{"id":1117566,"date":"2026-07-29T06:32:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1117566\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T06:32:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:32:16","slug":"big-issue-vendor-simon-denis-i-was-sleeping-rough-for-16-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1117566\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Issue vendor Simon Denis: &#8216;I was sleeping rough for 16 months&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bigissue.com\/vendors\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.bigissue.com\/vendors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Big Issue vendor Simon Denis<\/a> was sleeping rough before he started selling the magazine and revealed how he would sleep on night buses to get out of the rain while on the streets in a new interview.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Denis, 61, who sells the magazine outside Pret a Manger in Cheapside in the City of London, started selling the Big Issue after his 18-month apprenticeship with the government ended in 2010. The Conservatives had taken over and the scheme ended and he was \u201cleft in limbo\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI was struggling for money and I sold my furniture on eBay. I thought, I\u2019m going to have to pick up Big Issue and see what that\u2019s like,\u201d he told Big Issue in the My Pitch interview in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bigissue.com\/behind-the-scenes\/inside-the-big-issue-sir-chris-hoy\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.bigissue.com\/behind-the-scenes\/inside-the-big-issue-sir-chris-hoy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">this week\u2019s magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt gave me a purpose. I was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bigissue.com\/news\/housing\/britains-homelessness-shame-cold-hard-facts\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"17271\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">sleeping rough<\/a> and I ended up on the streets for about 16 months. I wasn\u2019t bedding down, I was taking buses at night. If it was pouring with rain and you could\u00adn\u2019t find any shelter, you\u2019d get on the bus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since he started selling the Big Issue, Denis has been able to get himself off the streets and into accommodation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Read more: <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big Issue vendor Simon Denis was sleeping rough before he started selling the magazine and revealed how he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1117567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,6332,6333,462,257,17561,17562,16,15],"class_list":["post-1117566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-homelessness","tag-housing","tag-interview","tag-london","tag-our-vendors","tag-rough-sleeping","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117001869578824099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1117566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1117567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1117566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1117566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}