MANCHESTER — From 40 yards away, it's almost impossible to tell whether the oversize lump under the Granite Street Bridge is a heap of rags or a person.

Until the lump moves.

That's when members of the Child and Family Services of New Hampshire's Street Outreach team move in.

"You have to be careful how you approach someone," said Mark Crandall, one of a handful of staff members at CSF's Teen Resource Center who take to the streets of Manchester about 30 hours a week looking for homeless youths as part of the center's Street Outreach program.

As night approaches, team members leave the center on Hanover Street and walk through back alleys and hangouts such as Victory Park and Veterans Memorial Park looking for anyone without a home for the night. On this particular night, they scour the tunnels and brush along the banks of the Merrimack River behind Southern New Hampshire University before finding someone sleeping under the Granite Street Bridge.

Crandall approaches the person, who is covered in so many blankets that determining gender is impossible, but is unable to wake him or her. Crandall leave a red card nearby describing the center's services, and the group moves on.

The Teen Resource Center provides basic necessities to anyone found wanting — food, showers, laundry facilities, clothes — as well as an array of support services — crisis counseling; respite care; substance abuse intervention and treatment; family support services; pregnancy counseling; educational support; and help with housing and life skills.

Justin Wilburt, 21, is taking off a semester from the University of New Hampshire to work with the Outreach team.

"It's worked out really well for me because I was in such a transitional point in my life," said Wilburt. "I didn't know what job I wanted, and this just opened up. I never thought about social work, but then I got in, and now I've been here about six months. I love it. It was a whole world that I didn't know existed."

Crandall says his team would regularly find homeless people sleeping in Victory Park and Veterans Memorial Park. Then the Occupy New Hampshire movement made camp last fall.

"A lot of the kids we would work with there, we saw them taking up with Occupy N.H.," said Crandall. "I think some of them understood what the movement was about, but a lot of them were just joining in to be part of something. When (Occupy activists) cleared out, they went with them. We haven't really seen anyone down here lately."

Along the banks of the Merrimack, Crandall stops to point out what appears to be the remnants of campsites — small piles of clothes and beer cans randomly strewn about under rock outcrops and near tunnels. "You get to know the individuals by what they leave," said Crandall. "We check in with them, try to get them to come in to check out the center."

Crandall said one night his team came across a youth who had been recruited to sell magazines.

"This kid, he knew no one in this state," said Crandall. "There's this group; they get these kids to sell magazines with the promise of travel. But then, like this kid, if they don't meet their quota, they leave them in some state with nothing and take off.

"We found him — he was staying at a bus stop — with nothing. We were able to help get him on a bus home to New Jersey. That made that kid's day."

Team members wear jackets or sweatshirts identifying themselves as members of the Outreach program, and they carry no valuables with them. Sometimes the terrain they cover can be treacherous, especially in winter, and the darker alleys can be intimidating. But they say that what they take from the experience is almost as great as the support they give to others.

"I was raised in a regular middle-class family, and I knew there were things like homeless people, but I never really knew they were kids my age," said Wilburt. "Now, when I meet them and help them out, it feels really good."