‘HOMELESSNESS IS NOT INEVITABLE’
Why don’t the homeless just go home?”
That was the provocative strapline on the front cover of the first edition of The Big Issue back in September 1991. We have continued to provoke and to question ever since.
But what of that first cover feature – why was it written? And what were the circumstances that prompted both the headline and the magazine itself?
The story was written by Nick Nardwick, who was the director of homelessness charity Centrepoint – then a fledgling night shelter, now one of the biggest and most vital charities supporting people experiencing homelessness.
Three decades on, we sent Nardwick his article to find out what he made of the words he wrote to bring attention to the homelessness crisis, and what he feels has changed in the years since.
“What struck me was how bad things were then,” he says. “In particular, I talked a lot about children. There were children on the streets sleeping rough and you don’t get that to the same extent now.
“That’s improved, particularly because of some of the work Centrepoint did about young people leaving care. Some of what I wrote about young people running away from abuse was not widely understood at the time.
“So on the one hand, things have changed, and to some degree for the better. But on the other hand, you walk around
