How many years has The Big Issue been in Australia?We're actually about to celebrate our tenth anniversary.
The Big Issue started off in Melbourne as a monthly magazine and over the years it's grown to Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and into regional Australia too - and we're now a fortnightly magazine.
How does the cover price help The Big Issue vendors?The magazine sells for $4 and our vendors (who are homeless, long-term unemployed, or perhaps have a disability - physical or otherwise) buy the magazine from us for $2 and sell it for $4. So that means they pocket $2 from each magazine they sell. This money helps them to buy food or pay rent at a rooming house, for example.
But for a lot of them it's more about interacting with mainstream society, building self-esteem and confidence - they have regular customers who they become friends with. It's about the dignity of being able to help yourself as opposed to relying on hand outs; it's about getting back on your feet.
How many vendors does The Big Issue have in Australia?It'd be close to 300 or 350. But over the past ten years we've helped thousands of people; a lot of people have moved on from
The Big Issue to do an apprenticeship or part-time work or to go back to school.
Vendors work for themselves, they work their own hours on the days that they choose - they're basically their own boss.
What does it take to become a vendor of The Big Issue?You come in, you sign up - it's as simple as that. Usually people are referred to us from welfare agencies or they hear about us from a friend who is already a vendor. They come in and we train them and provide them with ongoing support. Usually they go out with an experienced vendor who will mentor them and show them how it's done.
Who writes for The Big Issue?We're just like any other newspaper or magazine, we get submissions from freelance journalists, photographers and illustrators from all walks of life. We have a small pool of regular freelance writers who we sometimes commission to do pieces. It's paid, it doesn't pay as competitively as most other mainstream publications purely because we're a not-for-profit organisation. The journalists who write for
The Big Issue do it as a way to contribute to society; they just want to be part of this community that we've formed around ourselves.
And there's also a section of the magazine for the contributions of The Big Issue vendors?Yes, there's a page called Street Sheet, and it's there for the vendors. We publish their poems and short stories, and we've started putting their drawings in there as well. Writing, being creative, is rehabilitating in itself, so it can really help to build self-esteem and confidence. We pay the vendors who contribute the same rate we pay our other writers and photographers.
In what ways can young people support The Big Issue other than buying the magazine?We've got an office in each state and we get loads of uni students who help out during their summer break, generally with the vendor support teams and magazine distribution. Vendors come in and get the magazines from
The Big Issue office but they can also go to the closest Body Shop store. So we need to distribute magazines to all Body Shop outlets.
And we're always looking for writers - on our
website you can download our contributor guidelines. We'd love to hear from people who want to write and want to get a bit of experience; we'll happily look at their stories or photographs. We've got a section in the magazine called Roving Eye where we publish a photo essay in every edition. We'd love to see work from illustrators as well.
Is homelessness a big issue in Australia? Without a doubt. It's not getting any better - it's getting worse. Last census there was officially just under 100,000 homeless people in Australia, and the census does its best but not all homeless people are counted.
The gap between the rich and the poor is definitely getting wider and the actual definition of being homeless is getting wider. These days most people think of a homeless person as somebody sleeping on a park bench. But a homeless person could be someone living in their car; the numbers of people living out of their cars in Australia is growing everyday. Then there are people who couch surf, who stay at friends' places and just go from couch to couch and they don't have a permanent home.
This kind of homelessness can be deceiving because it's hidden from sight. People might think: 'we’re actually not doing so bad compared to other countries' but as a matter of fact it actually isn't getting any better. I think it's a great shame that a first world country like Australia should even have people without homes - it doesn't make sense.
The Big Issue Australia
