big issue
a day in the life of... years must be to find a permanent solution to homelessness. “We set about creating the Big Society 20 years ago. Now it has just become a party political issue, often to the detriment of the poor. “We have never dismantled the long-term problem of homelessness. We give people the means to get off the streets but not the tools to change their lives. We have only put our toes in the water.” The Big Issue Foundation, which gives support and advice to vendors, was set up in 1995; editions are sold from Japan to Namibia. The Big Issue Invest was set up in 2001 as a social enterprise fund to finance social businesses. And a large 20th anniversary festival is being held in Finsbury Park in September.
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failed foray into Los Angeles cost the company dear – Bird dodges giving a figure – but US street papers exist in cities from Chicago to Florida. The magazine is still produced with meagre resources. In 2008 the Wales office migrated to Scotland, leaving one writer in Cardiff. Both issues are now produced by a team of nine full and part-time staff. And as the magazine moves into a decade of job losses and economic gloom, there are many echoes of the era in which it was launched. Coupled with the continuing decline of print, can the Big Issue survive another 20 years? “The problem of homelessness is now as bad as it ever was,” says Paul McNamee, Big Issue Scotland Editor. “As long as that is the case, there will always be people who will buy it. “We will be looking over the coming weeks, months
Billie Bickley, 37, began selling the Big Issue London in 1998. She left home aged 14, and was homeless for 18 years. “I had a violent, alcoholic mother,” she explains. “I went to Coventry station and got on the first train to Euston. I’ve been here ever since.” A homeless couple introduced her to heroin. She began dealing for money, and became addicted. “It was a way of blocking things out,” she explains. “I was also taking crack cocaine – anything I could get my hands on.” For eight years Billie slept in a King’s Cross bus shelter. She clocked up 96 offences, avoiding hostels because of her habit. “When you are an addict, you’ve got be on the streets to make money,” she explains. “So
you might as well be on a street corner.” In 2002, a Big Issue worker persuaded Billie to have a medical. She had Hepatitis C, tuberculosis, and 72 abscesses. “I just decided I had had enough,” she says. “Between 2002 and 2005, I got clean. And I have got my life back.” Billie has not been in prison since 1998. She has lived with partner Aden in Elephant & Castle since 2005. Now a fundraising ambassador for the magazine, she has worked the same West End pitch for seven years. “People who sell the Big Issue are down and out. We are on our knees. If people could see how people try to get their lives back on track, they would understand the issues. “The Big Issue have been absolutely amazing. Without them I would be dead.”
and years at ways of making digital pay for vendors. The relationship with the vendors has grown and been reinforced over the years. I’m sure there is not any lack of sympathy.” Bird is more bullish. Rather than the celebrity-driven front pages of the past, he says, the magazine needs to become more hard-hitting if it is to galvanise readers. “The Big Issue needs to be reinvented. It can’t go back to what it was. It has got to become a campaigning journal.”
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