As I approach Glasgow’s buzzing Argyle Street I pass hundreds of revellers wearing their gladrags and ready to celebrate following yet another payday.

The sun is dropping and there is a chill in the air, and walking along the iconic street it is clear that summer is now well behind us.

Teenagers stare down at their phones, couples share a kiss before departing in a taxi, and friends walk towards the next pub on their crawl through the town.

But elsewhere in the hubbub of Glasgow's bustling city centre, their is another community, far from thriving and growing in numbers day-by-day.

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In tents on the famous Style Mile, down dangerous back lanes and desperately in the doorways of multi-million pound companies, Glasgow's homeless population bed down for the night.

Working with Help the Homeless and The Invisibles over the past fortnight, I saw first hand the trauma and tragedy which has befallen some of the our city's most vulnerable people.

Prior to these nights with volunteers, I had presumed I had a good handle on the scope of the problem of street homelessness.

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But for all of the figures and statistics we all hear about on a regular basis, gradually creeping up each year, nothing could prepare me for the human cost people are paying for each night we allow people to stay on the street.

In just two nights I spoke to dozens of individuals - some veterans of the street, others reasonably new to their sad surroundings. All of them had tales of beatings, widespread drug use and their own deteriorating mental health.

Glasgow Times:

On a daily basis, thousands of Glaswegians walk the city's streets, completely ignorant of the pain felt by those we ignore, sitting at our feet as we shuffle by.

Yes, some have addiction problems, some have a criminal past. But who can honestly say they would not be tempted by a temporary reprieve from their bleak existence? Who would not become desperate in the cold of winter facing another night on the street?

These are not excuses to allow ourselves to become numb and ignorant to the pain felt every day - hurt which most of us cannot even fathom.

Groups like The Invisibles and Help the Homeless do genuinely critical work - helping those who are in life-and-death situations almost constantly. Yet still, they face criticism.

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On Saturday Help the Homeless were faced with questions from passersby on why they were choosing to help. Volunteers from the Invisibles say this attitude is all too familiar to them as well.

But if frontline services like these are being criticised, what then is the answer?

“We’ve been accused of making it worse by giving them sleeping bags, but what do we do when there’s nowhere for people to go?” one member of The Invisibles asked me. “What would you do as a human being? Do we just leave them?

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“This is when they’re vulnerable. They’re being attacked. This is why they’re taking street valium, they don’t care. If they wake up, they wake up, that’s the attitude. If they don’t - who cares?”

We should all be lobbying for more to be done to help those sleeping rough. We should all be asking for better support for those facing addictions.

We should all be doing what we can to alleviate this suffering. We should care.