Big Issue vendors hand in petition to PM on housing insecurity

Big Issue vendors have handed in a petition to the Prime Minister calling for better financial entitlements for millions of people struggling to pay their rent.

The petition was signed by almost 12,000 members of the public following a campaign launched by the magazine aimed at ending housing insecurity.

Big Issue campaigners are calling on the Prime Minister to take action in the upcoming spring Budget and increase Universal Credit to £120 a week for a single adult and £200 for a couple, and permanently set local housing allowance rates at 30% of market rents.

The magazine said the popularity of the petition confirmed support for welfare spending among the British public.

Andre Rostant, who sells The Big Issue on Carnaby Street in London and took the petition to Downing Street, said: “In the 21st century, we have enough resources, and enough technology, and enough wealth that nobody should be in insecure housing or homeless.

“The changes we’re calling for today are a measure to alleviate some of the causes of homelessness, but we also need structural change in the housing distribution system.”

Jane Durham, who sells The Big Issue in Vauxhall, London, said: “Everybody I spoke to on my pitch signed it, or said they were going to.

“People are really for it, they think the situation at the moment is disgusting.

“A lot of people are losing their homes, or they are locked in temporary housing, even with children, because Universal Credit is not enough.”

Big Issue founder Lord Bird said: “The welfare system we have at the moment unfortunately does not lift people out of poverty.

“With the level it’s currently set at, Universal Credit is making poverty more entrenched.

“We ought to be giving people the tools to lift themselves out of poverty, and that starts with having a secure roof over their head.

“The petition we handed in today is calling for changes that would ensure people can afford to stay in their homes, which would put us on the road to eradicating poverty for good. That’s what I’m in the House of Lords to do, and I’m not stopping until we get there.”