John Bird is not a man of few words.

You recently published a
manifesto called ‘A Rolls Royce
service for the homeless, please’.
“We’re making a programme with
Channel 4 all about this. Nobody
really wants to bite the bullet over
the issue of homelessness, so people
get a shoddy service. Some of my
friends and family – because they
can afford it – have had what I
would call a Rolls Royce service to
help them out of their addictions or
whatever it was that lead them to ill
health or homelessness. They go to
places like the Priory for help.
“Then there are others who
have no money, have gone
through the state system and have
never changed. They have been
continually homeless, and often
continuously in and out of the
prison system. A mate of mine died
recently at 49 years of age. He was
a London-Irish lad I’d known since I
was about 15. For the last 26 years
of his life, he had social security, he
got a flat, and he was supported in
and out of the prison system and in
and out of long-term hostels. But in
the end, he was killed by the system
because nobody ever did a fucking
thing for him, other than maintain
him.
“What homeless people with
deep problems need is intensive
care. They need to come out the
other side, recovered and
independent.”
How much would it cost to provide
a Rolls Royce service?
“On average it costs £60,000 per
year to maintain a homeless person
in a hostel, so holding their hands
for 10 years costs £600,000. And
there are many, many homeless
people who have been in the homeless
sector for longer than that.
“Why not spend more money
on them now in order to save later?
If we were to spend £30,000 a
year for two years – £60,000 – on
bespoke treatment, plus intensive
care and counselling, we would save
£540,000.
“Spend a couple of years on
rebuilding someone’s life, and you
give them what the upper and
middle classes give their families.
Just give them what they really
need, whatever it is, whether it’s
dance lessons or detox, and they will
start to get better.
“And I’ve seen this work again
and again in the lives of people I
know.”
Why do hostels fail to help in
the recovery process of someone
homeless?
“On the whole, hostels should not be
called hostels: they should be called
hostiles, because hostels are largely
hostile to the needs of homeless
people.
“Certainly, homeless people
need to be lifted off the streets
because they are destroying
themselves. They need to be given
places of safety in therapeutic communities
whether they like it or not,
because often their mental health
problems do not allow them to
make decisions by themselves. But
this just has to be one of a number
of stages in getting the homeless
off the streets.
“If you go into the homeless
system, it’s a bit like going into
hospital. You see the doctor, who
tells you you’re very ill and that you
need to go to hospital. You go to
hospital, and they say you need a
major operation and a long recovery.
They show you where the TV is,
the remote control, the bed. They
give you a library book and ask you
what you want for tea tomorrow
night. That’s your first day of hospitalisation.
The second, third and
fourth day are just the same. But
on the fifth day, the nurse comes
in and tells you that you’re going
home tomorrow. “But I thought I
was really ill – I haven’t even had
my operation!” you say. And that
is what generally happens to the
homeless within hostels.
“95% of all money in this sector
goes into emergency or stabilisation,
and only five per cent into
cure. If you’ve been fucked over or
abused as a child, will a big house
with a café area, dorms, toilets and
a consulting room (where you can
see your key worker for two hours
a week or get a couple of hours
a month of psychological help or
some career advice) really change
your situation? A lot of these people
are well over the top, as I was when
I was young. They need what,
unfortunately, nobody gave me
either: deep and intense psychological
help.”
With an emphasis on cure not
maintenance, how could a Rolls
Royce service for the homeless
come about in the UK?
“For me, the future of the world
The interview
John Bird is not a man of few words. Famed for founding The Big Issue and – more recently
– for speaking out about the vulnerably housed, Bird is seen in equal measures
as a hero and a villain, with a talent for contraversy. In his own words, he tells Naomi
Glass his (Bird’s eye) views on what lies in store for those with no fixed abode
14 / The Pavement, February 2007
Photography by Rufus Exton © 2007
“…they are always demanding
things as if they were
children, because no one has
allowed them to grow up”
The Pavement, February 2007 / 15
is about participatory and not
representational democracy: I
don’t want you to represent me
– I want you to represent yourself.
It’s about getting the people with
the problems involved in the solutions.
Homeless people have to be
involved in the solution, which is just
what we did with the Big Issue. The
solutions should not be left just to
experts and trained professionals.
“If you look at homeless people,
they are always demanding things
as if they were children, because
no one has allowed them to grow
up. They are kept as eight-yearolds.
Eight-year-olds put their hand
out for money, for sweets, for the
clothes they want… and Mummy
and Daddy put something in it.
Homeless people should be given
the freedom to make their own
choices.
“You can’t leave all problems to
government or to your MP to solve. I
want people to be trained to understand
government budgets so they
can vote on how the budget’s going
to be spent because they know how
it works.
“The world trains us to be children
because the people in power
treat us like children, so a change
could come about if we recaptured
the heights of politics. We have
to start with a revolution where
we make the decisions based on
knowing where the wealth goes.”
Have you been in conversation
with the British government over
the issues of homelessness?
“I have been in conversation with
them over the years, but they have
never listened to me. I’m probably
going to stand for the Mayor
of London in 2008 and I shall be
making a lot of noise about why it
is that London is full of homeless
people and why they’re warehoused.
“Why is it that there are 16
prisons in the London area which
are a kind of social machine for
creating homelessness, poverty
and crime? I’ll be telling the Home
Office that I don’t want them
polluting my London any more and
getting them to tell me how they
plan to stop the creation of crime,
homelessness and social abuse. I
don’t tolerate the indifference that
society has towards the homeless. I
don’t want London to be like Lagos,
and I don’t want London to turn
into a Third World city where people
can live and die in the streets and
you don’t care. “
“I don’t want
London to turn into
a city where people
can live and die
in the streets and
you don’t care”
How does life for the vulnerably
housed differ from what it was like
when you were on the streets as a
young man?
“The homeless used to work for a
living – they didn’t get things for
free. They weren’t allowed to beg
because if they did, they got done
under the Vagrancy Act. If they
slept rough, they got done under
the No Fixed Abode Act. The laws
are still there; we just don’t use
them. Forty or 50 years ago, the
homeless would have to live in
a place like a roundhouse or the
Salvation Army. Then they’d have
to work, which they could because
hundreds of businesses employed
people on a day-to-day basis, on a
casual list which paid around five
shillings a day.
“Now the homeless are sitting
in hospitals or are being paid to do
nothing and not to be responsible.
They need a chance to grow up.
They just live on state benefits and
their minds are being destroyed by
well-intentioned do-gooders who
think they’re helping when all they
are doing is creating dependency
rather than independence in the
people they are trying to help.”
What does the future hold for
UK’s homeless and vulnerably
housed?
“There will come a time when the
industry will lose its support because
more money is being spent and
fewer people are coming out the
other end. In the same way that
climate change is having enormous
and increasing effects, the problems
of homelessness are rising. More
and more people are getting more
and more desperate. Unless we pass
our buck to the people, we’re lost.”
John Bird’s views are sure to raise
some comment from readers, so
do write in to let us know your
thoughts. Is he calling for a fairer
world or a class war? Are his comments
accurate? Is he in touch
with today’s homeless?