Whatever happened to the soup runs?

I was still at university when I first got involved with The Big Issue in Bath. I ran a student magazine and had been approached to join the launch team as a volunteer. I’d already researched and run a piece on homelessness in the city, where rough sleeping and begging were prolific. We’d also staged a fundraiser for the local nightshelter with Julian Cope, (who later returned to support The Big Issue in Bristol for us). I’d wanted to get into journalism, so this was a great opportunity.

It’s weird that I’m still a journalist but no longer reporting on the issues faced by a million homeless people. Now I’m reporting on the issues faced by 16 million people in poverty and destitution. All of them at risk of homelessness. Quids in! focusses less on informing the people who could do something about it, instead targeting the people in hardship who will have to do something for themselves.  

Over years, traversing the ranks to end up as Managing Director of The Big Issue’s London/national operation, I witnessed the transformative nature of what was a largely unique support offer of a hand up, not a handout. There were rules to abide by but if you were homeless, or at risk, and wanted to earn money, first to survive and then to move on, you’re in. Many wanted to use their earnings for drugs… That wasn’t what we wanted…

But we came to believe in the process. Magazine vendors built their self-esteem because they were earning their own money with no one telling them what to do. Then they built their confidence because they were proving they could run their own little business and the public would talk to them and wish them well. Then they developed their independence because they realised the world was now their oyster. All this was in parallel to their changing relationship to drugs and/or crime and/or their pasts which weighed on them like an anchor.

Soup runs

In the early days, the alternative was the soup runs, church hall dormitory nightshelters and an acceptance that begging was the best way to get by when you’re homeless. Until the Rough Sleepers Initiatives of the the mid to late-1990s, a vision for change was patchy at best with little strategic link between crisis-based services and move-on accommodation and resettlement support. One would keep you fed. One would keep you warm… and not set alight in your sleeping bag or pissed on or generally fearing for your life. Or worse, if you were a woman.

So what did happen to the soup runs? To a large extent, they fell out of favour as money was invested in local strategies. Handouts were seen as exacerbating the problem and working against the resettlement and move-on activities. It was a kind of tough love and, to be fair, The Big Issue was a bit caught in the middle. On one hand, it was very much about giving people the ability to move off the streets. On the other, it gave them the means to do what they wanted, whether they wanted to engage in services or not. Luckily, they did engage, but only when they were ready.   

We pretend it’s a lifestyle choice. If that’s the choice, how bad was the alternative?

The soup runs didn’t disappear altogether. They still exist from place to place. And today, it’s just as well. Anyone walking down the Strand in London around 6pm will see hundreds queuing up for a veggie supper, as theatre-goers and evening drinkers weave between them. There are thousands of rough sleepers lining shop doorways up and down the West End. The system is overwhelmed. And under-funded. Best we pretend it’s a lifestyle choice. (If that’s the choice, how bad was the alternative?) 

For some, although not so much for homeless people, foodbanks have stepped into the breach. There are an estimated 20 million people in debt and just two million receiving help. Are handouts the best we can do?

Missionary zeal

To those who work at the coalface, the UK has never seemed more like Victorian Britain. I don’t ever remember seeing families queuing on a regular basis for crisis support in dirt-blackened, bare feet, the way my colleagues describe in one of our Quids in! Centres. I imagined this level of destitution as something eradicated with the post-war slum clearances. It isn’t. It’s real. And it’s now.

I am personally ambivalent about organised religion but when faith-based communities step up where local and central government fail, I’m glad they’re there. Many soup runs were laid on by well-meaning church-goers just wanting to not have people starve on their watch. Some would hand out sleeping bags, to prevent them freezing to death, but this was frowned upon by central government once they’d got their s*** together and a sense that ‘if only we could get people into a move-on programme’.

It was not a volunteer’s job to do things strategically, nor necessarily to do more than keep people alive. But there was always a danger the missionary zeal to do good to people would institutionalise them and nurture dependency. There’s also an inherent temptation to add strings – I’ll give you money for a sandwich but I don’t want you to spend it on drugs. It’s natural enough. But not respecting or mistrusting people’s choices is another way handouts work against building routes out of hardship.

Policy failure

Whether we believe it’s a willful act of personal, political ideology or not, the government’s policies on community wellbeing have failed. Starved of funding, local authorities now have to wind down those homelessness services just when the dam is likely to burst… because they are also having to wind down mental health support, family interventions and drug/alcohol services, all known to be triggers of homelessness.

And yet, millions of pounds have been doled out in handouts. Since the pandemic, we’ve regressed to those short-sighted Victorian ideals of patronage. The Household Support Fund, crisis and hardship grants, fuelbank vouchers, food parcels, and even Healthy Start Vouchers are vitally important to recipients but they share the soup run mentality when they don’t come with some expectation of change. Might they exacerbate the problem of hardship, nurture dependency and work against efforts to provide people with a route out of destitution?

We believe in people, their ability to help themselves, albeit with guidance, and sustainable routes out of hardship

Our Quids in! coaches in our local centres can provide people with fuelbank vouchers. They are a lifeline to people in crisis, which is why we have queues of people at our doors. But do they want to engage with our actual service? Usually, no. So, we’ve taken the step to say: ‘No engagement, no vouchers’. The minimum expectation is to run through our money health-check process. In less than half an hour, we can assess their financial wellbeing needs and generate a plan that could yield hundreds of pounds, dwarfing the value of the vouchers. They shouldn’t need another handout, if they follow it through.

We are not a soup run. We are not even a charity. (We’re a not-for-profit, community interest company.) We believe in people, their ability to help themselves, albeit with guidance, and sustainable routes out of hardship. We offer a hand up, not a handout.

Image: Philip Justin Mamelic / Pexels