Solomon said his peers were shoplifting as young as eight just so they could have something to eat
Solomon Smith has run Brixton Soup Kitchen for 14 years, having been shocked by the poverty around him as a child. The 40-year-old began the fight against hunger when he was 11 by handing out cooked food from his home to the local homeless in Brixton.
Growing up on the Moorlands Estate, Solomon was fortunate to have an ‘amazing upbringing’ in which the cupboards and fridge were full of food and snacks. But his peers weren’t so lucky and were shoplifting as young as eight just so they could have something to eat, Solomon recalls.
He’s the son of a care worker and a mental health specialist, so helping others is in his blood. But it wasn’t until he finished university in 2012 that he established Brixton Soup Kitchen, which helps over 100 people every day.
It’s on the corner where Coldharbour Lane meets Somerleyton Road, and has seen the likes of Rio Ferdinand, Idris Elba, and Tessa Jowell helping out. It’s not easy, though, with Solomon often staying up until 4am, sending emails just to secure funding, as the kitchen runs on spontaneous donations. “That is our biggest problem right now,” he said.
He’s very grateful for food donations from big names like Nando’s, Greggs, Tesco, Asda, and Iceland. The kitchen doesn’t just give out warm meals, though, the dad-of-two clarified. “We’ve now got a food bank, clothes bank, do mental health work, massage therapy, and help people look for work and get back into education,” he said. Despite being a big name in Brixton, ‘anyone can come in, you don’t have to be from Brixton. We’re just based in Brixton.’
Solomon is very proud of the eclectic menu, which serves a variety of delicious delights every day. He said: “Today we had fried chicken, rice, vegetables, salad. Coca-Cola give quite a lot of juice.” But there are also ‘a lot of biscuits’ donated by McVities, as some people ‘might just want a cup of tea, and not a hot meal.’
“Heinz is our biggest donor for the food bank, and it gives us pallets of products. It could be baked beans, tuna, or spaghetti.” The work isn’t just confined to SW9 as ‘on Wednesdays we go out to the West End, giving to the homeless there, and we have also gone and fed people in Miami, Jamaica, and Toronto.’
‘I’m on benefits’
Although he’s a very well-known face in South London and further afield, Solomon survives on benefits. He’s helped tens of thousands of service users over the years, meaning there is no time for him to work for himself. But he considers himself lucky to get given things through the work he does, which help support him.
‘The number of people we help tripled during the pandemic’
Covid didn’t stop Solomon on his mission as the pandemic saw his numbers rocket threefold. He said: “We had so many families that don’t get access to benefits. They could be refugees, and so they might get £30 a week from a charity. I just couldn’t stop during lockdown.”
It’s not just rough sleepers who use Brixton Soup Kitchen; everyday people who’ve fallen on hard times do too. The Brixton hero said rough sleepers can go for a shower and to get some clothes with housing workers available to help them get roofs over their heads.
It’s in the ‘last six years’ that more regular people have turned up for help. He detailed cases of people working for big companies that went bust, being left with nothing.
He thinks community cohesion is a brilliant way of tackling food poverty as ‘there’s so much food out there.’ “Why are people starving? I do not get it,” he asked. “We can keep on blaming the government, but I think we also need to work together to support one another. We never know what people are going through, and a lot of times it’s pride that kills a lot of people.”
‘I once turned someone away because he was 10 minutes late and he killed himself the next day – I can’t forgive myself’
Brixton Soup Kitchen is open from Monday to Friday between 11am and 3pm, and one day in 2015 a man came for help at 3.10pm, so Solomon said ‘no, come back on Monday.’
“[He took his own life] the next day, and if we’d just given him 20 minutes, he probably still would be here today,” Solomon recalled. “I don’t think I’ve been able to forgive myself, I think about it often.
“That affected me in such a big way, that I was more focused on saying it’s 3pm and we’re closed. I’ve not done that since. If someone comes in at 3pm and says ‘oh, sorry, is there any food left?’ I say, ‘Yep’, I’m down back in the kitchen. That’s how it’s affected me.”
He also mentioned a case of another service user who was once a successful property mogul and went on an expensive drinking spree with a friend to celebrate making his first £1 million. But later that night, the friend got into a drunken argument and was shot in the back of the head, killing him.
Solomon says the service user’s haunted by this, constantly wishing ‘if he’d never made those millions, his friend would have still been here today. And he left that whole life behind.’ He had ‘cars, and houses, but he just walked out and became homeless ever since. He’s not touched his bank account because he just feels anything that kind of relates to his success…’
‘Knowing I mean so much to the community is one of the best feelings’
Brixton-born Solomon says it’s one of the ‘best feelings’ knowing he can make such a massive impact on his community. He said: “It’s one of the best feelings, it’s somewhere where I grew up, saw poverty, saw destruction and now people say ‘I’m so happy that Brixton Soup Kitchen is here.’ It’s just things like that is what literally just shows that the work that I’m doing is very impactful.”
‘Don’t be embarrassed if you need our help’
The veteran helper understands it can be a gruelling prospect having to go and ask for help, but he has a key tip for anyone who needs it. He said ‘say the food is for someone else.’ The seven-strong team don’t ask questions about where the food is going, or ask for coupons like in other food banks, so there is no need to be upfront about your reason for being there.
He reminded us of the utmost importance of ‘being able to have food in your house.’
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