‘Group is a lifesaver’: strangers buy Wetherspoon’s meals for homeless people through app

C arl used to own pubs – several of them – and a string of hotels. Then two years ago, rising costs forced him into bankruptcy. Now he sleeps on the beach in summer, and in winter sits in an all-night McDonald’s nursing a single cup of coffee. Carl’s daughters are in a different part of the country with his ex-wife. To maintain the illusion that he lives a normal life, Carl is careful only to video-call them from the local Wetherspoon’s with a meal and a drink carefully positioned in shot. That way, he reasons, he looks like a man with somewhere to be. But something his daughters do not know is that Carl can only get the meal thanks to a WhatsApp group quietly buying food and drink for homeless and vulnerable people across in the UK. Chris Illman, second left, the founder of the group, at a Wetherspoon’s event in Birmingham, where 300 meals were distributed to homeless and vulnerable people. “This group has literally been a lifesaver,” he says, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry to cry but the group doesn’t only mean I can talk to my daughters – it means I can feel normal, like I’m a part of society again, without people snarling at me or giving me bad looks.” At least 382,000 people in England are now homeless, while about 14 million people across the UK – about one in six households – struggle to afford food. The group Carl is describing has no offices, no charity registration, no paid staff. It does not even have a proper name. …