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As a young man, my friend Peter O’Callaghan, who has died aged 82, had his heart set on being a priest, but after five years in a seminary decided it was not his calling and instead dedicated his life to helping homeless people.

From the late 1960s, as head of the emergency department of the pioneering housing charity Shac (the London Housing Aid Centre), directed by Father Paul Byrne, Peter was at the heart of the new housing aid movement, undertaking detailed casework and building bridges between radical campaigns, housing charities and progressive councils who wanted to tackle homelessness and bad conditions in the private rented sector.

In the mid-70s he moved on to run Brent Housing Aid Centre, before becoming assistant director of housing at Hammersmith and Brent councils in the 80s. Over the following two decades he served as chief executive of Patchwork Housing Association and then the Brent Irish Advisory Service.

Born in Cork, Ireland, Peter was the son of Pauline (nee Donovan) and James O’Callaghan, a bank manager, who had eight children; Peter was the second eldest of the six who survived early childhood. Due to his father moving frequently for work, Peter attended several secondary schools, the last being Knockbeg college, on the County Laois-Carlow border.

Peter then began training for the priesthood at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, County Kildare; however he found it hard to toe the line, later telling stories of being reprimanded for one misdemeanour or another. After leaving he completed a teacher training course at University College Cork, but his restless nature and search for something more meaningful led him to London in 1968, where he began working with homeless Irish emigrants through the Catholic Housing Association Society (Chas).

The following year he began working at Shac with Byrne. Together with Shelter, Chas and others, Shac’s advocacy for homeless people ultimately led to the transformational 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act that is still the basis for homelessness legislation today.

I knew Peter as a close friend working in the same sector. As a manager he was inspirational, innovative and a real people person, but he felt most fulfilled working face-to-face with and helping people in housing need.

Known for his quick wit, warmth and humour, as well as his fabled speeches and storytelling, he saw the good in everyone.

While working at Shac, he met Lesley Williams, who became a psychotherapist, and they married in 1972. They settled in Queen’s Park, north-west London, where they raised their twins, Kate and Tim. After retirement in 2010 Peter and Lesley moved to Devizes, Wiltshire. In his final years Peter lived with dementia and Parkinson’s disease.

He is survived by Lesley, Tim and Kate, a granddaughter, Louise, and two brothers, Ivor and Niall.