SUMMARY OF UK RESEARCH
The End Furniture Poverty campaign was launched to research the issue of Furniture Poverty, in order to raise awareness, to educate people about the potential solutions to Furniture Poverty and, ultimately, to ensure that everyone has access to the essential furniture and goods they need to lead a secure life.
In 2016, we launched a consultation to establish what these ‘essential’ items were. By assembling a list – the items that a household needs access to in order to lead that basic acceptable quality of life, including the social aspects of life – we can give ourselves a benchmark by which to judge whether a household was living in Furniture Poverty. Respondents were asked to rate from 1 to 5 a list of 19 items mentioned in the Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK (PSE) research project, led by the University of Bristol.
How do you think you would cope without a bed? Not just a night on the couch, but nowhere comfortable to sleep day after day. Imagine not having an oven. How would you feed your family affordable nutritious food with only a kettle and a microwave? You might be fortunate enough to be able to quickly replace items of furniture and white goods when something breaks or goes wrong, but this is the daily reality for many households living in Furniture Poverty.
The list of items deemed to be essential is as follows:
• Bed, bedding and mattress
• Table and chairs
• Sofa and/or easy chairs
• Wardrobe/drawers
• Carpets in living rooms and bedrooms
• Curtains or blinds
• Washing machine
• Refrigerator and freezer
• Cooker/oven
• TV
SOURCE:
The Essential Items. (n.d.). End Furniture Poverty. Retrieved January 10, 2020, from https://www.endfurniturepoverty.org/the-essential-items
