HAS THE ISSUE BECOME TOO BIG?

John Bird's magazine was a revolutionary and profitable antidote to homelessness. But an LA launch has gone awry, there are problems in London and, a former editor argues, even its founding aims are open to question

JOHN BIRD is sitting at a pavement cafe in Chiswick when his mobile phone rings. It is The Big Issue's press officer calling to say that the Prince of Wales has said 'Yes'. He has agreed to open the magazine's new headquarters in King's Cross later in the year. It is mid-July. Back on a brief visit from his new base in Los Angeles, the founder of the magazine sold by the homeless characteristically plays down the good news. But he is pleased. Tanned from the California sun, he is a little heavier, a little greyer, and would veer towards the distinguished if he could stop sitting on his newly acquired reading glasses and buckling the frames. Prince Charles - risking accusations of favouritism - will thus be visiting the magazine for the second time in 12 months. The Big Issue, darling of the political establishment, can now add royalty to its fan base.

TBI is a Nineties success story. It launched in September 1991 as a crude monthly A3 tabloid with a 50,000 print run. Funded by Gordon Roddick, it was produced by John Bird and a handful of young volunteer journalists, and distributed from the back of a van. Today, sales of the founding London- based edition stand at 127,032 a week. Several independent editions of the magazine are published across the country (including Big Issue Scotland and Big Issue in the North). Magazines have also been launched in Australia, South Africa and the United States. Any profits from the annual turnover - which by 1995 had crept into the millions - are dedicated to The Big Issue Foundation, a registered charity which "offers support to people affected by homelessness, enabling them to gain control of their lives."

The success has not been without its problems. John Bird, who has been in LA for a year overseeing the latest launch, has been fire-fighting to save it from the wounding attacks of the Californian homeless industry. Native street papers say TBI's big business initiative is threatening their livelihoods. John's West Coast crisis has distracted attention from problems back home.

To date there has been a conspiracy of silence surrounding TBI. To criticise it is seen as politi- cally incorrect, and it feels slightly uncomfortable to be writing this article about an organisation I worked for, as an editor and director, for more than five years.

As all the founding staff will testify, it was an intense experience. We would work through nights, weekends, Boxing Day, New Year's Day. The sickness record was negligible while inter- office relationships went off the scale. John Bird was cast in the role of tyrannical but benevolent figurehead. Possibly due to his Catholic upbringing, he could lambast and forgive you in one breath as long as you acknowledged responsibility for your failings: "John, I have sinned ... "

Everything we did was validated by rising sales, the attention of the media, the response of homeless people. For these reasons, TBI people tend to be a specific breed: knackered, a little disillusioned, but loyal to the bitter end.

TBI is undoubtedly an extraordinary social experiment. But, peel away its public face, and what you find is a company that has fallen victim to its own success.

In those early days it was all so simple. Nose-thumbing at the Tory Government when a public could still be outraged at the phenomenon of rough sleepers on our streets, before compassion-fatigue set in. In many ways TBI was revolutionary, a business-cum-social initiative which gathered together society's dispossessed and, by whatever means necessary, persuaded society to embrace them.

"Help The Homeless Help Themselves" and "A Hand Up Not A Hand Out" - our slogans were the antithesis of charity. TBI entered into a business transaction with its homeless vendor (we were the wholesaler; the homeless person the retailer). As well as change in pocket for a hard day's work to spend on whatever they wanted, we provided training and support. TBI embodied the work ethic. It told homeless people to take responsibility for their own lives. Of course politicians and corporate business loved us.

Superficially, we performed an act of magic, making the invisible (the homeless) visible. Metaphorically, we also prostituted ourselves across the political spectrum. We wooed and were wooed by corporate business, which at the time was ethically vacuous, financially flush and seeking affirmation after the inexcusable excesses of the Eighties. Charities envied us as they sat gagged by the Charity Commission.

TBI was a Molotov cocktail of politics, business and ethics so attractive to all because it was so explosive. This was "social action in action", as John would say: Prince Charles meeting an old school-chum-now-vendor on a trip to TBI. The Stone Roses refusing to talk to any of the media bar TBI. Award-winning Marie Claire editor Glenda Bailey taking time to chat to homeless writing groups about how to write for women's magazines ...

But the spell was soon broken. During John Bird's sojourn in the United States, he has publicly remained loyal to TBI (and John would fight to the death to keep it there helping the homeless). Privately he has expressed feelings of frustration at the unwieldy beast TBI has become.

Raising the question of what to do with society's dispossessed was not enough. We had gathered together the problem before us and now it had to be dealt with.

There are approximately 400 active vendors at any one time, who sell for an average of four to six months. "Move on" is the term used at TBI to describe the difficult second stage of rehabilitation. This involves securing housing, employment, and other very necessary support networks.

The Sun's sensational story about the vendor, Mark, who was clearing pounds 43,200 a year from selling the magazine, typified the internal contradictions at the heart of TBI. Give or take some questionable maths, the story was true. Half the directors (including TBI Foundation) screeched as they imagined donors falling away before their eyes. If TBI did not immediately debadge this formerly homeless man, we would lose all public sympathy. John, who led the other half, argued that it was like "castrating the man for over-achieving". Mark, a former heroin addict, was working eight hours a day, seven days a week. If we debadged him he would lose his income, and probably return to drug addiction.

As it turned out, in the glare of media publicity, Mark disappeared. The problem did not. "Move on" is a notoriously difficult process dependent upon a host of interlinked support mechanisms. A roof and a job are no good to a man who has lost his family and gained a drug habit. More often than not, it fails. TBI is still not moving all vendors on. And because it doesn't, it could be accused of institutionalising homelessness.

Problems had intensified with the launch of the Foundation in November 1995. Prior to its existence, we had the freedom to think on our feet and place emphasis on the very different elements of the company as and when required. With its launch, the social initiative became fixed, and we were forced to follow the unimpeachable regulations of the Charities Commission. This not only slowed us down, it first upset the balance and eventually divided the company.

TBI Foundation attracted a first-class fund-raiser - her impressive credentials included a photograph of herself shaking hands with Nelson Mandela. She quickly set about fund-raising for housing, vendor-support staff, re-training and employment programmes and drink and drug counselling.

At the business, meanwhile, we dreamt of becoming a multi-media empire. We founded a TV production company and discussed further publications. If you thought about it for long enough - and we did - TBI was really a brand name like Nike or Pepsi. John Bird, meanwhile, began writing his memoirs, talked about launching a political party (the Street Party) and announced his intention - one he still holds - to stand for Mayor of London.

By 1997 I don't think anyone within TBI was sure exactly what kind of beast we had become. A politically correct charity frenetically fundraising for special projects? A commercial magazine, with rocketing ad revenues, desperate to win awards, launch careers and prove itself more than a mere pity purchase? An acquisitive, not-for-profit business obsessed by expansion? It is a Nineties fashion that commerce can embody business principles and an ethical, caring side. But is it really possible to marry charity and business in an equal partnership?

The fact that we had the ability to recruit someone with the credentials of Andrew Jaspan, former editor of The Observer, as our MD confirmed our entry into the big pond. Emphasis became placed on PR, advertising and communications.

Internally, long-running culture clashes between floors became exacerbated. Distribution staff working on the frontline with vendors sneered at what they called the "ivory tower" of management and journalists on the top floor. Across the country, regional disputes over policy and sales areas broke out, the earlier laissez-faire approach to launches paying harsh dividends.

Vendors had all but vanished from the landscape, restricted to the distribution counter and formal monthly meetings with editorial, where they were able to express their - invariably negative - views of the magazine. John Bird was one of the very few people who never forgot the homeless.

Ultimately you can tell something is amiss with the magazine. TBI highlights social issues but rarely follows through to campaign or lobby for change. Aside from the poor-quality paper, its celebrity interviews are often indistinguishable from articles in the mainstream Press. Yes, the magazine should compete. But by providing an alternative voice.

TBI's Los Angeles launch has thrown up accusations that the company is operating like some acquisitive multi-national. "If it were just about selling a product, we could have vendors out there shifting toothpaste or detergent," says Jennifer Waggoner, of the LA-based street paper Making Change. "Which is more important: sales or social justice?" One way forward would be for TBI to re-radicalise itself: get to grips with lobbying and campaigning; uncover the voices and trends in street culture before they appear in print elsewhere. Surely TBI is about providing a voice for all the people - not just the visibly disenfranchised - who by choice or circumstance find themselves outside mainstream society.

Unless it changes, TBI's future may be uncertain. John Bird's sheer force of will has held together an organisation full of contradictions. If it is to survive beyond its founding father, then TBI must consider radical alternatives, beginning perhaps with a re-examination of its aims. No one ever said it would be easy "helping the homeless to help themselves".

Joanne Mallabar is a former editor and acting director of The Big Issue, where she worked for five years from 1992