[Guide to the Market Economy] John Bird, Founder of The Big Issue

“If Homeless People Receive Only Free Charity, They Can Never Become Self-Reliant”

We helped homeless people become self-reliant by selling The Big Issue magazine

Have you ever seen someone wearing a red vest and hat selling a magazine called The Big Issue at the entrance to a subway station in a busy downtown area? They are all Big Issue vendors, and they are homeless. The Big Issue is not only a magazine but also a kind of self-reliance aid that helps homeless people become independent, using all of its profits for the homeless people who work as its vendors. In fact, the basic qualification for becoming a vendor is being homeless.

The Vendors Are Homeless

First launched in the United Kingdom in 1991, The Big Issue has published 14 editions in more than 10 countries. In addition, there are more than 120 street publications in 40 countries around the world that were either modeled after The Big Issue or partnered with it for content. In the UK alone, The Big Issue sells 130,000 to 150,000 copies every week. Through this, as of 2010, more than 5,000 homeless people in the UK had succeeded in becoming self-reliant. The reason world-famous figures appear as cover models for The Big Issue free of charge is also because of its public-interest mission.

Today, The Big Issue is considered one of the most successful social enterprises in the world. John Bird, who founded it, had himself once been homeless. Born and raised in the slums of Notting Hill in London, John Bird began living on the streets at the age of 5 because his parents could not pay the rent due to financial hardship. After that, he continued to endure a difficult life under unstable living conditions. Naturally, he also drifted into crime. At 13, he was caught shoplifting and spent time in prison. But by his 20s, John Bird had broken with his past and begun studying. He eventually achieved stable self-reliance, and in his 40s, at the suggestion of Gordon Roddick, co-founder of the global cosmetics brand The Body Shop, he launched The Big Issue, which combined social issues with business.

From the moment he founded The Big Issue, John Bird believed that “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” Deeply dissatisfied with charity-centered approaches to dealing with homelessness, he believed homeless people should be given opportunities to become self-reliant. Through those opportunities, he wanted to help them regain control over their own lives.

What John Bird Considered Real Charity

In fact, in an interview with the well-known British newspaper the Daily Mail, John Bird criticized charity-centered homelessness policies, saying, “The charity of governments and various organizations is like feeding people little by little so that they remain trapped in that snare forever.” But homeless people who had already fallen into the trap of charity strongly resisted his thinking. They believed John Bird was trying to exploit them.

Nevertheless, John Bird never wavered. Rather, he established rules of conduct that had to be followed in order to become a Big Issue vendor. The core of these rules included abstaining from alcohol while selling and behaving confidently and courteously toward customers. Through this code of conduct, John Bird hoped homeless people would regain their dignity and self-respect on their own. He also set a clear standard for how sales revenue would be handled. Vendors were given their first 10 copies of the magazine for free, and with the proceeds from selling them, they could then buy another 10 copies at half the cover price. Simply put, homeless vendors were allowed to keep half of the sales revenue.

There are also critical views of John Bird and The Big Issue’s approach. Some argued that by emphasizing the “market” and “self-reliance,” it diluted the government’s responsibility for welfare. But John Bird believed that unconditional and uniform welfare policies often failed to produce real results. Therefore, he never abandoned his determination to provide opportunities for self-reliance rather than charity. As a result, the level of satisfaction among homeless people who succeeded in becoming self-reliant through their own efforts is incomparably higher than when they had barely survived on charity.

Self-Made Success Depends on the Individual

No one can enjoy everything without first enduring immediate discomfort and hardship. It is self-contradictory to hope for a better life than others without taking risks. The same is true of self-made success. In the end, self-made success is an individual matter. There is no reason to blame the possibility of becoming self-made. Already, more people around the world enjoy a much higher quality of life than in the past. Even now, the world is changing and developing rapidly, and compared with the past, it has become more finely structured. In the narrow spaces within that structure, new opportunities continue to emerge. A gap that someone has already discovered is an opportunity known to everyone. Today’s younger generation must find its own new openings that fit the present age.

◆ Please Remember

Have you ever seen someone wearing a red vest and hat selling a magazine called The Big Issue at the entrance to a subway station in a busy downtown area? They are all Big Issue vendors, and they are homeless. The Big Issue is not only a magazine but also a kind of self-reliance aid that helps homeless people become independent, using all of its profits for the homeless people who work as its vendors.

Sung-no Choi, President, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [시장경제 길라잡이] '빅이슈'를 창간한 존 버드

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2019-07-22

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=13&idx=20349