Homeless man sleeps on the footpath. Photo: Franco Folini, Creative Commons
Keen to do your bit during Homeless Person’s Week? Pick up a copy of The Big Issue for the train ride home to help make a difference.
The independent, not-for-profit Big Issue organisation is dedicated to supporting and creating job opportunities for homeless, marginalised and disadvantaged people. The fortnightly magazine creates employment for the vendors who sell it as well as the women who pack it. The goal of The Big Issue is to help people help themselves – vendors keep half the price of every magazine they sell.
First published in London in 1991, the magazine was launched in Australia in 1996 from the steps of Flinders St Station. It has employed thousands of disadvantaged people, including those with backgrounds of mental illness, long-term unemployment, intellectual and physical disability, drug and alcohol dependency or family breakdown. All have experienced homelessness.
The Big Issue is using Homeless Person’s Week to raise awareness of The Women’s Subscription Enterprise. This initiative aims to raise subscriptions to fund work for women in a safe and secure environment that doesn’t involve them selling on the streets. It employs women to pack the magazines to send out to subscribers. The enterprise currently employs 50 women nationally and hopes to increase that number. One hundred subscriptions equates to a position for one woman.
Also working to support the Action Against Homelessness Initiative is StreetSmart Australia, which this year has organised its fourth annual CafeSmart event. The initiative brings together 410 cafes in the community to donate $1 from every coffee sold to fund projects to help the homeless.
CafeSmart originated from another StreetSmart Australia food-related charity concept, DineSmart.
DineSmart launched a decade ago and saw hundreds of restaurants and wineries participate to donate money from the evening’s dinners to grassroots agencies to improve the lives of homeless people.
“We’ve always had a conversation with cafes to join DineSmart so we spoke to some cafes to join up and tried to find a way for it to work,” Mr Robinson said. “So we came up with CafeSmart.”
The work of organisations like StreetSmart Australia and The Big Issue are making a difference by just asking people to spare some change.
