Times have changed since the first Citizens Advice Bureau opened 70 years ago. However, Lucy Richardson discovers that the problems facing clients haven’t changed.

A DEBT-RIDDEN mother, about to be evicted from her home and too poor to feed her children, tentatively pushes open a door, desperate for the help and advice awaiting on the other side.

It may be September 1939, but the service provided by Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB) is as vital now as when the branches were set up in the days after the Second World War broke out 70 years ago.

Fashion and music may have changed, but in our consumer-driven society, money worries will always be in vogue. During the Blitz the first CAB advisors helped with war damage claims for people who had lost their families, homes and everything in them.

During the post-war period, they dealt with family problems, housing conditions and the welfare state, followed by spiralling divorce rates in the Sixties and debt and unemployment in the Eighties.

Freely available credit combined with a lack of affordable housing has seen unprecedented levels of debt over the past ten years, with soaring numbers of bankruptcy and repossession cases.

CAB chief executive David Harker said: “From rationing to recession, the CAB has been there for people in times of crisis throughout the past 70 years.

“New figures show that what started out as an emergency service in wartime is needed now more than ever as the recession continues to take its toll on people’s lives.”

Bureaux in England and Wales are dealing with 9,300 new debt cases and 8,000 benefit problems every day.

Staff at the Middlesbrough CAB believe that theirs was one of the first branches to be created.

It now handles 20,000 inquiries a year.

Its budget of £200,000 during the Eighties has leapt to £1m, but the 33 paid staff and about 40 volunteers are still struggling to cope with demand.

Specialist case workers deal with debt, housing and employment issues and can represent clients in court.

Housing case worker John Garner said many people he sees have fallen behind with their mortgage payments after losing their jobs, especially in the construction industry, or their businesses have gone bust.

He said mortgage-lenders were not pursuing defaulters as aggressively as they were earlier this year, but added that homes with equity were tending to be selectively targeted.

He also said initiatives such as the Mortgage Rescue Scheme can keep people’s roofs over their heads if they do not bury their heads in the sand. He said: “A guy came in yesterday who lost his job. He never thought he would ever be claiming benefits.

“There was no way that he could keep his