Fight for Home is the new podcast from Shelter Cymru. It’s all about raising awareness of the housing emergency in Wales. You can listen here and read a transcript below:
Liz: Hello, croeso to Fight for Home, the first episode of the Shelter Cymru podcast. I’m your host, Liz Day, and I work as Communications Officer, in the Campaigns team. We believe that a safe home is a fundamental right. Without one, we don’t have the foundations to thrive. That’s why we must protect it and fight for it. But Wales is in the middle of a housing emergency. Right now, there are more than 11,000 people homeless and trapped in temporary accommodation, private renters are facing increasingly unaffordable rents and 170,000 people are stuck on waiting lists for a social home. We want to raise awareness about the housing emergency and every episode, we’ll be talking to a range of guests, including colleagues from across the charity, people with lived experience of homelessness, plus experts in policy and research, about how we can achieve our goal of ending homelessness in Wales.
Here we are, the first episode. I’m excited to be joined by Robin White, our Head of Campaigns at Shelter Cymru. How are you doing, Robin?
Robin: Very well, thank you.
Liz: Thank you so much for joining us today. Perhaps we could start with – and I know this is a big one (!) What is the housing emergency? When we’re talking about a housing emergency in Wales, what do we actually mean?
Robin: It’s big, but I think it’s a very good question because it’s a phrase we at Shelter Cymru use all the time in lots of different settings, but to my mind that’s sort of the purpose of it. What the housing emergency is, it’s our attempt to capture the depth, the breadth and the urgency of all the different issues that people face in housing and homelessness right now. So always describe it, as you know, if you were looking across a board of warning lights at the minute for the housing system, virtually every single one of them would be flashing red. You know, whether that is – rising private rents, availability of social housing, levels of homelessness, lots of flashing red lights. And we need to find words to capture that idea that we need to take action now in a whole range of different places, and we hope that housing emergency helps us do that. It helps us, you know, just give everyone that sense of: “There are lots of problems, they are all urgent.” And just drive that sense among people, and particularly among politicians. So that’s why we use the phrase “housing emergency” and we try to use it everywhere and anywhere we can, so that it really gets into people’s heads and that this is a shared understanding. We don’t want that to be a Shelter Cymru phrase. It should be a phrase that is ubiquitous across the housing and homelessness sector in Wales.
Liz: Flashing red lights are never good! I was wondering, what’s the scale of the problem? Just how many people are trapped in temporary accommodation and stuck waiting for a social home?
Robin: The scale of the problem is huge. I think in sort of the modern post-war era that we will often talk about in society these days is like, you know, big mark. You’ve got a post-war era in which we move to welfare states and things like that. This is as bad as it has been when it comes to housing and homelessness. So just in Wales, we have nearly 11,000 people living in temporary accommodation. Temporary accommodation, meaning things like bed and breakfasts, caravan parks. Places that people shouldn’t be spending extended periods of time, particularly families, and yet they are spending extended periods of time. That number has risen dramatically just over the last Senedd term and is causing huge knock-on problems for the whole housing system, for local authorities, for organisations like Shelter Cymru on top of that. And that’s sort of the most acute issue we deal with is temporary accommodation because it’s a form of homelessness.
But then we’ve got record social housing waiting lists, so our latest analysis, which we put out a couple of months ago, shows we’re now up to 170,000 people waiting for a social home in Wales. That’s a conservative estimate as well. We conservatively estimated it there and within that 170,000 you’ve got at least 45,000 children. To put it another way – one full classroom in every school in Wales is children waiting for social housing. Again, record numbers show the problem we’re facing.
Private rents are another thing we often talk about as a problem. I think everyone is aware that private renting has got harder and harder for people in recent years. I think what people maybe don’t appreciate is just how much harder it’s got in Wales specifically. Wales has the fastest rate of rent inflation of any nation in Britain, so rents are rising faster in Wales than they are in England or in Scotland. They are rising faster in Wales than they are in London. They are far outstripping inflation.
You compound all of these things together. All of these records that you don’t want and what you’ve got is a system that goes back to what I said about hundreds of flashing warning lights in front of us. And it can feel overwhelming to anyone working in it because it’s, you know, where do you start with trying to fix this array of problems? What are the big fixes? What are the small fixes? They exist. This is totally resolvable, but we absolutely shouldn’t underestimate the scale of the problem we are facing.
Liz: We’ve been talking quite a lot about numbers, but – of course – we’re talking about real people’s lives. What sort of effect does all of this have on people’s mental and physical health? And also on our communities in Wales?
Robin: Yeah, so we increasingly talk about mental health, I think, at Shelter Cymru in terms of the impact of the housing emergency. Every single day, our caseworkers are out there giving advice to people who will say things to them about the fact that they are struggling to manage day-to-day activities, that they feel overwhelmed all the way up to, we hear people tell us they are feeling suicidal. Because we’ve got that, as I’ve said, you know, almost 11,000 people living in temporary accommodation, often not very suitable temporary accommodation, that has a knock-on effect on physical health.
Damp and mould is something that we come across all of the time and the impact that can have on children, in particular, with things like asthma, but you can take it all the way to a few years ago I went to quite a lot of meetings where there was discussion about the fact that rickets had made a resurgence across the UK, a very Victorian disease that was making a comeback because of the number of children living in temporary accommodation, who didn’t have the space to play.
And for our communities as well, it’s difficult to understand how impactful it can actually be, homelessness on a community, because it manifests in quite little things and in ways that people don’t necessarily associate with bad housing and homelessness. So, the education system, for example, where children are experiencing or at risk of homelessness when they’re at home and there’s stress at home or they’ve been placed in temporary accommodation a long way from school and it’s taking them a long time to get there, or they don’t have washing facilities, that can impact their performance at school but inevitably also their behaviour at school in some circumstances, and have knock-on and ripple effects for the other children in their class, but also for the amount of time that teachers are having to then invest in trying to support children because of housing issues.
Similarly, there’s an economic effect for the whole of Wales. In that a lack of access to a safe, secure home can hold people back from work, from taking the jobs they want from having a job in the first place. And that holds back our economy. It really is astonishing how many different issues are worse in Wales because we can’t fix housing and homelessness.
And the big one, the really big one that does get talked about is health. And I know we’ve talked about the specifics of that a little bit and how it impacts people, but what I also mean the health system in its broadest sense. So a few years ago, Public Health Wales did a bit of work and identified that the cost of bad housing and homelessness to the health service in Wales, just in terms of immediate presentations, you know people turning up with injuries or with issues that are related to it, it’s about £100 million. You get bed blocking in hospitals. All of these things that just again divert attention and resource away from dealing with other problems and then you get snowballing effects and yeah it’s often very distressing. I think when I talk to our housing advisors in particular, you hear some really distressing stories of just how much this situation can affect people’s lives and how they feel like they can’t get past it. And yeah, that is one of the things that really drives us to try and affect change.
Liz: Absolutely. And I know this is another pretty big question, but perhaps you could explain for us in relatively simple terms – what’s caused the housing emergency in Wales? Who’s responsible?
Robin: I used to have a boss who would, in campaigning, always say that you need to find a villain for the story. And he’s right. Obviously all good stories have a villain. But the problem with housing is the villain isn’t some malignant person sitting in the corner looking evil. The villain is, in effect, the system itself. What we have done over 20 or 30 years is develop a system in Wales, and in the wider UK, that doesn’t prioritise housing and homelessness at all, particularly in politics. So if our politicians saw fixing the housing emergency as the number one priority, then I think things would be very different. But for a long time, that wasn’t the case. For a long time, we didn’t see investment in building social housing. We didn’t see an acknowledgement that failing to ensure people had access to affordable housing would be good for the health system. And some of that is because of short-termism, I think. Again, you see this a lot in politics. Governments get five years, ministers maybe get five minutes to do anything. Most of the things we want them to do to fix housing and homelessness take 10 or 15 years to do at this stage. So how do we persuade them to do things that they will never get the credit for? That can be really, really difficult. And that’s why, I think that, you know, if we want to fix this housing emergency, we have to look at how we increase the priority of the issue within the political debate, within the public consciousness. That’s the number one thing. There’s loads of really specific technical policy changes, like increasing investment in social housing, restricting how fast rents can rise, but all of that will only happen if we can crack the public and political will bit.
Liz: We talk a lot about homes as foundations and, well, the foundations for our lives. Why is that idea of home so important and what should a home enable someone to do?
Robin: I always find it really difficult to define what a home is and I tie myself in knots, sometimes, trying to do it and then eventually come back to the realisation that you don’t really need to try and define home that much because most people implicitly understand what you mean when you say “home”. People recognise the difference between a hotel room that they might stay in on holiday and the place they live. There’s a reason people have such strong emotional connections to, say, the house they grew up in, or their grandparents’ house from their childhood. And it’s because those are fundamentally places that they feel safe. They are places that they associate with being able to focus on other things. Where we get into trouble is when people don’t feel like the property in which they live, if they even have one, is somewhere that they are going to be able to stay, then they start to worry. What we need to do is not just put a roof over someone’s head, we just need to give them confidence that that roof is going to stay over their head and that they can focus on all the other things that they want to be doing with their lives, whether that is raising a family, getting your kids to school, whether it’s being able to pursue the job that you want. Unless we give them the confidence that they can stay in the property they’re in. They can’t do that and when we do give them that confidence, that’s when we shift from shelter to home.
And I just also say on this, I’m really, really fond of quotes from the 50s and 60s from people when they moved into newly built social housing because the two things that you will find a lot in those quotes are one: Delight at the idea of indoor plumbing. And two: The very specific phrase: “It felt like Buckingham Palace.” And this is people talking about moving into a two-bedroom flat. It just shows you people aren’t asking for a lot here. They are just asking for a decent quality home that they can be confident they’re going to be able to stay in and that can mean so much to people that they will use phrases that you look back on and you’re like, that’s mad!
Liz: Absolutely. Perhaps you could paint a picture for us. What would ending the housing emergency look like? How would things look different and what change would Shelter Cymru like to see?
Robin: Yeah, so I think a lot of it would look, at a really technical level, this would be about freedom of choice for people and the ability to access the homes that they want. I think we won’t have truly solved the housing emergency until people not just have access to any home that is safe, secure and genuinely affordable, but also that there’s an element of choice in that. So if someone wants to move from Wrexham to Swansea, they can do that and that the reason that they can’t do that has nothing to do with the availability of housing in one of those two places. So I think that would be, for me, the holy grail, that’s what I’d love to get to.
To get to that though, the first thing we’ve got to do is get to the point where at least there is a home, let alone more than one home that people can access, at least there’s one home that people can access and that they can have confidence that they are going to be able to stay in long-term if that’s what they want to do. And we just, we absolutely cannot do that unless we, firstly, increase the supply of social homes across Wales. There’s no route to solving the housing emergency that doesn’t run straight through building more social homes.
But then we also need to look very seriously at the minute at the private rented sector in Wales, which is completely out of control. Almost half of Shelter Cymru’s casework comes from tenants in the private rented sector. They can’t afford it. The quality is poor. We need to address those things.
And then we also we need to accept that we’ll never end homelessness completely, in the sense that there will always be people who, for whatever reason, need a little bit of help. So the final thing we need to do is ensure that there are systems in place to help those who need it and that those systems treat people like people. That we don’t hear talk about all the “administrative burden” of this homelessness system. What we hear is: “This is how we’re going to help this person get the right support to access a home.” Very person-centred.
If we could crack those three things, I think we would be looking at a Wales that would be fundamentally different and where we could start to think about what are the other issues we need to solve? But I won’t lie, I think we can do it, but we’re a long way away at the minute.
Liz: So, change IS possible. We’ve established that! I know there’s no quick fix. But how do we end the housing emergency? How do we get that change? And who has the power to do it?
Robin: I think we all have a role to play in this. So the super simple way to think about who has the power to fix the housing emergency is that it’s politicians in Cardiff Bay and Westminster. And that’s simple, but it’s accurate, you know, so much of what needs to change would have to be delivered in one of those two big political centres of power. But persuading the people in those centres of power is the bit where we all have to get involved. Because fundamentally, politicians act for a variety of reasons and you know, there are things they do right now which are in recognition that there is a housing emergency and they’re trying to fix it. But a big driver of what is the number one priority for politicians is what’s the number one priority for the public. So if the people of Wales are out there demanding change, writing to their MSs, making their voice heard, what I think we would start to see is much quicker action on a whole range of issues and I think this is really important because we are less than a year away from the next Senedd election. So then that period of time is a huge opportunity for everyone who thinks we need to end the housing emergency to do whatever they can to try and raise the profile of it, so that when we are past the election and we’re in the summer of next year and whoever is the new First Minister is standing up to say: “This is my number one priority for Wales.” That number one priority is: Fixing housing emergency. Everything else flows from that.
Liz: The Welsh Government announced its Homelessness and Social Housing Allocations Bill in May. Shelter Cymru welcomed it as a key moment, which has the potential to spark huge change in how we tackle homelessness in Wales. How has Shelter Cymru been involved in shaping the draft bill?
Robin: We’ve been quite involved in shaping the draft bill and I think we’re really pleased to have had that opportunity. So a few years ago, we were part of something called the Expert Review Panel on Ending Homelessness that was commissioned by the Welsh Government, but was independent of the Welsh Government. What that panel did was bring together lots of different organisations covering the third sector in Wales, who work on housing issues, covering local authorities, academics. It reviewed the entire homelessness system. You know, the legislation, how it works in practise on the ground and set out a whole range of recommendations for how you can improve things.
That report, the report of the Expert Review Panel, was then followed by a white paper consultation from the Welsh Government, which is essentially where they set out their broad thinking on ideas and ask for people’s views. We responded in detail to that consultation and now we are at a point where they’ve tabled draft legislation and now we’re having more conversations with the Welsh Government and with other stakeholders about how we can continue to improve it.
And so I think we’re really lucky that at every stage in this process, the voice of Shelter Cymru has had the opportunity to be heard and the voice of Shelter Cymru is rooted in the voice of the people who come to Shelter Cymru for help. So we hope that what we are saying reflects what people are experiencing.
And you can see, I think, in the legislation through some of the tone that the cabinet secretary has used that that has been listened to, that there is a recognition of – we need a new approach to things. I’m not going to say that bill is perfect. It is far from perfect. There are still cracks it leaves, through which people will fall. And it will not, on its own, end the housing emergency. But we cannot deny it is a step forward and probably a bigger step because so many organisations working in this space had the opportunity to feed in which, you know, credit to the Welsh Government because they don’t have to do things in that way. They choose to do things in that way.
Liz: Why is this new legislation so important and how far do you think it can move us closer towards ending homelessness in Wales?
Robin: So I’ve said over and over again in various things recently that this legislation has the potential to be transformative. And I keep putting a lot of emphasis on the word potential because it does some really big, bold things. In particular, it removes, so this is very technical, I’m afraid, two legal tests called priority need and intentionality. So, at the moment, if you turned up to a council seeking help because you are facing homelessness, they can, if they want to, they don’t have to, they can apply some legal tests to see if you are eligible for help from them.
One of those is whether you fall into a so-called priority need category and one of them is whether you made yourself intentionally homeless through, for example, not paying your rent. They are taking those two things away. That will expand the available support to people at risk of or experiencing homelessness in Wales. That’s where there’s a potential transformation.
The other thing the legislation does is it could drive other changes. So if you pass this legislation tomorrow and didn’t do anything else, very little would change in Wales because we don’t have enough homes, local authorities don’t have enough capacity to deal with the people that are coming to them, a whole range of things. But if we’ve got a new piece of legislation that says we’re going to fundamentally change the way we do things and we’re going to move closer to ending homelessness, now all of those politicians who pass that legislation have a stake in making it work. And that’s where we might then be able to see them put in that more money, prioritise social housing a bit more. So I think that is a particular area where this could be really positive. But we have to also be honest and say it leaves gaps. There will still be people in Wales who are not able to access the support they need if this legislation passes in its current format. We’re going to try and tighten that up and ensure that doesn’t happen, but it’s a step on a journey. It’s definitely not the end point.
Liz: OK, so, the challenge we face in ending the housing emergency in Wales is huge! But it is achievable. If there are people listening today, wanting to get involved, what can they do?
Robin: So the obvious thing I’m going to say and number one is sign up as a Shelter Cymru supporter. Then we can keep you updated on what’s going on in housing and homelessness, all the activities we have that you might be able to get involved in, whether that’s attending an event, signing a petition, lots of different things.
But the other thing is, and I’ve said it already, is we’ve got an election in Wales in less than a year. At the end of the day, politicians work for you. But if you don’t tell them what you want them to do, how on earth can they know what your priorities are? They will operate in a vacuum if we don’t speak to them and they will come up with their own priorities. So this is a really important period of time where at every given opportunity, people should try and make their voice heard, whether that’s writing to candidates, whether it’s using social media, whether it’s going along to events that they’re speaking at and asking questions about their priorities on housing. I think if everyone in Wales, or a good number of people in Wales, did that over the next 12 months, then we might be in a really positive position come the summer of 2026.
Liz: That’s been a really interesting and eye-opening conversation, thank you so much for your time today, Robin.
Robin: No problem.
Liz: And speaking of getting involved, our next guest is Tom Davies, our Events and Community Fundraising Officer. Our Fundraising team power the fight for home and Tom is really busy at the moment planning and preparing for our Castles & Cathedrals cycling challenge, which is coming up on Sunday 13 July. Thank you for taking some time out of your day to chat, Tom.
Tom: No problems at all. Thanks for having me.
Liz: OK, so first up, what is Castles & Cathedrals? What is a cycling sportive, for anyone who doesn’t know?
Tom: So Castles & Cathedrals is our sort of our homegrown fundraising cycling event. So within the fundraising world, we have what we call third party events, which we sort of buy into and we have our sort of homegrown events. So Castles & Cathedrals is our biggest homegrown cycling event. It’s been going on for about 10 years now. We’ve had a year off, so 2024, we had a break year and then we’re back for 2025 with our cycling sportive again. So yeah, looking forward to getting stuck into that and sort of getting some money to come in through fundraising to Shelter Cymru. And a cycling sportive is a non-competitive cycling event where you sort of challenge yourself. It’s not a race. We cannot advertise races. So it’s just you against yourself and the course that we have set out. So we’ve got two lovely courses that we’re looking at for this year.
Liz: I know there are two different route options, so could you tell us a bit about those – how many miles are we talking? How much ascent?
Tom: Yeah. So, the last event we had, we had one long route and from feedback, we’ve developed a bit for this year. So we’ve got two routes that we’re taking on. We’ve got our short route which is 36.1 miles with just over 2,000, nearly 2,500ft of ascent, a lovely little route out to Cowbridge and then back again and then we have our long route which is taking on 70.1 miles and that covers nearly 5,000ft of climbing, 4,836ft to be exact, which again goes out to Cowbridge and then goes on a little bit more of a loop out to Ogmore-by-Sea and back to Cowbridge and back into Cardiff again. So yeah, two lovely routes that I’ve had the chance to drive a couple of times with our route planner. Difficult routes, but yeah, lovely routes around that area.
Liz: I actually love cycling! I’m more of a mountain biker, but I dabble in road biking, certainly enough to know that the scenery in the Vale of Glamorgan is spectacular! Could you talk us through some of the highlights of the routes? Do you have a favourite section?
Tom: Yeah, so the routes are absolutely lovely. As I said, they’re challenging with the climbs that our route designer put in for us. But I think that on the long route, there’s a lovely bit as you come out of Ewenny and you jump down onto the Ogmore bypass, you go out towards Ogmore-by-Sea towards our second feed stop and you sort of just rolling through there down the B road down there by Ogmore to the right hand side you’ve got the Merthyr Mawr sand dunes. You come up over the headland and then drop back down into the where the feed stop is at the Three Golden Cups. All that section there, you’ve got a gradual climb, rolling roads, winding roads. Yeah, I really want to try and ride that bit, but as I shall be busy on event day, unfortunately I can’t. Yeah, that bit’s lovely, if we have the weather we had when we drove the route for the first time. It’s going to be absolutely stunning down that area.
Liz: Who is this event aimed at? Who’s going to love taking part?
Tom: So anybody, really, any cyclist, anybody wants to challenge themselves. So we’re sort of tailoring it for everybody. We’ve had a few questions about people who are riding e-bikes or if we are allowing e-bikes. We’ve sort of said, yeah, everyone’s welcome. We’re not going to say no to anybody, partly for that. It allows us to grow our event and develop our event. And then, yeah, we’re hoping to get a few cycling clubs along. I’ve spoken to a few cycling clubs in-person when I’ve been out and seen them. So hoping, not necessarily families, but a couple of older children and older family members down. Get groups together, groups of mates together, groups of cyclists together and it’s all basically coming together for a good cause to make sure that everyone, number one, gets back out on their bike and hopefully the weather’s nice. And then number two, also to make sure they have fun while they’re there on the day as well.
Liz: And if anyone’s listening to this, wanting to get involved, but not necessarily in the cycling itself, will you be needing volunteers?
Tom: Yeah, at all of our events, we always need volunteers. We’re very lucky at Shelter Cymru ourselves that we have such a wide range of people that get involved in all these events. But we always need volunteers, whether that might be, for example, directing people to the car parking because although we use the Cathedral School, Llandaff, we have got other car parking sites that we can use, so we might need directions from there.
The event registration itself, that’s a massive effort that goes on obviously getting everybody in, everybody out, and then getting everybody ready. So, always, we’re looking for volunteers for any event that we run, but especially this one because it covers such a large area. We do like to have a few cheer points out on the site as well. Or out on the road, sorry. So yeah, hopefully get some volunteers down as well for that, which will be. Yeah. Anybody wishing to help then please do. It’ll be greatly appreciated.
Liz: Why should people sign up? Can you tell us a bit about how the money raised will help Shelter Cymru’s work?
Tom: Yes, I think people should sign up. It’s a nice, relatively early on in the season, sort of mid-season cycling event. So you’re hoping that those who are into their cycling and their events, they’ve had a few under their belt and they can come and take on a good challenge. And then the money that is raised, the money that comes back in through the event comes into our work and Shelter Cymru, across Wales and the work that we carry out there. So we’re looking for some more fundraising as well, that goes back into our work there. But it’s partly a chance for us to number one, get our brand and our name out. But number two, anything that comes back in allows us to continue that work and that fight against homelessness that we have on a daily basis.
Liz: Obviously, I know safety is your top priority. Can you talk us through what you’re doing to make sure all the riders will be safe on the day?
Tom: Yeah, of course. So obviously number one, safety is the most important thing. So before the event has even started a couple of months ago now, Haydn, who has done a lot of work for us in the past designing our previous routes, he and I got together and we went and drove around the route itself. So we’ve done a full route check, making sure that the road surface is adequate and safe. Then prior to the event, Haydn and I are going to go out on the Friday beforehand and we’re going to have it fully marked and signposted routes. So that’s going to be arrows to follow for the riders. We’re going to put cycling event warning signs out, so they’ll be up and ready in place for the Sunday event. On the day itself, we have full medical cover, so they’re coming in, they’ve got, I think four or five vehicles that will be out on the road, so I’ve got a couple of ambulances, a couple of rapid response cars. We’ve got again through a link with Haydn, they sort of do they do professional cycling events and he’s got a couple of the riders coming down for that as well to be sort of roaming marshals out and about on the course.
We’ve also got a roaming mechanic, so if there’s anybody who has mechanical issues out on the course as well, we’ve got a mechanic who’s going to be out on about.
And then we’re going to have two roaming safety vehicles as well on the course on the day. And then all of those people there, they’re going to be linked up with their communication system as well. So we’ve got lots of cover from both medical, mechanical and then if someone needs to pull out or get moved across to somewhere, we’ve got two vans as well that can help out there. So yeah, we’re fully covered and insured as well for the event. So we’re hoping it’ll be a great fun and safe day for everybody.
Liz: Brilliant! Thank you, Tom. So for anyone out there who’s keen to sign up, what’s the easiest way to do that?
Tom: So the easiest way we’ve got, there might be some flyers you might have seen at gyms or in local shops. We’ve handed out flyers when we’ve been advertising it, but the easiest way if you go to castlesandcathedrals.org.uk, that’s the official website for the for the event itself. And then on there they’ve got all the links, all the maps, all the information about the routes and also a QR code that you can follow to sign up through our Eventbrite website as well.
Liz: There we go! Castles & Cathedrals, Sunday 13 July. Head over to castlesandcathedrals.org.uk to find out more and sign up.
Fight for Home is produced by Shelter Cymru. If you enjoyed the show and want to support us, please leave us a rating – it helps a lot. If you’d like to learn more about Shelter Cymru and our work, you can head to our website staging.oddd-devbox4.co.uk/ or search Shelter Cymru on social media. Diolch am wrando, thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time.
3 July 2025
By Liz Day
