About us
Who we are
We offer free, confidential and impartial advice on issues including debt, welfare benefits, employment, housing and discrimination. We can also offer practical support such as completing complex benefits application forms, helping you to appeal decisions, writing letters or negotiating with third parties such as landlords or creditors. We help people at drop-in sessions in Central York, by telephone and Webchat, and at neighbourhood outreach sessions.
“Very very helpful service, with helpful and compassionate workers. The service helped me when I was in a very bad place.”
We are an independent local charity affiliated with the national organisation Citizens Advice. We have 50+ volunteers (around 80% of our team), supported by a small professional staff team who run the organisation and provide essential training and supervision.
In 2022-23, we helped 3,784 people with 14,309 issues, plus many more people with quick queries or signposting. The main issues we helped with related to benefits, employment, debt, and housing. However, our ethos is to help everyone whatever the problem, and we also supported people with many other issues.
In 2022-23, we helped people gain £984,891 in income, largely from unclaimed benefits and tax credits. Our clients also had a total of £1,655,669 in debts managed or written off. These are just some examples of how our work makes a tremendous difference to people’s lives.
Annual Report and Financial Statements 2023
Latest Annual General Meeting
Our 2023 AGM was held on 25 October 2023.
For our 2023 AGM the keynote speaker was Maddy Power (Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York) on the topic:
Lived experiences of poverty and inequality: what we know and what needs to change.
CAY AGM October 2023 keynote speech slides
What our volunteers say
Have a look at what our volunteers say about us. This short video was made for us by students at the University of York: