It all started when a new restaurant called Home by Social Bite popped up on Queensferry Street in Edinburgh.
After returning to my native city after a five-year absence, I noticed a sharp increase in homelessness. As I walk about the city centre, I know these people by sight. I recognise the avid reader who bunks down on George Street, the family who sleep in the wide doorway of a department store, the old man outside my local supermarket and I was upset to read in the papers a man my father's age died sleeping in a wood after a storm - a park where I walk my dog. In a city as affluent as Edinburgh, the second financial hub in the UK after London, I found it shocking and upsetting.
So when Home opened on my doorstep, I wanted to get involved. The restaurant is a new concept - it not only gives its profits to charity, trains homeless people as chefs, encourages its customers to pay for a homeless person's meal, but on Mondays it opens up to the homeless community and gives them lunch. It's not a church hall, it's not a soup kitchen, it is a fancy restaurant that gives them a three-course sit down meal. The aim is to make homeless people feel included in the community, doing a normal thing like enjoying a nice meal and bringing a bit of dignity back to their lives.
Home is the newest project of a non-profit called Social Bite. Josh Littlejohn, an all round good lad, read a book by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and it introduced the budding entrepreneur to the concept of social enterprise. A social enterprise is a company that uses commercial strategies with the aim of improving communities, people's lives or the environment rather than pure profit - much like a charity.
Josh handing over a mince pie or two. Credit: PA
It inspired him to start Social Bite, a growing chain of sandwich shops in Scotland's three major cities that gives 100 percent of its profit to various charities that support and look after homeless people. Josh set up Social Bite in 2012 and the 28-year-old has achieved a lot in four years. There are now five sandwich shops in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen - and with plans to expand soon to Dundee. It employs 100 people and a quarter of the staff were formerly homeless or from deprived backgrounds. This has been a landmark year for Josh. He partnered with Edinburgh restaurateur Dean Gassabi, who owns the French Moroccan restaurant Maison Bleue, to set up Home in the late summer and launch the first CEO Sleepout to raise funds and awareness for homelessness recently. He has even attracted celebrity fans; George Clooney visited the first café last year, and Leonardo Di Caprio braved the weather to eat lunch at Home in November.
Clooney and DiCaprio have visited Social Bite and Home respectively. Credit: PA
In Scotland, a small nation with a population of just over five million, there are 600 homeless people on record and around 2-3,000 people in temporary accommodation. As Josh commented, "It's not an intractable number."
The statistics about homelessness are horrifying. Being homeless takes 30 years off your life expectancy; men are expected to live to age 47 and women 43. You are a third more likely to be the victim of violence when you're homeless. The exact number of homeless people is almost impossible to know; there is an unknown amount of people who are surfing, living in hostels and staying in places that aren't visible.
According to Shelter, 34,662 homeless applications were made in 2015-2016 in Scotland and 46 percent of those applications are made by single males - almost half of the homeless community are young, single men.
Over half of all homeless applications made were due to a relationship breakdown or being asked to leave the house. But what you have to take away from these statistics is that you have to apply to be legally homeless. What happens if you don't have access to this information? And your application has to be successful for your homelessness to be legitimised - and if you are deemed 'voluntarily homeless' then you may not be considered truly homeless. It's difficult.
I emailed Home and asked how I could help out - and they asked if I wanted to take part in their CEO Sleep Out. They were asking industry leaders across Scotland to sleep rough for 12 hours in central Edinburgh in December and raise money for a new project. Social Bite petitioned Edinburgh Council for some land and were offered a plot in Granton. The natural next step to stop homelessness is to provide someone with a home, and the ultimate aim is to make a homeless village, called Social Bite Village.
Me on the CEO Sleep Out. Credit: Laura Hamilton
It's a win/win situation for everybody involved. 20 members of the homeless community will live in the Social Bite Village for a year, where they will be given full support to tackle the vicious cycle of homelessness. It's going to open next summer and work starts in early 2017 to build the 10 prefabricated eco-houses. Social Bite is working with Edinburgh Council to identify 20 individuals who will live in the eco-village for 12 months, and work in Social Bite's sandwich shops, or in the new restaurant Home. Those with debilitating addiction problems aren't eligible because they need specialist care. After a year, the residents will be supported into moving into permanent accommodation and the next 20 people will move in.
The two-bedroom houses will have a wood burner, a vegetable patch, a wood shop and a chicken coup - it sounds idyllic. But being rehabilitated back into society is a difficult and long process, and Social Bite will be providing the 20 villagers with classes, therapy and support groups to help them make the most of this unique opportunity.
The units will be transportable, and so if Edinburgh Council wants the land back for whatever reason, Social Bite can relocate in the future.
But this is not only an altruistic venture - it will also save a lot of money. The current short-term solution to homelessness is to provide temporary accommodation. It costs Edinburgh Council £47 a night per person to put someone up in a B&B - that adds up to £17,155 a year per person. It's a short-term and expensive solution that doesn't tackle the underlying root of the problem and not stemming the flow. The Social Bite Village will save the council a whopping £200,000 a year - money that could be used more profitably somewhere else.
The idea behind the Social Bite Village is to create a full circle solution to homelessness; housing, support and employment. Social Bite hopes to create a blueprint that will help other homeless charities and organisations. It's an idea that could snowball - there's the potential for homeless eco-villages to be constructed all over the UK. Not only would it save local councils a lot of money, but it would help people out of homelessness permanently.
Social Bite had hoped to reach a target of 100 CEOs for the first CEO Sleep Out, but over 300 CEOs, business owners and high-flyers had signed up and turned up on a chilly night in waterproofs, ready to roll. People were also given food by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon the following day after the night sleeping outside.
Nicola Sturgeon came the next day to serve food. Credit: PA
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As I milled around Charlotte Square, there was a real community vibe. The CEOs of some of Scotland's biggest companies had abandoned their status business suits and briefcases and were now decked out in cagoules and boots. We were all given waterproofs, mats, sleeping bags and an umbrella. It felt as if we were all on the same level and just people at the end of the day.
There I met a 27-year-old former homeless man who became Social Bite's first homeless employee. He helped out in the first Social Bite sandwich shop in exchange for a few sandwiches, and kept asking Josh and his co-founder Alice for a job until they gave him one. "I don't want people to think that homeless people are useless," he said. His brother now also works for Social Bite.
One of the most affecting moments was when three Social Bite employees took to the stage and spoke briefly about their struggles with homelessness. "We're always told that rich people don't give a shit about us," said one man. "But you do."
It was humbling to hear that, but it also shamed me. Biffy, a former homeless woman, spoke of how she felt like nothing when people would look right through her. Struggling to make eye contact, she said that most people assumed homeless people had drug or drink problems, but her father had beaten her and her mother and she was taken into care when she was 11.
People sleeping out. Credit: PA
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As I looked around at the orange waterproof sleeping bags peppered around Charlotte's Square, I didn't feel like I was one of the rich people mentioned. I'm not a CEO, a millionaire or any sort of VIP. I'm just an average, middle class girl from Edinburgh. Josh had said that homeless people had been dealt some bad cards and it's undeniable that I have been dealt some good cards. It was jarring to think that I had been identified as a rich person who did give a shit. I felt guilty - sleeping out for 12 hours is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I have a strong support group - when I asked people to donate to Social Bite on my behalf, they raised over £1,000. My mother had bought me thermal underwear and my father had produced hand warmers. I can sleep out in Georgian squares as often as I like - it's voluntary. I have a warm bed to go home to. I will never know what it's like to be homeless and have no one to help me. While it's easy to admit that you lead a privileged life, bogged down by problems, worries and our day-to-day struggles, it's not always felt. But sleeping in a square on a mild December night, I could really feel my own privilege.
After we had heard from Josh, a few of the Social Bite employees and Sir Chris Hoy - who looked fairly ridiculous in his giant ski gloves - some musicians serenaded us and we made friends with each other. It was like being at a very sombre music festival.
Sir Chris Hoy got involved in the sleepout. Credit: PA
No one slept much, or comfortably. It was a struggle to keep warm when the rain started at 2am. It was difficult.
When I woke up in the morning, there was mist hanging in the air and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had arrived. With aching muscles and stiff necks, I stumbled towards the stage to hear her talk about how amazing the Social Bite Village will be, how important it is to look after our homeless community and how she admired us for sleeping in the elements for a night. Then, more importantly, she served us a bacon roll.
I knew sleeping out was rough, but I can actually feel how it takes years off your life; everything aches. The homeless don't have portacabins like we did last night. They don't have brand new sleeping bags. They have to deal with sleep deprivation, the cold and wet weather, hunger and being ignored and excluded by society. And it doesn't have to be that way anymore.
Donate to the Social Bite Village here.
Words by Laura Hamilton
Featured Image Credit:Topics: bite, Leonardo DiCaprio, Homelessness