The Great Restaurant Sleep Out is supporting Social Bite.
Social Bite is a movement to end homelessness.
They are a charity and social business providing homes, jobs, food, and support to empower people to transform their own lives.
Their vision is a society where no one should have to be homeless.
Social Bite began life as a small coffee shop in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August 2012. Social Bite became involved in the homelessness issue when a young homeless man named Peter came into the coffee shop one day to ask for a job.
When the Social Bite team offered this young man employment, this was the origin of an unexpected 10 years of charitable work and campaigning on the homelessness issue.
All donations help Social Bite to break the cycle of homelessness by providing meals, jobs, homes, and support to people who are vulnerable and experiencing homelessness.
3 key pillars of Social Bite’s work
Food
Good food has always been at the heart of what Social Bite does.
Social Bite introduced a “Pay it Forward” system in their coffee shops where customers could buy some food in advance for people experiencing homelessness to get later on.
Social Bite typically provide over 180,000 items of food and hot drinks every year through their network of coffee shops, with both takeaway and sit-in daily services, and distributed over 800,000 food packs during the pandemic.
Homes
Social Bite launched The Social Bite Village in 2018, building a small village in Edinburgh made up of 11 two-bedroom prefabricated houses and a large community hub. Today this village is home to a vibrant community of people helping each other get back on their feet with dedicated on-site support for to employment, education and community activities. Social Bite are building two new Villages elsewhere, after the success of the first.
They also created and launched Scotland’s Housing First program, securing 830 mainstream flats across 5 cities to provide permanent homes to Scotland’s rough sleepers. More than 1333 people have now been given homes with support, and the response has been adopted by all local authorities in Scotland.
Jobs
Social Bite started to offer more jobs to people experiencing homelessness, following Peter joining the team, as they got more engaged in the issue, leading them to become a major employer of people experiencing homelessness and extreme barriers to employment.
Their Jobs First employment programme provides real job opportunities with wrap-around support to people who have experienced homelessness, transforming the access to the job market for those who have previously been excluded.
