‘We need you!’ was the stark message to housing lawyers from Jess Turtle, co-director of the Museum of Homelessness, as she kicked off LAG’s annual housing law conference.

Turtle explained that a letter from a lawyer can sometimes make huge change in the homeless community. ‘In winter lockdown, they were hosing our community off the Strand. It was absolutely disgraceful. People didn’t have anywhere to dry out their stuff. One letter from campaign group Liberty stopped them in their tracks and people were able to stay in their sleep sites for 18 months. It put a ring of fire around that street.’

Turtle told the conference: ‘We lean on our legal friends so much, like Liberty and Public Interest Law Centre, but would like to work with more lawyers to develop legal education and a route to legal support.’

Tom Darling of the Renters Reform Coalition encouraged lawyers who were interested in law reform or campaigning to get more involved in his organisation. He told delegates that his experience, as campaigns manager representing a coalition of 20 organisations, was that ‘politicians tend to shut up and listen when lawyers are talking’.

Readers can visit the Museum of Homelessness’s exhibition, ‘How to Survive the Apocalypse’, at its new home in Finsbury Park, London.