In this episode, we meet Professor Peter Mackie, Executive Director of the Institute of Global Homelessness.

Peter didn't set out to reshape how countries respond to homelessness. As a professor at Cardiff University, he led the research that informed the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 — the legislation that made homelessness prevention a legal duty and drew international attention as one of the most significant reforms of its kind. A decade on, the law he helped build is part of the conversation everywhere he goes.

In this episode, Peter talks about what it actually took to shift a country's approach from responding to homelessness after it happens, to being legally required to act before it does. He reflects on what that model has achieved, where it falls short, and what it reveals about what's possible when political will matches the evidence. And he makes the case that homelessness has become normalised in ways that should be utterly unacceptable — and that COVID showed us exactly what's possible when a society decides something matters.

We'd like to thank Professor Peter Mackie for taking the time to speak with us for this episode.

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