Furniture poverty as key as food poverty - charity

Marion Kenyon, chief executive of New Starts, said many children did not have beds to sleep on

Helping struggling families get furniture is as big a problem as food and fuel poverty, a charity says.

New Starts, based in Bromsgrove and Birmingham, collects unwanted items to donate to families, and said it frequently found people sleeping on cardboard.

Chief executive Marion Kenyon said furniture poverty should be talked about in the same way as other cost-of-living issues.

“I’m always shocked that people are living like this. I’m embarrassed actually," she said.

New Starts provides beds and other furniture to people in the West Midlands and Worcestershire

Last month, City of Wolverhampton Council said it had provided almost 900 beds for children in the city as families struggled to afford them.

Ms Kenyon said there were no exact figures for how many children in Birmingham or Worcestershire did not have access to a bed, but they supplied 200 of them in 2022.

“Our experience is when we do go into properties where the families have nothing except a lamp maybe in the corner and they’re sleeping on cardboard on the floor and we get loads of requests for beds," she said.

"Last year we probably provided 200 beds in all out of the 1,200 items that we did provide, so it’s a significant proportion."

Just 'four walls'

There were many reasons why families have got to that situation, she said, including having lived in temporary accommodation, or being homeless and then moving into a property “with four walls and that’s just about it”.

"There is nothing in there and if they haven’t got the money, or the family and friends able to provide the sort of goods for them, then that’s what they’ve got - the four walls.

"They make do with what they can do... probably a couple of sleeping bags, it might be some cardboard say from a local shop, then they just cope until they get some furniture which often comes through us."

Ms Kenyon said the country needed to "talk about furniture poverty in the same way we talk about fuel and food poverty".

She said furniture poverty was often "hidden", adding that the charity was expecting to see an increase in the number of people it helps.

“I’m always shocked that people are living like this... I’m embarrassed actually," Ms Kenyon said.

"I’m embarrassed that [in] our nation that this has happened… that people just don’t have things, or when things break they can’t replace them because they don’t have savings."