Meet the lawyers stepping in to help homeless people rebuild: 'People don't know their rights'

A few years ago, Clive Thomas was wondering what he could do to help homeless people he saw in Cardiff, beyond just giving money here and there. He saw it as one of the city’s biggest social problems, and frankly a bit of a national embarrassment. Thomas had an idea: he was a solicitor, and knew exactly how much his time was worth. More than that, as president of the Cardiff and District Law Society he had access to other lawyers.

Thomas’s idea has grown into a clinic where Cardiff’s lawyers give up their time for free to help the city’s homeless people figure out their legal problems, from housing crises to getting their families back together.

Legal aid, the system of free legal advice available to the public, has withered as government funding shrinks in real-terms and firms decide to stop taking part rather than continue suffering losses. 

Those behind the clinic say their help stops people’s problems developing further and becoming more costly down the line.

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“The idea was that if we can give people legal advice, we could help to empower them and sort their issues out,” said Thomas. “People just don’t know their rights. People are taking things into their own hands in their own circumstances.”

In 2024, the Law Society estimated 26 million people in the UK have no access to a housing legal aid provider. At the same time, the need for legal help rises as evictions and repossessions go up.

“The need for legal advice didn’t disappear. People’s ability to access it did,” said David White, clinic support and development officer at LawWorks Cymru, who support the Cardiff Lawyers Care clinic and provide it with insurance.

Run in partnership between homelessness charity The Wallich, LawWorks Cardiff and the University of South Wales (USW), the clinic operates every three weeks as online sessions.

Law students at the university shadow the lawyers, taking notes and writing up the advice given. “I think it opens their eyes to how desperate people are,” said Hannah Menard, the legal advice clinic director at USW. Before academia, Menard used to work as a legal aid solicitor until her firm withdrew from the work.

The clinic gets 100 inquiries a month and, to the surprise of those running it, most cases tend to be family law – partly because a lot of the people coming to the clinic are past the worst of their housing situation and looking to rebuild.

Once the one-off advice is given, clients are directed on to further help. Those giving advice do not find out how the cases end. “The hardest part is not knowing what’s happened. Sometimes you give this advice, you often don’t know what the outcomes are,” said Menard.

Yet if there was a properly-funded legal aid system, said Suzy McGarrity, engagement and training officer at LawWorks Cymru, “quite simply I think there would be fewer homeless people”.

“It’s as if the NHS just went overnight and nobody said anything. It’s interesting that people don’t recognise they probably will need legal services at some point in their lives. Or they don’t even recognise, sometimes, when they are getting legal services,” she added, pointing out the clinic was looking for more lawyers to give up their time, including retired solicitors.

Investing in legal aid for the most vulnerable could save the Treasury £11 billion over 10 years, a report by Access to Justice found last year, with every £1 spent on legal aid saving the government £2.71. The rationale is simple, said White: “A little bit of money and intervention can save a lot of money down the line. Because when people get into trouble, you get health services, police, social services, courts. Really really expensive interventions, compared to perhaps a more manageable intervention.”

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