John Bird on 20 years of the Big Issue, at 5x15

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John Bird on 20 years of the Big Issue, at 5x15

04 May 2011

“The world extends poverty by sympathy” this is John Bird’s mantra, he’s sees the issue of homelessness from his own unique perspective, through his journey from homelessness and criminality to comfortable middle class respectability, or as he puts it “I used to be one of them, now I'm one of you, posh, and I’m proud of it”, he relishes the chance to take apart all the ineffective charities and philanthropists who are “transfixed by the idea of giving people something for nothing” and in doing so deepening people’s dependency.

But Bird offers as much solution as he does condemnation, “If you want to get someone out of poverty bring them to the market place” he proclaims, and that’s exactly what he did by starting The Big Issue in 1991. In a rousing speech, that moves sporadically from Ken Dodd to Mr Whippy via the mean streets of Brownsville, Brooklyn; Bird delivers an impassioned plea to move beyond the "us and them" mentalities of the past, and rethink how we engage with the homeless.