Social entrepreneur Josh Littlejohn: ‘I want to build a utopia for the homeless’ – The Guardian

Do you know who I am? asks a young man, his smile nervy, teeth jagged as a city skyline. Its 9.30am on a recent Thursday at the Social Bite sandwich shop in Rose Street, Edinburgh, and hes holding a half-eaten bap and a takeaway tea that is equal parts liquid and sugar. Ive no idea who he is, so he leads me to a framed newspaper clipping on the wall. Its a December 2012 page from the Edinburgh Evening News and it shows a photograph of the man Pete Hart, apparently in a ninja-black chefs uniform and blue hygienic gloves chopping some lettuce. Id actually read the article earlier: Hart, then 22, used to sell the Big Issue outside Social Bite; staff would sometimes give him unsold sandwiches at the end of the day and after a few weeks, Hart asked for a job. Josh Littlejohn and Alice Thompson, who founded Social Bite, agreed, and took him on as a pot washer.

Hart looks for my reaction; theres a whiff of booze on his breath and hes aged faster than the five years between the photograph and now. Hes certainly had some tough times. He was taken into care at three and moved around the system until he was 16. He wound up in Southampton, did odd jobs and went to prison for possession of class A drugs. But Hart always wanted to work: during his 15 months incarceration he took classes in food hygiene, bricklaying, and painting and decorating.

Does he still work for Social Bite? Nah, Ive had some health problems. This proves to be an understatement: he returned to work after a brain haemorrhage but had to stop last year when he had a lung removed. I loved it here and I want to come back to work, he goes on. Josh is a great guy. I was desperate for a job and he had me stay with him and Alice in their flat because he couldnt give a job to someone without an address.

Pete Hart is a key figure in the Social Bite story. Littlejohn and Thompson were a couple in their mid-20s when they opened the Rose Street shop in August 2012. Inspired by the Bangladeshi micro-lender Muhammad Yunus, it would be a social business and donate all its profits to charity. But the arrival of Hart prompted a rethink: they asked him if he knew anyone else who wanted a job and Hart suggested his brother Joe. Eventually, after a handful of these peer-referenced hires worked out, Littlejohn and Thompson determined that a quarter of Social Bite employees would come from homeless backgrounds. They were also handing out free sandwiches and hot drinks in the morning for Edinburghs most needy, and giving away any food left over at the end of the day.

There are now five Social Bite shops: two each in Edinburgh and Glasgow, one in Aberdeen. Their mission became globally famous in November 2015 when George Clooney popped into the Rose Street branch and bought an avocado and pesto wrap. Last year Littlejohn went into partnership to open a fancier restaurant in Edinburgh called Home, also with a philanthropic brief, and enticed Leonardo DiCaprio to visit that. Social Bite won Outstanding Achievement at the 2016 Observer Food Monthly awards, and Jamie Oliver was at the head of a line of luminaries on the night to congratulate Littlejohn he and Thompson have now split, but she remains on the board of Social Bite and is manager of their canteen in the Rockstar Games Edinburgh head office.

Littlejohn, though, has mixed feelings about that original article on Hart, which was rehashed the next morning by all the major newspapers in Scotland. That was the first PR we ever got, so as a new business thats exciting, he says. But now I look back and its telling. All that really happened was a young guy, an able person, went from selling a magazine to washing dishes. How on earth is that any kind of story, let alone one covered nationally? It goes to show that it never, ever happens. If youre in that demographic, your chance of breaking into any kind of mainstream, even as a dishwasher, is very remote. We dont think about that.

Social Bite may have been a success, but its a far from straightforward one: the past five years are full of near-insurmountable complications and frustrations. When Littlejohn, now 30, opened the first shop, he dreamed hed soon be going head-to-head with Pret a Manger and Starbucks. He wanted 500 branches in the UK. But the demands of managing a diverse and often unreliable workforce, and the personal attention that requires, means there are no current plans to expand. Its not every employer who has to keep 500 cash in a safe for emergency medical care, or to get an employees electricity reconnected, or just to see them through until they are next paid. Littlejohn made an initial commitment that his salary would never exceed seven times the lowest-paid staff member, but this has proved wildly optimistic anyway. His wage is nowhere near that.

He laughs: You need to relinquish the idea of getting rich personally. If anyone goes into this thinking, This is a sweet earner!, then just forget it, dont even start.

Littlejohn has certainly put in the hours. In the beginning, he and Thompson would wake at 4am to make the sandwiches and work all day in the shop. Hart was just one of a handful of homeless employees who lived with them in their one-bedroom flat while they found their feet. Their evenings would often be spent in the pub, offering informal counselling sessions.

But rather than being overwhelmed by what seemed an insurmountable challenge, Littlejohn started to think he was approaching the problem the wrong way. He was giving homeless people jobs, but what they needed was support, professional help to deal with their problems and, most of all, a settled place to live. He wondered if it would be possible to create a village, initially for 20 individuals who are currently living on the streets in Edinburgh. If the concept worked, it could be rolled out first in Scotland then perhaps furtherafield.

We had naively started at the end point, he says. We were young people who opened a sandwich shop and just started giving people jobs. But when we had built up to maybe six people, and cracks started appearing, we realised: Shit, a jobs not good enough. The links from accommodation through to support through to employment are the dots that have never really been joined before. So the village is working our way to the final point, which is really back to the beginning.

Back at Social Bite, I ask Hart if hes heard about Littlejohns village plan. He nods. Yeah, I think its a great idea. Then, as if hed just remembered an urgent appointment, he picks up his rucksack and heads for the door. Right, he says over his shoulder, Ive got to try to find some money to get more inebriated.

Half an hour outside Edinburgh, in a tranquil spot in West Lothian, Jonathan Avery sits drinking tea in his prototype NestHouse. It is a dinky place but full of thoughtful touches. Theres a compact, Japanese-style deep-soak bath, a cute mezzanine bedroom with views through a porthole window, and a very hygge wood-burning stove all within a building just 3.4 metres wide. The exterior is clad in thermo-treated Finnish spruce and the insulated front door clunks shut with the authority of a bank vault. Avery wears rimless spectacles, chunky work boots and a lime-green T-shirt that matches the kitchen chairs and the front door.

We could have done a glorified shed but it would have failed because the living environment has to inspire change

Is that on purpose? No, its not deliberate, says Avery. Then he whispers, Yes it is, its deliberate. Im a designer!

When Littlejohn first imagined a village for the homeless, he saw the residents living in modified shipping containers. He admits that sounds a bit shit, but hed seen an episode of Grand Designs where a young architect in Northern Ireland welded four together to create a luxury house. But the more Littlejohn investigated it, the more problems he came up against: cutting windows into containers quickly becomes expensive, and the buildings often fight a losing battle against condensation. We could have done a glorified shed quite easily, he says, but it just would have failed because I think the living environment has to inspire change.

A Social Bite employee found Averys website, Tiny House Scotland, and forwarded it to Littlejohn. Avery had been inspired to build his NestHouse after reading about the tiny house boom in the US. The movement was born as a response first to Hurricane Katrina and then to the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008: small (under 500 sq ft), cheap and cheerful accommodation that could be moved around if needs be.

Avery, 55, had personal experience of the economic downturn: he had been looking to expand his high-end kitchen design company, which had shops in Edinburgh and Glasgow, into London, but his bank suddenly declined to support him. He closed the business and decided to work on a smaller scale.

Then Littlejohn and Social Bite came along. Its funny, says Avery, because going back to my furniture business 15 years ago, Id have been making these for rich Edinburgh clients as a playhouse in the garden. Now Im not so keen on that. There are other ways to use architecture; it should have a reason and a purpose.

With a house design found, Littlejohns village started to take shape. He would borrow land from Edinburgh city council that had been set aside for meanwhile use: this is a government-endorsed initiative that allows entrepreneurs, often with a social vision, to take over empty land or commercial spaces on a short-term basis. The money required for the village an estimated 500,000 for the first 10 two-bedroom homes would be raised privately. There would be no charge for the rent of the site, but Littlejohn found out that Edinburgh council spent an average of 47 per night accommodating each homeless person. So, for 20 people, this would be an annual saving to taxpayers of 343,100.

Efforts to raise money for the village have gone better than expected. In December, Littlejohn organised the Social Bite CEO Sleepout, which encouraged some of Scotlands most influential business leaders to spend a night sleeping rough in Edinburghs Charlotte Square. He hoped to sign up 100 CEOs but one of the first volunteers was cyclist Sir Chris Hoy, and it snowballed from there. After Nicola Sturgeon agreed to serve breakfast, the numbers topped 300, with some participants raising almost 20,000 for the village.

It turned out to be an unseasonably mild night, but Littlejohn proved that his initiative had some heavyweight support. We should be aspiring to live in a country where nobody is homeless or sleeps rough, said Sturgeon, as she handed out bacon rolls at 7am. Added to money raised from Social Bites annual Christmas appeal, Littlejohn found he has 750,000 pledged towards the new village.

With the funds in place, Littlejohn and Avery are now finalising the design of the houses. Although costs must be kept down, both feel the buildings should not be stripped of their charm. Particularly the stove, says Littlejohn. Ive had various meetings and Im, like, The stoves important! People say it presents a risk, but I cant imagine the house without a stove. It creates that homeliness.

You could have an infrared heater on the wall but its not really the same, agrees Avery. Its not like giving people gold taps or luxury tiles. Its just about creating something that is a peg above, which subconsciously the human mind recognises is something thats a bit better than they are used to. Then people realise you are trusting them, and they say, Ahhh, my life has really taken a turnhere.

A 2015 Royal Mail survey found that Granton was one of the most desirable areas in Scotland. Some in Edinburgh were perplexed by the result: the district, north of the city on the Firth of Forth, has historically been an unloved industrial area and harbour. Regeneration is taking place, but slowly. Littlejohn, though, sees only potential: he likes the clean air and sea views; its close to amenities, such as a supermarket and bus links, but not too near to illicit temptations. It was, he felt, the most promising of the five meanwhile use sites he was offered. As we walk up a steep hill to the two-acre site beside an iconic blue gasholder, there are abandoned toys dumped in bushes, and sweet wrappers and discarded energy drink bottles strewn around. But by this autumn, Littlejohn insists, the land will be transformed into a verdant idyll, with a fire pit, chicken coop and community garden. Residents will work in industrial units across the road, perhaps making bread or furniture, or doing commercial laundry. Dinner each night will be cooked and eaten communally, and counsellors will be available whenever needed.

The village will require residents to work at least five days a week: this focus on keeping busy, as well as the idea that meals are taken together, came from a visit Littlejohn made to San Patrignano, a pioneering drug-rehabilitation facility near Bologna. Do you know how it came about? says Littlejohn. At the Observer food awards last year, I met Jamie Oliver and he was telling me about this place. I was almost trying to change the subject: San Patrignano, San Patrignano He kept going on about it. I was like, All right!

Littlejohn spent a day there shortly afterwards with a member of Olivers foundation. He found a small town of 2,000 former addicts working, with seemingly little supervision, on a range of projects: some made handbags for Prada and Chanel, others were in a graphic design studio; there was a farm, stables, a bakery, even a vineyard. The entire thing was run by people who were previously addicted to heroin, crack cocaine like proper chaotic people that I know through Social Bite, and I was amazed by how clean behind the eyes they were. It was one of the most unbelievable things Ive ever seen.

Im only in the privileged position to do what Im doing and think the way I think by virtue of the cards dealt to me

Littlejohn is, in some ways, an unlikely philanthropist. His father, Simon Littlejohn, is an entrepreneur who built up a restaurant empire in Scotland from scratch. Hed grown up working class in England, and Joshs mother came from a farming community; the family had a grand house in Blair Drummond, near Stirling. We were quite affluent, relatively speaking, and I always kind of didnt like that, remembers Littlejohn. I went to a state school and Id be nervous to invite people round to the house, because it was big. And Id never like to be dropped off at school in a fancy car and all that. Id always be mortified by the thought of that.

He certainly has an idealistic streak: one interview compared Littlejohn spiritually and physically (the piercing eyes, scraggly beard) to Che Guevara. On a recent trip to Thailand for a month-long martial arts bootcamp he got a tattoo of the tree of life down his right arm with the words: There is no them and us. There is only us.

I just feel lucky, he says. I got nothing but love on Christmas morning there were mountains of presents. Im only in the privileged position to do what Im doing and think the way I think by virtue of the cards dealt to me. These guys had opposite cards dealt to them. When you think about that, you have nothing but compassion for them. It could have been me or you, they just got different cards, different families, different upbringings.

Littlejohn studied politics and economics at Edinburgh University, then applied to join the civil service. He imagined hed work for the Department for International Development or somewhere similar. He did half a year of assessments, psychometric tests and leadership drills, reaching the final round of the application for a Fast Track apprenticeship. He then received a one-line email: Youve not been successful. After six months of jumping through hoops, I felt a bit degraded, he says. So I thought, Im never going to do that again. Maybe Ill set up my own business.

Social Bite came along later, after Littlejohn and Thompson went to Bangladesh to meet Professor Yunus, but his initial schemes were classic Apprentice, Dragons Den money-making ventures: a catwalk fashion show at the Edinburgh festival, a Christmas fair in Glasgow and a ski and snowboard show. The most enduring idea was a ceremony for the Scottish Business awards. The first year, in February 2012, the guest speaker was Bob Geldof and the event sold out. Then, initially through the contact box on the Clinton Foundation website, he approached Bill Clinton. Littlejohn was told that if he could raise $300,000 for the foundation in advance then Clinton would come to Edinburgh to speak. He hit the phones, cajoling the Scottish business community to pay for their tables upfront.

That was the biggest gamble of my life, Littlejohn recalls. But Clinton was the big one. Once you had him, we had the model established and we also had the credibility. So when you approach Richard Branson and youve had Bill Clinton, then its not an absurd prospect. And once youve had Richard Branson and Bill Clinton and Bob Geldof, then you approach George Clooney. Then Leonardo DiCaprio. Suddenly its a gang everyone wants to be in. Ha ha!

As time went on, there became a fundraising and PR link between the Scottish Business awards and Social Bite: the visit of Clooney, in particular, made headlines around the world. When I first met Littlejohn last year, he said that Barack Obama was next on the hitlist. Perhaps hes being coy, but he seems to have cooled on the idea. The CEO Sleepout was an eye-opener for me in the sense that we raised almost double what we raised at the Scottish Business awards for Social Bite, he says. So as a fundraising mechanism, I think thats actually got more potential.

This year the sleepout will move to Princes Street Gardens in central Edinburgh, and Littlejohn would like 2,000, instead of 300, volunteers. One suggestion is that, to be involved, you have to fundraise 1,000 and offer at least one person from a homeless background an employment opportunity in your organisation.

Littlejohn has an ingrained, possibly inherited, entrepreneurial streak that marks him out in a sector full of good intentions but sometimes short on business acumen. He sees homelessness in Scotland as a problem that should not just be managed but can actually be solved. According to government statistics, 34,662 homeless applications were made in Scotland in 2015-2016. But, for Littlejohn, this number is a skewed, unnecessarily intimidating figure. Many of these people are in a short-time crisis, often a relationship breakdown, and only need help for a couple of nights to get back on their feet. He has learned that, in Edinburgh, on any one night, the figure is around 600, and estimates the number of properly homeless people in Scotland at no more than 2,500.

Im doing this because says Littlejohn, as we walk around the field in Granton. He leaves a long pause, perhaps unsure himself. Its good fun more than anything. People are like, Whats your angle? But Im building a bloody village. Youve got an opportunity to start with a blank page and try to create a structure that works. In terms of exercising your creative juices, its pretty thrilling to be able to do that and try to make a community.

Seagulls squawk overhead. Thats what I hope well build here a little utopia.

T he morning rush at Social Bite in Rose Street starts a little before 10am. Early on, Littlejohn and Thompson introduced a scheme where customers could pay forward something from the menu. The receipt would then be put in a jar and a homeless person would come in and redeem it. When it first started, the service was seated, but Littlejohn noticed a sharp fall in takings. Office workers, apparently, liked the charitable angle but didnt want to eat their lunch in a hangout for the homeless. Some rules were imposed for handouts: takeaway only, and free food would not be given out at the shops peak times between midday and 2pm.

If you ask anyone who works here, theyve mistaken a homeless person for a paying customer and vice-versa

But Littlejohn, as his recent tattoo attests, dislikes the idea of them and us. So, on Monday afternoons, Home restaurant which also offers a pay-it-forward option on its bills is open to anyone who lives on the street for a free three-course dinner. Social Bite also serves a free evening meal on Tuesday, and theres a women-only night on Wednesday. And now, rather than relying on receipts in the jar, the business has raised enough money to feed any homeless person who turns up. In the Rose Street shop, customers and the homeless mingle; its actually not always immediately apparent who is who. This might sound crass, but its true: at one point, everyone seems to be young, bearded and carrying a rucksack. An employee called Connor, who started working at Social Bite on a government work placement, stands behind the till: If you ask anyone who works here, theyve mistaken a homeless person for a paying customer and vice-versa.

For some, it is a simple handout: they take their food and hot drink, and leave. I offer to help making teas and coffees. Put a couple of sugars in all of them, advises Bonnie, the longest-standing employee. But some will have seven or eight. A Romanian man, with what looks like his lifes possessions in a backpack, hovers at the counter, looking bewildered. When I go to serve him, he says: Sandwich? Gratis? I nod. No beast, he adds. I take this to mean vegetarian, so I bring him a fried egg sandwich. He grins broadly, seemingly unable to believe his good fortune.

For many of those Social Bite helps, there is a social aspect too. They come in for a wee talk as much as the food and coffee, says Mimi, the manager. Many dont have families, so we become almost like that. Bonnie chips in with a story from her 25th wedding anniversary last summer, when she went with her husband and a bottle of champagne to Princes Street Gardens. It was meant to be this romantic thing but I saw this guy I know from the shop and we ended up sharing the champagne with a group of them. She smiles fondly, Then a couple of them disappeared and they came back and gave us a bottle of prosecco to make up for having drunkours.

Trade is brisk; in the middle of the lunch rush, one customer asks if he can pay something forward and hands an employee a note. Its only when hes disappeared that she opens it to find its 50.

After lunch, Sonny Murray and Biffy Mackay pop in. Both have worked for Social Bite though they are not currently doing so and in many ways they have become the poster boy and girl for the company. In fact, there are literally posters of them on the wall of the Rose Street shop, along with their potted life stories. Theres one, too, of Joe, Pete Harts brother, who was Social Bites second homeless employee and now works in the central production kitchen, making sandwiches. Another shows 51-year-old Colin Childs, who was a drug addict and traveller for two decades before getting a job in the shop. Hes been with the business for four years and is one of their most reliable employees. One brilliant picture shows the whole gang mugging for the camera with George Clooney.

The stories of Murray and Mackay are typical, depressingly so: they grew up in the care system and ended up living on the streets as teenagers. Littlejohn had made that point that for most homeless people, drugs were not the cause of their desperate situation, but a product of it. Its just a coping mechanism, agrees Mackay. Youre on the street and its crap, so why not get drunk and take drugs? Ive been homeless twice through relationship breakdowns. And it was through being homeless that I started drinking, then started taking drugs. Id never took or even seen heroin till I moved to Edinburgh.

Talk turns to the Social Bite village. Currently, most homeless people in Edinburgh are housed in either a shelter or a private B&B. These options are typically less homely than they sound: the bed is a grubby mattress on the floor and the breakfast can be a kettle to fill up a Pot Noodle. They were meant to provide a roof for a couple of nights, but now the average stay in these temporary accommodations in Edinburgh is between 18 and 24 months. The B&Bs cost a fortune and theyre not worth the money, says Murray. Youve got nobody to help you, youre on your own. Youve got a roof over your head, and thats it.

Josh doesnt just want to feed people, he wants to make a change, adds Mackay. I personally think Josh should be knighted!

Littlejohn hopes the first residents will move into the village this autumn. As we stood on the site, looking out to sea, I asked if he felt any pressure. He shook his head: the status quo for homeless people in Edinburgh is so bad that the project would have to go extraordinarily wrong to make the situation worse. Its a shot to nothing, he said. If it doesnt work, its not like weve taken taxpayer money and fucked it up. Weve raised it entirely privately. And if it works, it will transform the way we deal with homeless people. So its a good risk-to-reward ratio. Ive learned over the last five years that people want to work and strive to improve their situations. They dont want to live in these shitholes. So they should grab it with open arms. Of course, they might set the whole thing ablaze with their wood-burning stoves.

He waved his fist at the sky and railed at the gods: Idiot! Why did you insist on the wood-burning stoves!

Excerpt from:

Social entrepreneur Josh Littlejohn: 'I want to build a utopia for the homeless' - The Guardian