How often do you buy a Big Issue?

[Chilliandrice24]

I read that Big Issue sellers buy the magazines for £2 and sell them for £4. It made me think that they probably make very little per day as I never see anyone stopping to buy one. I occasionally buy one but not often. I wouldn’t think they make the minimum wage per hour at that rate.

We have one Big Issue seller in my town who is popular as people stop and chat to her and she has been in her spot for years. The other three I never see people buying. I feel bad to pass them now I realise they make so little.

Do you ever buy one, do you pay the exact price and do you see other people buying them?

Same experience as everyone else here, same Roma woman has been selling it in various towns near me for at least 15 years, I used to give her the money & tell her to keep the magazine, until I cottoned on, I felt like a mug. Always best to donate to your registered local homeless charity.

Lots of people have explained this in their answers. It has very much been taken iver by Roma gangs who are involved in people trafficking. They smuggle people in. They get them selling the big issue as it opens up other benefits which the gangs then take. Buying the big issue in these circumstances just contributes to further people trafficking. It is rare now to see a white big issue seller. It is even rarer that you will be helping a genuine homeless person. They have been pushed out with threats and worse by the Roma gangs who have taken over the patch.

So she's not homeless and probably no reason she couldn't get a job as she has somewhere to live family support and childcare in place.

Absolutely not.

thecritic.co.uk/the-issue-with-the-big-issue/

Yes, it can do when your money is going directly to gamgs involved in people trafficking, drug smuggling and god knows what else.

I assumed BI sellers are checked that they are legit citizens and able to work.

I live in a rural area and the only Roma women I see are selling Big Issue. One is a young girl, 19-ish, she looked a bit tearful one day and I asked her if she was ok. She said everyone was saying no to her magazines. I did wonder if she was under pressure to sell.

Also sometimes see Roma people at a car boot sale, seem to buy masses of stuff and then wait in a group of 12-14 or so at the side of a road, I assume waiting to be collected. What’s that all about? I’m beginning to worry about some local slavery going on but may be just being dramatic.

I think that's rather naive. They have fake documentation. They steal people's details. The gangs distribute the magazines out but most vendors only have a few asking people not to take it but just pay the cash and go. Most people will be in too much of a hurry to bother checking the sellers credentials and that's how they get away with it.

Well, to be honest, tarring everyone with the same brush due to skin colour and nationality seems racist. I'm sure gangs /trafficking are the minority not the majority.

Used to, not now, though. While I have sympathy for Roma women trapped in begging gangs, it's not my problem to solve.

Look around any large town or city and even many small towns and villages. The majority of the people you will see engaged in selling the big issue will be roma women often with children. In the cities where money is good there will be roma men not far away watching their every move. Giving to beggars, bug issue sellers etc in these circumstances does not help anyone apart from the gang leaders. These women will be taken away to poor conditions at the end of each day. They will not be keeping any of the money for themselves. Evertime someone gives money to these people it just encourages more trafficking and OC activity.
This is definitely not in the minority.

I was about to ask this. What happened to the demographic of homeless people who used to sell the BI? Is that it? They’ve been pushed out?

When I first heard a friend complain that the BI seller near them had a flat, I thought this meant the BI allowed them to continue selling for a transition period, to help them get established In their hone and so be less likely to end up homeless again. Now I feel like a mug!

My thoughts are that the BI now is an example of what happens when an organisation prioritizes it’s own survival over the core mission it was established for.

Yes exactly this. The initial idea of allowing non homeless people to sell was well intentioned. Unfortunately it was exploited by gangs.

No, my ex boyfriends mum used to sell it and she wasn’t homeless, until then I thought that was the point of it.

What happened to the demographic of homeless people who used to sell the BI? Is that it? They’ve been pushed out?

Several things happened to them - some of them good. Firstly, we significantly reduced the rough sleeping problem: there are now far fewer rough sleepers and long term homeless people than there were in the early years of the Big Issue’s formation. Secondly, there was a lot of investment in the support sector from the late nineties onwards and it did a lot of excellent work, including developing programmes and initiatives which enabled homeless people to become socially and financially included - such as work with the DWP and with a couple of high street banks, enabling them to set up basic bank accounts using the address of e.g. a night shelter or day service so they could claim benefits. Many of the “traditional” Big Issue sellers simply didn’t need to sell it anymore, they’d taken a step out of their former life.

Also (and partially as a result of the above) the profile of the average rough sleeper is now quite different to the stereotypical British man with various comorbid issues: when I stopped working in the homelessness sector some years ago the majority of our service users were actually from the newly ascended EU countries and weren’t eligible for benefits: they’d typically travelled to the U.K. seeking work but having few skills and poor English weren’t able to find any; weren’t able to claim benefits; and ended up on the streets. There is still a core of “traditional” street homeless vendor - men who have drifted for decades, sometimes housed for a while then losing the housing due to not keeping up with rent or ASB, battling addiction interspersed with periods of recovery, time spent in prison etc but they no longer make up the majority of those experiencing homelessness.

@ComtesseDeSpair Thanks for that detailed answer.

Dies that mean the BI needed to expand who it worked with to survive as an organisation? So its policies are now led by its need to survive, rather than what it was set up to do as not enough of those people exist anymore?

I used to, pre-Covid but I rarely have cash now and our vendors don't have card payment apps.

It’s a double whammy — not only are the sellers pretending to be something they’re not in order to get charitable donations, they’re also using their income as evidence of employment in order to claim benefits. We (as a country) must be absolute mugs.

I didn’t know a lot of this. I’m not sure what to think.

Re not taking the magazine, I thought it was best to take it as they are selling a product not begging. I don’t particularly want it and have to put it out for the recycling anyway. On the rare occasion I buy one, I would give £5 or £10 and let them keep the change.

I’d agree with that, yes: it’s both become a victim of mission creep, and is ultimately now run as a business by people who don’t have any experience of homelessness and its context themselves but want to “save” people: I believe that’s why its founder famously distanced himself some years ago, because of the BI moving the goalposts from supporting its traditional demographic, also saying “I’d love to be a liberal because they’re the nice people but it’s really hard work - I can’t swallow their gullibility and I think their ideas are stupid.”

That is a good quote from John Bird! Thanks again for the reply.

Re giving the sellers extra money, or not taking the magazine, in the old days this was strongly discouraged by the Big Issue as it was supposed to be a job not charity.

John Bird still has a weekly column in the BI, so he's not distanced himself that much.