By Claire Donovan, head of policy, research & campaigns at End Furniture Poverty

Living without essential furniture items can have a devastating impact on your life and End Furniture Poverty’s latest research shows 9% of the UK population, six million people, are living in furniture poverty.

This means they are living without a cooker or a fridge, a sofa or a bed, a freezer or a washing machine, a dining table or bedroom storage, or without flooring or window coverings – and one million are living in deep furniture poverty, without three or more essential items.

It is a problem you are far more likely to face if you live in social housing with 26% of social housing tenants living in furniture poverty. Out of the 1.2 million living without flooring in the UK, 61% live in social housing.

Our research also showed that seven out of 10 people living in furniture poverty had problems with sleeping, the same number of those with long term conditions or disabilities said it made their condition worse, while nine out of 10 said they felt stressed or anxious living without items.

People can turn to high-cost credit trying to acquire furniture, which can lead to rental arrears, and there is sadly a real stigma attached to furniture poverty with seven in 10 feeling ashamed or embarrassed by their home, which can lead to social isolation.

While it is a national problem, the figures clearly show the problem is worse in the social housing sector. To a certain extent this is due to the socioeconomic background of social housing tenants, but we believe landlords can and should do more to support their tenants.

As an immediate starting point, landlords should check flooring when tenants move out, and if it is of sufficient quality, clean and leave in place rather than the current practice for many landlords of automatically disposing of it.

We also want landlords to go a step further and where flooring needs to be removed, replace it. Thirteen Group now install flooring in all relets, along with decoration and offering preloved furniture. Their results have been impressive with big reductions in rental arrears, churn and void costs, as well as reduced key to key times. They said they aren’t spending any more money, they are just spending it differently.

We have long campaigned for the introduction of more furnished tenancies in social housing and our Blueprint for Furniture Provision in Social Housing contains everything a landlord needs to know about creating a new furniture scheme. Torus has been providing furnished tenancies for many years and are always happy to share their experience and expertise, while Karbon Homes are developing an impressive reputation for innovation with their furnished tenancy schemes with both featuring as case studies in the Blueprint.

We hope these shocking furniture poverty statistics encourage many more landlords to put furniture provision in place, and we are here to help in any way we can. The cost of living crisis is here to stay for the foreseeable future so now is the time for change. Together we can End Furniture Poverty.