Last year, we saw a growing demand among working households for our furniture re-use project, Homestore.
In 2016, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported that one in eight workers are now living in poverty. We're now seeing this for ourselves.
Hackney and Tower Hamlets are both consistently ranked as having some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country and we have found that over a quarter of our customers are in some sort of work. To make it easier for them to access us, we are starting to open on Saturdays.
In numbers, 2016/17
- 1,978 customers
- 6,708 items of furniture collected from 2,542 households
- 82 volunteers provided 9,318 hours of support
Jaspreet's story
Jaspreet and her two children were put into temporary accommodation in Newham after being forced to suddenly leave their family home. Jaspreet hadn't had time to save any money. On arrival, all they found in the flat was a fridge freezer and a cooker.
"I've got little ones so I need to have something hard-wearing. I have a baby daughter and my son is two and a half.
"I would have really struggled if I'd had to go to normal shops. Having Homestore, it's really affordable. I needed a sofa, for when I have people over, where are they going to sit otherwise? It's things little things like that, that made the move easier for me, helping me get back into a routine. It makes it better for the children too, they can relax."
Jaspreet