A brave homeless man is revealing the reality of living on Glasgow’s streets.

Martin told the Glasgow Times he lost his job and house in the West End after struggling with rent payments.

The 47-year-old has since woken up to people urinating on him and robbing him at knife point while he tries to survive each day in the city centre.

He hopes by speaking out that people will treat him with more kindness and understanding.

Martin said: “It can take me a full day to get five pounds in my cup, only for someone to stick a knife to my throat and steal it.

“I have also woken up to someone urinating on me while laughing before, it took me three days to find a change of clothes.

“People think because I am very thin I must take drugs and they call me a junkie, the truth is I just don’t get to eat everyday.

“Sometimes the worst part of my day is waking up and realising I didn’t die, because it means I need to do it all over again.

“I don’t actually want death, I just want change and to stop struggling all the time.”

Martin has been living on the streets for five months after losing his job in a call centre.

He is desperate to rejoin the workforce but pointed out how difficult it is for homeless people to land a new job.

Although his living conditions have left him feeling suicidal, Martin knows what he really wants is to live without struggling.

He said: “I had my own house in the West End and a job I was really proud of. It felt great to get money in the bank every week knowing I had worked hard for it.

“My relationship broke down and I had issues with my benefits and health, I fell behind on rent payments and lost everything.

“I would love to get a job again and feel a sense of purpose. I want to contribute to society, but how do they even contact me for an interview? Once you reach this place it is really hard to come back from.

“People don’t realise how close they actually are to ending up homeless, it can happen to anyone and we need to be better at looking after each other.

“This is why I wanted to do this interview, a lot of people ignore me but now I have a voice in a newspaper. I matter.”

We previously reported how the city recorded 1,355 instances of people being refused temporary accommodation last year, compared to 125 people in Edinburgh.

A report from the Scottish Government claimed the figures were caused by Glasgow City Council’s decision to move away from the use of bed and breakfasts for temporary accommodation.

The statistics looked at figures between April and September 2023, revealing that the number of open homelessness cases across Scotland is at the highest level on record.