Our Projects
Free food provision and engagement
We distribute around 165,000 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 coffee shops to enjoy our handmade food and delicious coffee. We also open in the evenings for “social suppers,” including women-only groups. We also offer restaurant meals once a month in Edinburgh at our partner, The Bon Vivant, which opens exclusively to people experiencing homelessness for a free sit-down three-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 Jobs First programme, Social Bite works with some of the UK’s biggest employers to help breakdown the barriers that people who have been homeless face on their route to employment.
Christmas meals and presents
Every year we open 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 in good company. We run a major fundraising campaign called Festival of Kindness that helps to fund Social Bite and our charity partners’ free food provision at Christmas and throughout the year. We also give out loads of lovely Christmas presents to children, families and individuals affected by homelessness.
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 in Edinburgh combines an innovative housing model, using vacant council-owned land, 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’re currently fundraising for two new Social Bite Villages.
Housing First Scotland
We pioneered a major pathfinder programme for Housing First, which gives people in a situation of homelessness or rough sleeping to a house and structured support. Through money raised at our Sleep in the Park events, we provided significant funding to support vulnerable people into mainstream housing with wraparound support to sustain their new tenancies. Partners in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and Stirling provided support for complex needs such as substance misuse, mental health, and addictions, as well as practical things like opening a bank account or finding employment. Now, the project has evolved and is adopted by local authorities as intended.
Campaigning and advocacy
We’ve created the world’s largest-ever sleep outs! Sleep in the Park called for an end to homelessness in Scotland and achieved instrumental change in Scotland. An impressive 18,000 people slept out to highlight the situation of homelessness in Scotland, raising a staggering total of close to £8million, with global media coverage shining a spotlight on the issues. The campaigns resulted in 830 houses made available to rough sleepers and people experiencing homelessness, 160 job offers, 35 spare rooms offered, and homelessness thrown front and 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 University 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’re 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, Cyrenians and Shelter. As our fundraising grows, we will continue to invest in and support a range of organisations supporting people affected by homelessness.