Advertisement
Housing

Sadiq Khan visits Big Issue-backed Change Please amid £7m rough sleeping fund

The London Mayor grabbed a coffee from a homeless barista as he unveiled extra funding to tackle homelessness in the English capital

London Mayor Sadiq Khan grabbed a coffee at a Big Issue-backed Change Please cart this morning as he unveiled an extra £7million to tackle rough sleeping in the English capital.

The extra funds are in addition to the £8.5 that City Hall plough into rough sleeping services and will aim to beef up immediate and long-term support with a new rapid response outreach team and expanding winter provision.

To mark the announcement, Khan visited Change Please on Monday morning, which has received £60,000 from the Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Innovation Fund as well as £50,000 from his Good Growth Fund.

The social enterprise trains homeless people as baristas on carts and in tube station locations across London, offering a sustainable pathway off the streets.

Founder Cemal Ezel’s firm has been a success story, thanks to support from Big Issue Invest, our social investment arm, growing from a single cart to having their coffee stocked on Sainsbury’s supermarket shelves across the country.

Advertisement
Advertisement

“Organisations like Change Please are doing a fantastic job helping homeless people to rebuild their lives, offering training, employment and support,” said Khan, while visiting a cart next to the Shard this morning. “It was great to meet the baristas today and hear how far they’ve come since sleeping on the streets, and the bright future they have now.”

Ezel added: “It’s fantastic to have the support of the London Mayor – the Rough Sleeping Innovation Fund has been crucial in helping us grow our business so that we can employ more previously homeless baristas and change lives.”

Despite launching his campaign to end rough sleeping at the end of November, raising over £207,000 for charities tackling the issue so far, the recent official England rough sleeping stats made grim reading for Khan.

While overall figures dropped by two per cent, London’s count found that levels had increased by 13 per cent to count 1,283 rough sleepers on the city’s streets.

Khan insists the increase in rough sleeping over the last few years is a “national disgrace”.

He said: “The truth is that we will never truly end homelessness unless the government fully invests in the services we need, and crucially until ministers stop ignoring the fact that their policies and cuts are making more people homeless in the first place.”

While Labour’s Khan was seeing Change Please’s work first-hand, seven MPs from his own party were announced their resignation to launch The Independent Group.

After Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger and the rest declared themselves “politically homeless” and cited their disgust at anti-Semitism in Labour, Khan agreed and party members to “do much more to root out the evil” of the issue.

But was wary of making the same step. “This is a desperately sad day,” he said. “These seven MPs are all friends of mine. I served alongside them in Parliament.

“When the Labour Party splits it only leads to one outcome – a Tory government – and that means a hard Tory Brexit.”

Image: Mayor of London

Advertisement

Sign our petition to keep people in their homes

Urgent action is needed to prevent even more people being pushed into homelessness.  A secure home is the first step in addressing the cruel cycle of poverty to ensure people can fulfil their potential. Join us to keep people in their homes.

Recommended for you

Read All
'Profoundly worrying': Could Tories drop much-needed Renters Reform Bill like its net zero promises?
Renters Reform Bill

'Profoundly worrying': Could Tories drop much-needed Renters Reform Bill like its net zero promises?

Tories will fail to end rough sleeping by 2024, experts warn, breaking manifesto pledge
Homelessness

Tories will fail to end rough sleeping by 2024, experts warn, breaking manifesto pledge

Homeless charity transforms Ford Transit van to help rough sleepers with food, hygiene and shelter
Rough sleeping

Homeless charity transforms Ford Transit van to help rough sleepers with food, hygiene and shelter

How people are turning to converted vehicles and DIY homes to beat UK's housing crisis
Housing

How people are turning to converted vehicles and DIY homes to beat UK's housing crisis

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Here's when people will get the second cost of living payment in 2023
3.

Here's when people will get the second cost of living payment in 2023

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue