On a Thursday morning at the Manchester headquarters of the Big Issue in the North, Anne McNamara, the magazine’s chairman and co-founder, spots a familiar face.

John, a former Big Issue vendor, smiles in recognition. He explains he has just been released from prison. He has no job and nowhere to go.

It is 10am and there is alcohol on his breath. “If we don’t pounce on someone like this, we will lose him,” says Ms McNamara afterwards. “He could just spiral downwards. Maybe he has a dependency problem and we can look at that. Perhaps we can organise temporary accommodation. He needs to rebuild relationships after four years in prison.”

The Big Issue in the North, created 10 years ago, sells 57,000 copies a week in 124 towns and cities across northern England. It has a staff of 70 and turnover of £2.5m.

The organisation has helped stabilise the lives of many thousands of homeless people through training, employment, healthcare, housing and other activities that lift self esteem and confidence. The ethos is self help, and the aim is to allow people to break the cycle of instability and to move into healthier, more positive lifestyles.

People’s lives can become fragile and chaotic. “You cannot look at housing in isolation,” says Ms McNamara. “In a way homelessness is a red herring. It is more complicated than just finding everybody a house.” Many vendors have problems relating to drug or alcohol dependency. Many have tried suicide.

A life may have been shattered by marital or family breakdown. “These are people whose lives are not in a good place.” The Big Issue, which is both a publishing business and a charitable trust, sees itself as providing a “business solution to a social problem”. Big Issue vendors pay 40p per issue, and they keep the 60p balance from the magazine’s £1 sale price.

This provides an income and an alternative to petty crime. Training is compulsory and vendors have a maximum two years of selling the magazine.

“We did not want to spend years and years just stabilising and maintaining people,” says Ms McNamara. “Vendors are ordinary people, many of them young, good looking and with their whole lives ahead of them. Why would anybody want to still be selling the Big Issue in 50 years. People need to move on.” Vendors have to sign up to a code of conduct that sets out rules such as standing up on a sales pitch, “because sitting around makes people look like beggars and that is not what they are”.

Three training components seeks to lay foundations for the future – Learn to Earn, Learn to Live, Learn to Work. Advice is given on accommodation, healthcare, personal development, drug and alcohol services such as detoxification programmes, education and employment and financial services. There are other activities, including sport, drama, art and music, many of which are initiated and run by the vendors with staff support.

“The whole thing is about bringing people back into normal life and normal structures,” says Jane McRobbie, development tutor.

Attitudes towards homeless people are changing. “Nine years ago, the police were clearing homeless people off the streets in readiness for Manchester’s bid for the Olympic Games,” says Ms McNamara. “Now the organisers of the Commonwealth Games here next year are asking how the Big Issue can be involved. It is a complete turnaround.”

Jim Battle, head of northern regions for the National Housing Federation, says the Big Issue has also helped give homeless people a voice.

“The significant thing is that there is an organisation that focuses on a group of people that was voiceless,” he says. “They have a voice not only in terms of who they are but also within local and national government, the police and housing federations.”

Ms McNamara, who steps down as Big Issue chairman next year, says the challenge continues. “One of the biggest drivers for me is that there is almost an implicit expectation that there is not much you can do for the homeless. We are proving people wrong. But it is one long challenging experiment in which we are constantly improving the processes and understanding our own approach.”