RORA FOR 2021

Last year, as the Covid crisis first gripped, The Big Issue launched the Ride Out Recession Alliance. While furlough measures helped millions of people, it was clear they wouldn’t help everybody. And we decided to do something about that.

Early figures suggested that more than 400,000 households were at risk of homelessness. As employment security was crumbling and jobs were being lost, finding enough money to keep a roof over your head was increasingly tough for far too many.

At The Big Issue, we did not want to see a generation lost to homelessness, with the life-battering, mental health-hammering changes that brings to those who go through it, to the families and to society. Our focused work for 29 years had been for our vendors, the men and women on the edge, those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We worked to find ways to help them help themselves. We offered a hand up.

Covid made it clear another set of people were at