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The Bigger Issue is Sometimes Us

Written by Stephanie Sadler
Thursday, 23 July 2009 00:00

Big Issue seller Ralph Millward was beaten to death by three teenagers last month, but an overwhelmingly compassionate reaction from the local Bournemouth community exemplifies the wide spectrum of attitudes toward the homeless. At Ralph’s funeral, a friend said: “We’re all the same. Understand us; we’re just people.”

Unfortunately, the magazine’s summer newsletter confirmed that this is not an isolated incident and that one-third of vendors have experienced physical violence. Most tolerate verbal abuse.  “Ralph’s death speaks of a Britain in which this mindless brutality is perpetrated against the weakest and most vulnerable in our society,” Big Issue founder John Bird commented. “This tragedy should act as a reminder that while we lock our doors and feel secure in our homes, there are still many people who don’t have a door to shelter behind and who never feel safe.”

Ralph died because there is a stigma attached to homelessness, a stigma that may be easy to passively subscribe to. That is, until you meet someone who changes your perception, as Ralph did for many of his customers.

Steve, 40, was dressed in a red Santa suit when I first noticed him in Notting Hill, copies of The Big Issue propped up on his arm. His ingenuity made me smile and he let me snap a photo. The next day, he remembered my name and we had a chat over a bag of Jelly Babies.

A few weeks later, I stopped to say hello. Steve reached into the blue duffel bag at his feet, handed me a small square envelope that had “Steph” scribbled across the front. I took it with a smile and looked at him quizzically. I opened the Christmas card. It had a snowman on the front. He knew I missed the New York snow and, the way he remembers things, I don’t think it was a coincidence; inside, he wished me happy birthday as well.

One night in February, we were sitting at the top of Café Nero sipping hot drinks, watching the snow flit and twirl through naked tree branches illuminated under street lights on an ink-blue sky. Steve told me his inspiring story about his quest to find his daughter in America. He pulled photos from his bag and showed me images of him holding her when she was a small child; she was carrying an American flag. There were pictures of Steve working on a chicken farm in Israel, floating in the Dead Sea, skiing in Colorado: images of a fulfilling and exciting life.

When he found himself penniless in 2006, he admitted that he let that stigma of homelessness drag him into drink and drugs on London’s dirty streets. “You start to fit into this box that people cast you in,” Steve said, sipping at the foam on top of his cappuccino.

Fortunately, despite the recession, this month the government released figures showing a drop in homelessness in the UK. They reported a 15% decrease in the number of people declaring themselves homeless to local councils in England during the first three months of 2009 when compared with last year’s statistics of the same period. Also presented was a 26% fall in the number of people accepted as homeless.

Like many others, Steve is using the Big Issue to turn himself around and continues to make positive changes to his situation. He’s joined in on the war effort, is taking computer classes, set himself up on Facebook and will be trekking up the biggest mountain of his life in February: Mount Kilimanjaro. 

To engage Londoners with the precarious plight of the homeless, national charity Crisis recently hosted a series of “hidden gigs”. Ticket holders were notified just 24 hours before the show so, a bit like rough sleepers, they didn’t know where they would end up until the last moment.

Crisis sees 10,000 volunteers each year and found that 83% of them felt that working directly with the homeless helped erase some stereotypes and brought about a better understanding of their situation.

One Saturday afternoon, I spend a few hours at the centre on Commercial Street bouncing from the computer room to the art room to the reading room. Sat at a table next to a girl pulling at a clump of green grapes, my supervisor nodded towards me and said, “This is my friend, Stephanie.” No one is introduced as a volunteer unless asked.

Mischa was from Rome. The first thing I noticed about her was her teeth. She didn’t have any on the right side of her mouth. Well, one, sort of, which was crooked and tinted blue. The second thing I noticed was her smile. She didn’t stop smiling.

Dirt was piled thick under her fingernails and her dark, shoulder-length hair was curly, sticking out from a Nike baseball cap that was yellowed around the edges. It had a red Swoosh. She wore a long sleeved tee-shirt with a Van Gogh image on the front and a pair of battered jeans. Her arms were thin and her face was pale. But, breaking away the idea that the homeless are uneducated, she spoke with exceptional intelligence about politics, her experiences travelling abroad and the fascinating people she has encountered.

Newspapers have carried countless stories that show how people can reach both affluence and poverty in a lifetime.

Last month, singer/songwriter/political activist Bob Geldof told Contact Music News: “At one point, I was living on the streets of London. It didn’t bother me because I was young and I could get a sleeping bag and a sponge mattress in the crypt at High Holborn, or I slept at Gatwick Airport for a while. But all the time, I was alert and watching people.” In 2001, his wealth was estimated at £30 million. 

You probably recall the 2007 story of Ed Mitchells. His riches-to-rags ordeal – from a six-figure salary as a newsreader for ITN, to a bench in Hove – made all the major papers.

Everyone has a story that deserves a listen. It’s easy to make assumptions; it’s not always so easy to find out the truth.

Among the tributes at Ralph’s memorial, there was a poem entitled “Two Days after Ralph’s Death”. It states: “We’re all to blame you know. We’re all responsible.”