For the past nine months Rye has had a Big Issue Seller in residence on the pavement in the High Street…and on occasions setting up his stall outside our local supermarket. He has two dogs, himself and a large rucksack. This constitutes stall dimensions…and outside Grammar School Records it monopolises one of the two benches.
One fine woman of my acquaintance…bless her…with practical experience of homelessness from devoting part of her life to setting up and running a Battered Woman’s Hostel in Central London has tried to get behind the Big Issue Seller’s situation…quizzing me about the intricacies of Working Tax Credit along the way. I don’t do guilt trips but I know someone who does…bless her…each time she walks along the High Street unsure of which side of the street to pass him by.
The Vicar of St Mary’s…bless him…wrings his hands and discusses with one of his more generously minded parishioners…bless him…the idea of putting the Big Issue Seller into a caravan for the winter. Caravans can be acquired. But a landowner willing and able to accept a caravan, two dogs and a Big Issue Seller is another matter. I suspect there are dozens of similar stories around town. Does one person have the right to generate so much unease?
There are two big issues here with half the proceeds of one going to the seller…a decent percentage by charitable standards. But the other is of interest too. John Stuart Mill argued that people can do as they wish…provided they do not stop others doing as they wish. The philosophy of the Modern Welfare State…throughout Europe…believes Welfare Recipients participate in a Social Contract with mutual rights and duties. There is no such thing as a free lunch. The Queen’s Pence is yours but in return you must make yourself available for Work. No work - no benefits.
Since 1997 Parenting and Caring have been viewed as Work and a Roof Over Your Head has become equivalent to a basic right. The moral case for pensions has also shifted. Thirty years of Past Work has long been regarded as endowing full Pension Benefit Entitlement. But Present Work is also entering the equation. Many one-, and even two-income families are only kept afloat by grandparents minding the children.
Our Big Issue Seller is entitled to shelter so either he doesn’t know this or he chooses not to avail himself of Rented Accommodation and Housing Benefit from Rother District Council. If he is homeless it is by choice or from ignorance…or by refusal or inability to work. Local people who feel guilty should not fool themselves. Old-style Liberals have no philosophical objection to someone over-nighting on The Salts in summer but in winter there is a problem. Either he will infringe on somebody’s personal property rights…trespassing to stay warm…or end up in a National Health hospital at tax payers expense. So it is time to take issue with John Bird the founder of The Big Issue.
The Big Issue was a clever entrepreneurial idea in Thatcher’s Britain. But it is past its sell-by date. There will always be a case for a Campaigning Journal on Homes, Shelter and Housing…immigrants, second homes and pre-empting residential property for commercial use are topical issues. But in the New Labour Welfare State where housing is an entitlement Big Issue Selling should be seen as Charitable Collection. The collector should not be seen as a Homeless Person but as a Charitable Object. From the Public Policy point of view the Big Issue Seller is a Stallholder. If he does not have the requisite Planning Permission or Trading Licence he should be moved on by the police.
Selling Big Issues is not a job. It is not gainful employment in any meaningful sense but a form of begging. Ayn Rand viewed Society as made up of Producers, Looters and Moochers. Producers create wealth for Society. Looters use laws to destroy the wealth of Society while Moochers use guilt. In The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand shows the degrading effects this has on the souls of the Second-Raters who live by the Looters' and Moochers' codes.
Getting the Big Issue Seller off the street yields immediate benefits to everybody. But what of the Big Issue Seller? Ayn Rand sidesteps the question of redemption…of how to turn Moochers into Producers. Virginia Woolf wrote a book entitled A Room of Your Own that considers the question. But the title is misleading. The room is just the first step…and without Money of Your Own it is of little worth.
Virginia Woolf understood Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Rooms and money are just the first steps towards Self-Esteem and Self-Actualisation. An enlightened society’s policy for its Big Issue Sellers would not seek to enforce the contractual terms of the Social Contract for the Queen’s Pence but would recognise the need for a Period of Convalescence. One week of benefit without a duty to work for each week on the streets is one form such a policy might take. Local people could even chip in a bob of two.
10/02/07 @ 11:09