WITH regard to the recent controversy concerning the behaviour of some local Big Issue vendors, I’d like to ask a question.

As I understand it, the concept of Big Issue selling was started in the early 1990s by a group of philanthropists, with the aim of helping unfortunate and disadvantaged people to sell a magazine, rather than use the streets for begging.

These precepts seemed laudable, as former drug or alcohol addicts could receive on-going medical support and help, and so find a way back into mainstream work and life.

The truth is that without a job, the sellers couldn’t find an address to live, and so a downward spiral would continue.

Many of us, in the initial years, loyally bought the magazine, and hoped that the sellers would recover, and move on.

But it seems that some vendors, (particularly in west Bournemouth areas) have been on the same pitches outside shops for 10 years or more.

On being asked if they want or need a job, (and plenty of people have asked that, with genuine job offers) they reply that “they already have a job, and a place to live, thanks mate.”

There’s also the point that many well-intentioned folk give money to the vendors, without actually buying the magazine, as their faces have become well known over the years.

This enables them to frequent the off-licences and buy quantities of alcohol that many working taxpayers couldn’t afford!

So if you are donating cash or buying a magazine from a working bloke, with a comfy home, where is the charity ethos?

And will many genuinely hard-up ‘crunch’ victims be allowed on the gravy train?

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