About Shelter Cymru

 

Shelter Cymru wants everyone in Wales to have a decent home.

We believe a home is a fundamental right and essential to the health and well-being of people and communities. 

Shelter Cymru is Wales’ people and homes charity. We work for people in housing need. We have offices all over Wales and prevent people from losing their homes by offering free, confidential and independent advice. When necessary we constructively challenge on behalf of people to ensure they are properly assisted and to improve practice and learning.

We work with people who use our services as equals. We provide information, advice and support to help people identify the best options to find and keep a home and to help them take control of their own lives.

We also work to prevent homelessness through a range of training courses and conferences and seminars. Another key element in our prevention agenda is education - working closely with schools and local authorities to prevent homelessness in Wales by providing young people with a better understanding of how homelessness can affect them, and how to avoid it.

We provide housing advice at community-based locations across Wales. Visit our Advice and Support page for information on the locations and times of housing advice sessions in your area or to email us with a housing problem/enquiry. If you have an urgent a housing problem you can contact our Advice & Support Services on 0845 075 5005.

Last year we dealt with 18,000 housing problems and prevented homelessness in 86% of the cases where it was faced. The proportion of households who come to us faced with mortgage repossessions has trebled in the past three years.

Shelter Cymru campaigns for new ways of eliminating homelessness and housing need, changes in legislation, and policies and practices that will improve the long term housing and homelessness situations faced by thousands of people in Wales.

Visit our Policy & Research Section for further information about our policy work and the research we undertake. The Library has free copies of all our publications and reports.

Shelter Cymru also provides training courses, in-house training and holds conferences and events on a variety of housing related issues. Check out our training courses and events diary on the Training & Education page.

Contributions from members of the public make it possible for us to prevent homelessness every day. Our How You Can Help page provides information on how Shelter Cymru is funded, how your donations help others, and give examples of innovative ideas and fun ways to raise money.

Shelter Cymru recognises the importance of encouraging and learning from external feedback and being open and transparent about what has been said about the organisation and our responses. We have produced an Accountability Report which summarises our main sources of feedback during the period October 2007 to September 2008 and our responses to that feedback.

Shelter Cymru is committed to providing a broad range of services through the language of choice of the people we work with. We have a detailed Welsh Language Scheme which has been recognised by the Welsh Language Board.

Download a biography of John Puzey, Shelter Cymru's Director.