The spacious upstairs floor of the Ballard Bookcase Building is filled with 1,342 photos by David Entrikin of the 1,976 homeless people who sleep on the streets of Seattle unsheltered every night. The effect is powerful.

"I've had people sitting on the bench looking at the exhibit, crying, because they knew someone in that situation," Entrikin said.

Entrikin's "Outsiders" is meant to document the unsheltered homeless and to make the startling statistics on homelessness more human, he said.

Though the exhibit offers no solutions to the problem, and Entrikin said he has none himself, 100 percent of donations at the free exhibit will go to the Ballard Food Bank, which is experiencing an increase in use.

The photos range from images of human forms huddled on the bare ground with only a blanket covering them for protection from the elements, to elaborate shelters constructed from boxes and garbage. There are also walls of faces - people Entrikin said he became familiar with during his four years working on the project.

In 2004, while on an assignment for the city, Entrikin said he became interested in photographing the homeless he was seeing in parks. After that, he went out every Sunday morning from 5 to 9 to take pictures.

Most of the photos in the exhibit were taken downtown, but there are a few from other neighborhoods, including Ballard.

Many of the homeless people he met on those Sunday mornings were excited to have their photo taken. Entrikin said they would often ask him to take their picture or allow him to in exchange for money.

"Just to have a picture makes them real to themselves," he said.

Entrikin said he would occasionally be asked to mail a photo to a relative of the subject to let their family know they were alive.

Though his project is on display, Entrikin said he has no plans to stop photographing the homeless people he sees because the problem is still there.

"All these people are still out on the ground," he said. "This isn't doing anything for them."

Entrikin said he believes homelessness will become an even bigger problem in the future, but the city can help in the short term by having more sympathy for the homeless when it comes to removing their camps and allowing them space to sleep outdoors.

Entrikin is trying to encourage teachers and schools to bring students to the exhibit in order for them to understand the larger problem.

"A lot of kids have no ideas this is in the community they live in," he said.

He wants the exhibit to build empathy in the community for Seattle's homeless population, approximately 85 percent of who are King County residents.

"They're our people, you could say."

"Outsiders" is open from noon to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday until mid-November at the Ballard Bookcase Building at 4611 11th Ave. N.W.

On Sept. 24 Allison Eisinger of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness will speak at the exhibit about the 2,000 people who sleep without shelter every night and what citizens can do to help.

Michael Harthorne can be reached at 783-1244 or michaelh@robinsonnews.com.