 At Shelter she gained a reputation as an "ambitious, pragmatic worker who got results" and was largely responsible for the creation in 1998 of Shelterline, the country's first 24-hour telephone helpline for homeless people.Following the 1997 election, the Labour government in December that year created the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU), which had tackling rough sleeping as one of its priorities.In April 1999 the RSU was created and Casey appointed by Prime Minister Tony Blair as its head, referred to in the media as the "homelessness czar".