Shelter unveils new site to help young people

by Emma Rigby, Revolution UK 06-Sep-05

LONDON - Homeless charity Shelter is spending a six-figure sum on a new website that offers advice and support services to 16- to 25-year-olds without secure housing.

The site will launch on September 12 at the same time as an email advice service, which will run alongside the charity's call-centre hotline, to act as a first port of call for those with problems finding a home.

The site will be accessible from the charity's homepage shelter.org.uk.

Shelter carried out research with Angel into the housing problems young people have, and the services they need to solve it. The charity compiled the information for the site in-house and with The Usability Company.

Joe Barrell, head of publishing and editorial, said: "This is a massive project for us, we are building a very big website with hundreds of pages. We have found that young people have very little awareness they have housing rights that are protected by law. The challenge is to get people to understand their position, that they do have rights, and this awareness will protect them from all kinds of problems."

The charity will be running search marketing through Google AdWords.

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