About Shelter Cymru

Shelter Cymru is the leading housing and homelessness charity in Wales and works for the prevention of homelessness, the improvement of housing conditions, and the right of everyone to a safe, suitable and affordable home.

Shelter Cymru:

Campaigns for long term housing solutions that:

• meet need
• are affordable
• are fair to all sections of society
• are socially and economically sustainable

Provides independent housing advice through:

• community housing advice services
• regional housing advice and legal centres
• a free housing advice helpline

Delivers:

• a high quality public training programme
• in-house training services
• high profile seminars and conferences
• public information services

Homelessness, insecurity and poor housing forces individuals and families into cycles of poverty and destitution. It ruins people's futures and leads to poor health and sometimes death.

Shelter Cymru assists thousands of people, many who imminently face or are actually experiencing homelessness, every year. Many others live in debt, in insecure or unsuitable housing, or struggle to get essential repairs or alterations done to their homes.

Shelter Cymru caseworkers and solicitors provide expert advice and advocacy on any housing related problem and work with individuals and families on a broad range of problems. The service is delivered in locations throughout Wales and is continually expanding, providing more people than ever with access to quality, expert, independent advice and advocacy. It is recognised as being of the highest quality and has recently achieved the Legal Services Commission Quality Mark.

In partnership with Shelter in England and Scotland, we have also established a free housing advice helpline open 8am - 12 midnight, seven days a week. With expert housing advisers, the helpline can provide emergency advice day or night and callers needing in-depth advice, advocacy and information are referred to a local Shelter Cymru advice session. The number is 0808 800 4444.

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.

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 and copies of publications and reports. Read the latest issues in our News section or have your say on the forums.

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 a report which summarises our main sources of feedback during the period September 2005 to October 2006 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.

If you are interested in volunteering opportunities, please contact 01792 469400.