Charity helpline receives a call for help every six minutes as demand surges in the West Midlands
Housing and homelessness charity Shelter is appealing for help to fund its free helpline after seeing a surge in demand from the West Midlands, with over 39,000 received in the past year alone. In a sign of the deepening housing crisis, the number of calls to the charity’s helpline from the West Midlands - which is part-funded by M&S - has increased by 11% with a call now received every six minutes. Worryingly, one in five cases in the West Midlands dealt with by the Shelter helpline in the past year were people who were homeless or within 28 days of losing their home.