Any of us lucky enough to have a place we can call home knows just how important this is. A fact  demonstrated to me over and over when I wrote my book A Home For The Heart, looking at the meaning of having – and not having – a secure place to live.

Centrepoint (https://centrepoint.org.uk), the housing charity,  estimates that at least 150,000 young people across the UK have approached local authorities for help because they are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless and the problem is getting worse. I am the mother of two sons, and it was a there-but-for-the-grace-of …. moment. So I willingly signed up to sponsor a room for a young person for £12 a month. The room is more than just a roof over a young person’s head – it is a safe haven where they can gain access to education, counselling, apprenticeships and functional skills until they are ready to move on.

Brickworks (http://www.brickworkslondon.com) is an ethical estate agent started by Ellie Rees and her partner and former Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward and The Modern House agent Rex Siney. They explained to me when we met  that the aim of the agency is to be anti-corporate and an alternative to what’s out there at the moment. It makes eight ‘public pledges’ which sound a far cry from certain unscrupulous agents whose bottom line is making a commission and ethics go hang. These include: everyone pays a fixed one percent to sell their property, regardless of value. There is no individual sales commission. They promise to give 2.5% of every fee they receive to Depaul UK, a pioneering homelessness charity that empowers young people and helps them to stay off the streets for good.