Dodgy landlords, DWP misery and our brilliant vendors: This is how Big Issue changed lives in 2024

Big Issue has always existed to change lives. This begins, of course, with our vendors. We provide a new start and a chance for them to break the cycle of poverty and homelessness. 

More than that, we stand up for those who are marginalised and ignored in society, and we demand change. 

Through our journalism, we are not afraid to challenge powerful bodies and individuals over what we think is right. 

• Much-loved Big Issue vendor given wooden hut at Christmas market: ‘He’s part of the family’
• Sanditon star Rose Williams helps Big Issue with Christmas deliveries: ‘A pleasure and a privilege’

And what a year we’ve had. Big Issue’s engaged reporting has helped address our readers terrible housing conditions. We have demanded change from landlords – including from one who is a TV star and household name. 

We’ve supported people facing the worst and most punitive parts of the benefits system, while some politicians and others in the media seek to deride them. We helped a homeless artist off the streets, while our own Big Issue vendor colleague had his art displayed in the Saatchi Gallery.  

Big Issue worked with people with learning disabilities to give them the opportunity to take over the magazine and tell their stories from their perspective. We helped get that Harry Kane statue unveiled, and we took Big Issue on the road to Newcastle to hear the stories of people from the region and take them to the nation.  

A lot of this good is down to you, our readers, continuing to support us to make a difference to people’s lives. We will keep fighting for a better future and we hope you join us.  

Here’s to next year.

We took on a battle a reader had with his landlord – Catchphrase host Stephen Mulhern. And we won

When a tenant living in a home rented out by Stephen Mulhern, we made it clear to the Catchphrase presenter: we say what we see.

Big-name ITV presenter Stephen Mulhern has amassed a £4m property empire. But one of his tenants – who wished to remain anonymous – contacted Big Issue following months of living with damp and mould in their Leicester home. 

“We worked our butts off as key workers during Covid – my housemate for the NHS, and I in a factory producing disposable plastic accessories for hospitals, pulling extra shifts. And for what? Virtue-signalling claps? Who tunes in to watch and support Stephen Mulhern while we’re paying him rent to live in squalor? It leaves me bitter and alienated,” said the tenant.

After Big Issue sounded the alarm, Mulhern said he was unaware of the state of the property – he is paying an independent management company to look after it. Mulhern said he was “absolutely mortified” by the situation and promised to fix it as a “matter of urgency”, including personally requesting damp specialists to attend the property. 

Those works are in the process of getting underway, the tenant confirmed, since we first ran in October.

Read the story here.

The DWP wrongly accused a reader of owing them £28,000. We got involved and sorted things out. It has changed the reader’s life

Michelle Burns had her disability benefits stopped and was accused of owing £28,000 in overpayments to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Her husband James Jolley – who is blind – got in touch with Big Issue after learning about how we’d carried stories about other DWP actions, and sought to help our readers through our reporting. 

We contacted the DWP, they admitted that a mistake had been made, and they apologised to the couple. Burns had her benefits reinstated and the overpayment scrapped. 

“When we put our story out there, we had no idea that anything would come of it,” Jolley said. “After Big Issue contacted the DWP and they apologised, we were given back pay.  

“Michelle wanted me to buy a reading machine with some of it, which has actually changed my life. I have been able to buy, and subsequently read, a paperback book independently.

“Michelle wanted me to buy it because I’d been dealing with the DWP calls. It’s an amazing device. I’ve already read three books with it since September, and I read the post with it when Michelle’s shopping.”

Read the story here.

Big Issue helped a disabled man who was facing homelessness remain housed AND get proper support 

“Big Issue saved the day,” said George Fielding, after he got in touch with our reporter about his housing troubles. 

Fielding, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, asked for help from Hammersmith and Fulham Council after continuous rent rises left him fearing homelessness. But he was told he needed to make himself homeless to access housing support. The advice left him speechless, and worried he might lose his home and his independence. 

But when Fielding got in touch with Big Issue, we took the council to task. They admitted their blunder, pointed him to proper support, offered him a rent top-up, and even said they’d use Fielding’s case as a training exercise.

Read the story here.

We helped homeless artist David Bedford use his skills to move off the streets 

David Bedford started drawing while on London’s streets just to “keep on the straight and narrow” – but his art skills proved to be an unlikely way out of homelessness. 

Bedford held his first-ever exhibition of his work in May at Punjab Covent Garden with the help of homeless charity Under One Sky. The 57-year-old, who had been sleeping rough on and off in London since 2019, hoped selling his art would fund a move indoors to take up factory work in Lincolnshire. 

We ran a story ahead of the exhibition to help raise awareness and the show raised £2,400, enough for him to break the cycle of homelessness. 

Read the story.

People with learning disabilities took over Big Issue 

This special issue of the magazine put people with a learning disability directly at its heart. They were involved in coming up with the ideas, contributed to the content and helped to design the magazine to make it more accessible for readers.  

It was about celebrating people with learning disabilities and all their achievements and busting myths and stigma. Paralympian Jessica Jane Applegate wrote about her experiences with having a hidden disability, and CBeebies presenter George Webster did the Letter to My Younger Self, among many more brilliant contributors.  

Alastair Smith, who is non-verbal, was able to interview his favourite band IDLES, and then went on to actually perform with them on stage after the magazine was published. 

We had an incredible response from readers and most importantly, we had a fantastic reaction from people with learning disabilities and their loved ones. 

We helped a youth organisation get funding, become a global beacon – and connected two old friends 

At Big Issue, we love to use our voice to amplify brilliant work being done in communities across the country. In April, we took a tour of Tower Hamlets with actor Eddie Marsan, who grew up there, and his friend Darren Way, founder of local charity Streets of Growth (where Marsan is now a patron).

Streets of Growth’s pioneering youth intervention work has been equipping young people for over two decades to move out of harm, exploitation, gangs and knife crime and supporting their transitional pathways back into education and employment. And the resulting article had real-world impact.

“Both me and Eddie are extremely proud of the article. It had impact in ways we couldn’t have imagined,” Way told us. “The response from the community, professionals and the wider public has been phenomenal. It was shared around youth and community development workers in the US and Northern Ireland, brought more attention to our incredibly important work in youth intervention, and even brought in funding from private and business sector donors.

“One other big surprise was that an old friend I had lost contact with years ago and who was part of the Streets of Growth journey from the very start, saw it and got in touch. How fantastic is that!”

A fundraiser for Afghan girls who want to learn was set up off the back of our article 

Our article on how Afghan women and girls are defying the Taliban with secret schools led to a fundraiser to help 24 determined young women take an English foreign language exam in Afghanistan. They’ve raised just over £1,100 at the time of writing, but need £5,000 to take the exam. Here’s the fundraiser.

Christopher Eccleston ran the marathon for the Big Issue – and that’s just the start 

Christopher Eccleston has always gone the extra mile for Big Issue. In 2020, he became a Big Issue ambassador and has consistently used his profile to help us advocate for people facing poverty and homelessness. But this year, he didn’t just go the extra mile, he went an extra 26.2miles.

Actor Eccleston ran the London Marathon in April to raise money for Big Issue. The star of Our Friends in the North, Hillsborough, Doctor Who and The A Word had just turned 60 and had not completed the distance for a decade.

It was a struggle. Running a marathon is a huge commitment, the training an exhausting, thankless task over weeks and months through the winter.

But Eccleston was also on a relentless drive to raise money for Big Issue, even sending an emotional plea for sponsorship via an Instagram video during the closing stages of his marathon run.

“During that last mile I kept thinking ‘I can’t wait for this to stop’,” he told us, immediately after crossing the finish line near Buckingham Palace.

“What gets you around is the sponsorship. We are trying to get people off the streets. We’re trying to get a roof over their head and we’re trying to lift them out of poverty.”

Eccleston’s feat (and his feet) raised a whopping £20,000 for Big Issue CIC – which has helped our frontline teams to help more of our vendors through these tough times.

“I looked at the sponsorship page every day,” Eccleston said. “Some people put in incredible amounts of money and some people put in just what they can afford. And everything is equal. 

“It has been very, very moving, what people have done. Some people have only been able to afford a pound – we’re in such tough times – but they’ve done it.”

We took Big Issue on the road for the first time with our Big Community Roadshow. First stop, Newcastle

As an organisation Big Issue Group wants to get to grips with the societal issues driving poverty and the best way to do this is to get out, listen to those who have faced adversity but are bringing change through grassroots work. Many times these people are ignored, or feel their region is left behind. We want to fix that. 

We took our editorial team to work out of Newcastle for a week. Our frontline team were present to offer sales opportunities, as were our Invest and Recruit arms. 

We learnt how Newcastle United fans are tackling food poverty, spoke to people at Newcastle food bank, interviewed mayor Kim McGuiness and went to the youth clubs that inspired Ant and Dec’s Byker Grove.

We also hosted Big Issue’s Big Debate, with a panel tackling the deep challenges the region faces including high child poverty and employment struggles. Big Issue is listening and we won’t stop telling your stories in the north-east.  

Next spring our next stop will be Cardiff.  More details to come in the new year. 

Our Big Issue vendors are remarkable, once again

Every single person who sells the Big Issue magazine is doing something incredible. Many are facing homelessness and poverty but make a choice to get out and sell a magazine, regardless of weather conditions, to earn a living and make a new start. 

Stuart Drucker in Wales has had a busy year taking a part time paid role within Big Issue. Alongside being a vendor, he now posts out the magazines that have been ordered for corporate subscriptions and in his role as a sales trainee he’s trialling selling Big Issue items through an online marketplace. 

Dave Martin, who has sold Big Issue for a decade, including with Prince William on two occasions, had his artwork displayed in the Saatchi Gallery as part of an exhibition raising awareness of homelessness. 

Our longtime colleague André Rostant has had quite the year – representing Big Issue across a number of events with John Bird, featuring in the Christmas advert and taking on a role as an equal-to-equal peer mentor to help other vendors, such as with digital skills. 

His book The Muffin Man, which tells the story of George, a Big Issue vendor in Soho, was published in June. He’s set to join author and comedian Dom Joly for a conversation about his book on 9 January at Stanfords in Covent Garden, central London. All proceeds will go to Big Issue.  

This is the briefest snapshot of some successes. Here’s to every single man and woman who goes outside to brave whatever the world will bring. They are remarkable.

We showed the world that Harry Kane statue 

When Harry Kane sat next to a statue of himself on a November morning, it was not the first time the world had seen the likeness. 

Back in March, Big Issue made headlines – and memes – across Britian when we exclusively revealed the first pictures of the England captain’s statue, which had been hidden away in storage for years. 

Commissioned by Waltham Forest Council at a cost of £7,200, it was not just the statue’s looks which raised eyebrows. Coming at a time when councils across the country were raising bills and cutting services, it shone a light on stretched council finances.

Read the story.

We shone a light on the nitazene drug scandal… 

Over the course of months, Big Issue investigated the shocking human toll of nitazenes, which were being found in contaminated heroin and pills bought online, and claiming lives in hostels, on the streets, and in shared accommodation. 

We uncovered the story of 21 deaths in Birmingham last summer, and the people working to fight back and expose the reality.  

It made the wider world take notice. Not only did over 400,000 readers come to the story online, but MPs of all stripes responded and called for action. The threat from nitazenes is not over, however. Lives remain threatened, and Big Issue will keep reporting on the deadly drug’s impact. 

…and the legal aid crisis 

Big Issue investigated a hidden aspect of the legal aid crisis. Asylum seekers, often fleeing war or torture, are being re-traumatised as they go through the process of Home Office interviews without proper representation. 

Legal aid rates – the money paid to solicitors who represent asylum seekers – haven’t increased since 1996, representing a real-terms cut of 48%.

The government wants to cut the asylum backlog and reduce the number of hotels being used. But the legal aid crisis works against that: poorly decided cases are more likely to need costly appeals, while a lack of representation means initial decisions can take longer. 

Since we reported on the crisis, change appears to be coming. Reports suggest the new Labour government will increase legal aid rates by more than inflation.  

Big Issue continues to face down poverty. And seek lasting change 

In July, the UK went to the polls. From nitty-gritty manifesto details to dirty campaign tactics to calls for electoral reform, the Big Issue editorial team covered every aspect of this unprecedented election.

We interviewed Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak, John Swinney and Ed Davey, putting the key questions – including ones from our vendors – to the major party leaders.

“There will be no return to austerity with a Labour government,” Starmer told us. When Britain elected its first Labour government in 14 years, we pledged to hold him to that promise – and to scrutinise his party just like we did the Conservatives.  

Pre and post general election, we fought to put poverty prevention at the heart of every party’s agenda. We called on the incoming government to implement key policies, including building more social and affordable housing, improving public services, providing universal free school meals to all school-age children and reforming the benefits system. 

More than 12,000 people signed our open letter, helping to push the issues to the forefront of the national agenda. 

We celebrate our Big Issue changemakers 

Every January, we celebrate 100 Changemakers: those groups and individuals focused on making the world better, people frequently overlooked. Being a Big Issue Changemaker can have a big impact on the work and reach of the recipient. 

Dale Todd from the Courtyard Pantry Enterprise said: “Honestly, I thought it was a wind-up when we were named a Changemaker. When I found out it was true, I was overwhelmed. We put it on our website and put the graphic on our email, and every time I see it, I just think: ‘Wow, that’s pretty cool.’” 

Big Issue on the big and small screen 

Prince William: We Can End Homelessness aired to a huge primetime audience in November – and Big Issue played a pivotal role. 

In the documentary, our ambassador (and former vendor) Sabrina Cohen-Hatton visits vendor Vincent Lewis in Newport and showcases the truly life-changing role Big Issue can play in helping someone who is experiencing homelessness.  

More than 1.5 million viewers tuned in to the impactful piece of TV, and Big Issue was mentioned in more than 100 pieces of related media coverage. 

Lewis said he had welcomed the opportunity to take part. “Since I was in the documentary, everybody asks me what I would say to Prince William,” he told Big Issue. “I think he’s doing an amazing job. I hope every vendor and everybody on the street and Big Issue support him.”

Big Issue ambassador Lorna Tucker also released her film Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Son, which raises awareness of the reality of homelessness following a conversation between her and Big Issue founder John Bird. 

Big Issue readers do good

Last Christmas, deputy digital editor Sophia Alexandra Hall wrote about buying her first full-size Christmas tree after a picture of said festive fir went viral on social media. Writing about how the purchase had been a goal for her since growing up in foster care, we signed posted charities supporting children in care and care leavers at Christmas. 

One such organisation was the Christmas Dinners project, which is run across the country to bring care leavers together at Christmas. After reading Sophia’s piece, one of our Big Issue readers donated £500 to Richmond, Kingston and Hounslow Christmas Dinner (£625 including gift aid), showing our readers’ kindness and generosity, particularly during the festive season.

Big Issue Group changed lives

This year our social impact investment arm, Big Issue Invest, and our specialist recruitment service, Big Issue Recruit continued to financially support and provide opportunities for many people.

Big Issue Recruit supported 204 candidates, placed 47 in employment, and delivered 1,000 hours of training. Big Issue Invest manages a total of £68m total assets, with £2.7m new investments this year.

Big Issue Invest continues to get money to innovative businesses – such as Home Kitchen, in Regent’s Park. Run by two-Michelin star chef Adam Simmonds, it’s a restaurant with a difference, existing to give people with experience of homelessness a real leg up into the fast-paced hospitality industry. 

The stories of those who work there – from refugees using the income to provide for their children, to former prisoners finding their feet – have been a hit with Big Issue readers, with our reporter going behind the scenes on the restaurant’s opening week.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. This Christmas, you can make a lasting change on a vendor’s life. Buy a magazine from your local vendor in the street every week. If you can’t reach them, buy a Vendor Support Kit.