Furniture poverty: the price of moving in to an empty house
After four and a half years of waiting, Leanne* and her three children recently found out that they can move from the two-bedroom council flat they have outgrown into a house. It’s welcome news, but there is a problem, she says: “There are no curtains, no carpet, no nothing: I don’t know where to start.”
Leanne, who works part-time as a dinner lady and claims universal credit, is not alone in her struggle to afford basic household items.
There are no official figures for the number of people living in furniture poverty, but research done before the pandemic by the charity Turn2us suggested 4.8 million were without at least one essential household appliance such as a cooker or a fridge, and the problem is getting worse.
“Somewhere for them all to sleep is the main priority,” Leanne says. Her teenage twins share a room and the bottom bunk is broken, leaving her son sleeping on a mattress. She sleeps in the boxroom with her two-year-old, who is still in a cot.
There is other furniture to buy, too, and carpets. The twins share a wardrobe and when they are in separate rooms they will need one each.
Leanne’s chest of drawers is currently in the living room with the TV on it, but in the new house she will be able to have her clothes in her room.
“So I’ll need to get a TV stand or brackets,” she says. “We’re over the moon that we’ve got a house. But on the other hand, we’re wondering how we’re going to furnish it when we can’t even afford a new bed for the flat.”
Previously unpublished figures from Turn2us’s most recent survey, of 6,000 people in August last year, show that 8% were living without a washing machine – the equivalent of 4.5 million people nationwide. Meanwhile, 7% were living without a freezer, and similar numbers
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