Our Projects
Free food provision and engagement
We distribute over 180,000 items of food and hot drinks every year to the country’s most vulnerable people. People in a situation of homelessness and food poverty are invited into our chain of sandwich shops to enjoy our handmade food and tasty coffee throughout the day. We also open up in the evenings for a series of “Social Suppers” events. These include “Women’s only” nights and nights for refugees. We also run a joint venture restaurant called Vesta Restaurant and Bar, which opens exclusively to people experiencing homelessness every Tuesday afternoon for a free sit-down two-course meal.
Jobs First
We aim to employ 1 in 4 people who have struggled with homelessness or extreme barriers to employment. In our experience, a job can be incredibly transformative. It gives you purpose in life. You are trusted with responsibilities. You can earn money for yourself and your family. You develop friendships and relationships with colleagues and customers. A job is something that most of us take for granted, but for people in a situation of homelessness, it can seem like an impossible dream. At Social Bite we have pioneered the way for people to use employment as the central means of re-integrating into society and supporting themselves. Through our new Jobs First programme, Social Bite will work directly with some of the UK’s biggest employers to help breakdown the barriers, people who have been homeless, face on their route to employment.
Christmas meals and presents
Every year we open up our shops on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for people in a situation of homelessness and food poverty to come and get a Christmas meal and some loving company. We run a major fundraising campaign called Festival of Kindness that helps to fund our free food provision at Christmas time and throughout the year. We also give out an abundance of presents to homeless children, families and individuals at Christmas.
The Social Bite Village
The Social Bite Village was launched in May 2018 and provides safe accommodation for people experiencing homelessness, creating an alternative to the sub-standard and ineffective temporary accommodation solutions that currently exist. The Social Bite Village is a project that combines an innovative housing model, using vacant council-owned land, along with a supported community environment. The project is entirely geared at breaking the cycle of homelessness and giving residents pathways into employment and permanent housing. This is a project run in partnership with an incredible Edinburgh-based homelessness charity called Cyrenians. We are currently fundraising to bring two new Social Bite Villages in two new cities in the UK. Find out more here.
Housing First Scotland
We pioneered a major “Housing First” Pathfinder Programme for people in a situation of homelessness and rough sleeping to be given a mainstream house and a structured support resource. Through money raised at our Sleep in the Park events, we provided significant funding to support vulnerable people into mainstream housing the wraparound support to sustain their new tenancies. This support was initially delivered through a consortium of partners in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and Stirling supporting complex needs such as substance misuse, mental health, and addictions as well as practical things such as getting a bank account open or getting into employment. Now, the project has evolved to be adopted by local authorities as intended, where people will continue to be supported in sustaining their new tenancies.
Campaigning and advocacy
We’ve created the world’s largest-ever Sleep Outs, Sleep in the Park – calling for an end to homelessness in Scotland. Together the events have achieved instrumental change in Scotland; an impressive 18,000 people have taken a stand to the situation of homelessness in Scotland raising a staggering total of close to £8M with global media coverage shining a spotlight on the situation. The campaigns resulted in 830 houses being made available to rough sleepers and homeless people, 160 jobs being offered, 35 spare rooms being offered and homelessness being at the front at centre of political attention in Scotland.
Academic studies
Our campaign to end homelessness has been underpinned with academic research on the statistics and solutions of homelessness in Scotland. We commissioned Heriot-Watt to carry out two major studies entitled: ‘Eradicating Core Homelessness in Scotland’s Four Largest Cities’ and ‘Temporary Accommodation in Scotland’ These studies have given us a framework for investing funds and also in recent years informed government action through the Scottish Government’s Homelessness Action Group, which our co-founder Josh Littlejohn sat on.
Supporting other charities
Through our fundraising activities, we are increasingly funding other homelessness charities in Scotland and across the UK, who carry out amazing work and deliver incredible interventions in homelessness. Charities we have supported in the past include Changing Lives, Boothe Centre, Streetwork, the Cyrenians and Shelter. As our fundraising grows, we will continue to invest in and support a range of organisations supporting people affected by homelessness.