SINGER-SONGWRITER Ed Sheeran has helped launch a national charity’s new campaign in the North East.

The musician, whose single about homelessness stormed the charts last year, took centre stage at the launch of Crisis’s new campaign, No Going Home, in Newcastle on Saturday.

The campaign aims to defend housing benefit for young people across the country. There are currently 21,430 housing benefit claimants under the age of 25 in the North East.

Ed, a long-term supporter of Crisis, got involved with the charity when he volunteered at Crisis at Christmas. He wrote his breakthrough single The A-Team, about a homeless guest he met there.

The 21-year-old artist also took part in a guitar workshop with some of the charity’s homeless and vulnerably-housed clients while backing the campaign.

He said: “It was great fun taking part in the guitar class at Crisis Skylight Newcastle and meeting some of the people the charity works with in the North East.

“It was also important to me to back the No Going Home campaign. I know a lot of people my age are struggling to find work and pay the rent.”