The Big Issue's 'fantastic impact' over 35 years

A Big Issue vendor from Brighton has said selling the weekly newspaper, which is celebrating its 35th birthday this year, saved his life.

Vendor Andy Sanguy said he began selling the magazine when at his lowest ebb after he had "lost everything" but profit from sales now boosts his income.

The Big Issue was founded in September 1991 by the now Lord John Bird and Gordon Roddick to help address the issue of homelessness in London.

Sanguy is one of more than 110,000 people nationally who have been helped by the paper, according to support co-ordinator Lewis Knight, who spoke of its "fantastic impact" over the years.

Three and a half decades on from the paper's launch, homelessness and rough sleeping remain an issue across the UK.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has promised to end rough sleeping in England, and more immediately, offer every rough sleeper emergency accommodation this winter.

Sanguy is hopeful this is not an empty promise but is wary after seeing "so many people that have been in a position to do something" fail to achieve a long-term fix.

He said that when he started to sell the newspaper, he had "lost everything. My partner had left me, I couldn't get a house because I wasn't fitting the criteria of the council".

Now he is able to sell copies bought for £2 at double the price and keep the profit as income, alongside receiving job guidance and health support.

Homelessness is both a national and local issue, particularly in Brighton and Hove.

It was revealed last month that during the first six months of this year, almost 50 households a week assessed by Brighton and Hove City Council qualified as homeless.

Moreover, the number of households in temporary accommodation has reached a new high, with 2,292 households living in temporary housing at the end of June.

Co-founder Lord Bird believes that, to address homelessness in a permanent way, "we have to hit the problem of inherited poverty".

He said: "Most of the people I meet on the street come from the same social problem, which is they've inherited poverty from their families, and they've, in a sense, had all sorts of problems laid on them, even at birth."

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