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There are things in Adam Sampson's past that he doesn't like to talk about. It would have been easy, for example, for the new director of Shelter – largely anonymous in the housing sector – to ingratiate himself with his new peers by trading on the fact that his late father was a young offender who slept rough as a child. But this emerges only when Sampson is pushed on why he got into social care – and only after being reassured that no "crass and tacky" links will be made between his father's childhood and his own career. "I knew my father was a young offender and had run away from home," says Sampson. "One of his convictions was for stealing milk. But I only found out about the homelessness from my mother after I got this job."

His reticence is also an indication of self-consciousness about entering a new sector with all its unfamiliar technicalities. "I met somebody the other day who had a habit of waiting a heartbeat after I'd say anything to him," says Sampson. "I'd say something and there'd be a pause and I'd think 'Oh my God, what have I said that's so foolish?'"

If Sampson is nervous, it is because he has just taken up one of the most high-profile jobs in housing. Launched in 1966 as a hastily convened grassroots campaign, Shelter is now ranked 128 in research group Charities Direct's list of the UK's top 500 charities in terms of income. The organisation has more than 700 staff, 50 housing aid centres, and last year turnover was £30.4m, including £14.8m in donations. Nescafe is a big corporate funder and Shelter is this year's official London Marathon charity. Shelter policy experts bend the ear of Whitehall – recent lobbying has led to changes on right to buy and last year's Homelessness Act.

When Shelter announced the appointment of this probation officer turned criminal justice campaigner in October last year, after the departure of Chris Holmes, it signalled the homelessness charity's desire for a more holistic approach to housing. Sampson may not yet be a housing expert, but his campaigning credentials are not in doubt – and although not the inspiration for his career, his father's life cannot have failed to make him more sensitive to the issues in which he has specialised.

As deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust in the early 1990s, Sampson was an outspoken critic of the government, once controversially suggesting that state prisons might learn a thing or two from some privately run ones. A subsequent three-year stint in the civil service as assistant prisons ombudsman left him stifled by bureaucracy, so he joined the Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust as chief executive.

There, he distinguished himself by boosting the national charity's turnover at the same time as expanding its services: when he joined, RAPT ran five prison-based projects in the South-east, employed 26 people and had an annual turnover of £750,000. When Sampson left five years later, there were 23 projects, 125 staff and turnover was as high as £5m.

Lord Victor Adebowale, chief executive of drugs charity Turning Point, says of Sampson's appointment: "Shelter has recognised that homelessness is not just about housing. Social care and housing do go hand in hand." Former Shelter director Chris Holmes says: "Adam's not from a housing background, but I don't believe this is crucial. What's crucial is the commitment to campaign and leadership ability. He has vast experience in the criminal justice area, drugs and addiction, these areas are relevant to housing."

Sampson applied for the position, he says, because in the voluntary sector "there are maybe three or four jobs in the field which in your wildest dreams you hope to get" and director of Shelter is one of those. "I still find it a bit bizarre to be here. There's an adjustment to being almost a commodity. The director of Shelter is something over and above the individual who occupies the position."

People not policy
His interest in social care came, he explains because he wanted "to do something that felt useful, something had some impact beyond myself and my bank balance". He spent a year between school and university working in a night shelter in the crypt of Liverpool's Roman Catholic cathedral and enjoyed being on the front line so much that, after graduating, he became a probation officer working with clients including Winston Silcott who, at the time, was at the beginning of his since-quashed sentence for the murder of PC Keith Blakelock. That, says Sampson, was "very difficult, highly politicised". He continues: "Almost all my career I've been working with a similar client base, people who are poor, socially excluded, in trouble with the law, homeless, struggling with addiction, benefits, mental health. But it was not the criminal justice policy bit that mattered most, it was the people."

This interest in people over policy meant that, after he had campaigned for a prisons ombudsman to be established while at the Prison Reform Trust, when the Conservative government of the time finally agreed and invited him to help set up the new agency, he found the experience frustrating. Compelled to put aside his ideological aversion to joining the civil service, he became frustrated by the "lack of commitment among civil service staff, bureaucracy and the apparent unwillingness to set up a flexible and efficient service".

Shelter has achieved fantastic things. The right to buy would not have been back on the agenda without us

Bed and breakfasts
Seizing the campaigning mantle for Shelter, Sampson's first big challenge is on the use of bed-and-breakfast hotels as temporary accommodation. The government's order, last year, that councils should stop using bed and breakfasts to accommodate families by March 2004, was a response to Shelter's lobbying, but there is doubt over whether the deadline will be met.

New figures were not out as we went to press and Sampson is unwilling to talk in great detail about the issue, but he warns: "If councils meet targets simply by chucking people out of bed and breakfasts and putting them into equally bad temporary accommodation, or by shoving people hundreds of miles away from home, that achievement will be almost worse than useless."

Falling apart
Shelter has had "a fair deal of insecurity in recent months", Sampson admits candidly. First, in February 2002, merger talks with Crisis collapsed; then Chris Holmes left, claiming afterwards that he was forced out amid claims of alcohol abuse; then the charity's founder, Des Wilson publicly accused the organisation of losing its edge.

Of Holmes' departure, Sampson says: "At the time I thought how sad, not 'oh good the job's up for grabs'. Chris was here six or seven years and did a fantastic job – the Homelessness Act was such an achievement – and it would be sad if the way Chris and Shelter parted was allowed to overshadow what he achieved."

Campaigning zeal
Last year, the charity received £4.8m in grants from central and local government and there have been accusations that it is becoming a policy-orientated think tank that's in danger of being too close to government. Is it, as Wilson claimed, losing its campaigning zeal?

Absolutely not, says Sampson. "Look at the work on the Frank Field bill or asylum. There are some traditionally radical noises coming out of the organisation. Shelter has achieved fantastic things alongside other organisations in the field. The right to buy would not have been back on the political agenda without us."

But he admits that successes like those the charity has seen recently can be disarming. "If you campaign for something for years and years then suddenly the government goes 'alright then, let's get on with it', then it does leave you feeling 'what do I do now?'"

As Sampson sees it, the charity that had such a rebellious youth in the past three decades has now hit its middle age – with the experience and maturity that brings, but also the potential for complacency. "At middle age you're established, authoritative, pretty well off," he says, "but you can also be complacent, predictable, not as light on your feet as you used to be."

Shelter's future direction is the most pressing issue in Sampson's in-tray and, he says, despite the failed merger with Crisis he has not ruled out talks of uniting forces with other organisations."If the opportunity to reconsider that came up again I would certainly be prepared to sit down and talk about it again," he says. "There's no question about that."