our eyes and ears,” said Misseri, who is taking special aim at hustlers hawking puppies on street corners in “marginalized sections of Manhattan.”

Guardians of Rescue, a 30-volunteer Smithtown, LI-based nonprofit that has worked to reunite stray dogs in Afghanistan with US soldiers, took in about $69,000 in donations in 2011, according to its latest tax filing. It launched the BARTER program in crime-riddled Camden, NJ, yesterday.