Lou Macari recognised by Big Issue for homelessness work

Lou Macari has spent several years helping homeless people in the city

Former footballer and Stoke City manager Lou Macari has been recognised by The Big Issue for his work to help homeless people.

The magazine has named him a Changemaker in 2022 after the ex-Manchester United and Celtic player set up a centre to help people in poverty.

The Macari Centre aims to provide emergency shelter and short-term accommodation for about 50 people.

He said it was nice to be recognised for trying do something.

Mr Macari, who managed Stoke City in two spells in the 1990s, told the magazine he had had a good life playing for the two clubs and homelessness was a change he could make with help from others.

In 2018 over 650 people approached the city council for homelessness assistance and by mid-2019 more than 1,700 people were due to be helped by the authority, council figures show.

• The former footballer who set up a homeless shelter

"We've got a problem, we've always had a problem but what is helping a little bit is that everyone is starting to recognise that homelessness is a problem for everyone... not just the people of Stoke-on-Trent," he told BBC News.

When the pandemic hit, the centre set up individual pods for people staying there

He started the centre five years ago, he said, because he knew he could do something by providing people with food and a roof over their head.

"I went to the council, asked them for a key to any building they had in Stoke-on-Trent, got a key next to the mosque in Regent Road and that was the start of education about homeless people," he said.

"Five years later it's still continuing and I'm still learning and unfortunately the numbers have gone up."

He said the pandemic had led to a rise in the number homeless people and he did not think it would decline any time soon.

"We hope to try to improve people's lives and I take the view that, get them off the street, get them into a warm place, and feed them, that's our contribution to doing it."