Millions of people in Britain are homeless or live in overcrowded or substandard accommodation. One in seven children in the UK are without a permanent home, or live in rundown housing.
Children growing up in bad housing are almost twice as likely to suffer poor health as other children and leave school with no GCSE's. Those living in unfit and overcrowded accommodation are almost a third more likely to suffer respiratory problems such as asthma and up to ten times more likely to catch meningitis.
For the last three years, M&S has joined forces with Shelter. With your support we've raised £1.6million to fund Shelter’s ongoing work, enough to help 16,000 families.
In the run up to Christmas, M&S sells a limited edition range of Christmas food products and Christmas Cards, and every item you buy from this range includes a donation to Shelter.
And because the problems Shelter is working to change are there all year round, we’ve also signed up to the Shelter 'Gifts in Kind' programme, where Shelter shops benefit from M&S ends of lines and excess stock.
Working together, we hope to make bad housing a thing of the past.
Main photo by Sophie Laslett.