- One in 20 children report sleeping on floor - Children using mouldy, soiled cots and bedding - Parents say children without their own bed are ‘tired all the time’
More than one in 20 children (6%) are sleeping on the floor due to not having a bed of their own in the last 12 months, according to a new YouGov survey for children’s charity Barnardo’s.
Around one in ten children (9%) also said they had shared a bed with another member of their family because they didn’t have a bed of their own.
The charity commissioned YouGov which surveyed 1,049 parents (with children under 18) and 1,013 children (aged 8-17) in GB*.
Based on these findings, Barnardo’s believes this means that there could be around 700,000 children sharing beds and 440,000 children sleeping on the floor because they don't have a bed of their own.
One in 12 parents (8%) said their children were ‘tired all of the time’ due to not having their own bed.
Of the children who said they had to share a bed, many said it left them feeling tired the next day during school lessons, embarrassed (e.g. when going through puberty), anxious or unhappy.
Barnardo’s frontline workers remain extremely concerned about the impact the cost-of-living crisis is having on struggling families and children, illustrated by this stark issue of ‘bed poverty’.
The charity recently surveyed 100 of its frontline staff who had provided beds or bedding to children, young people and families struggling to afford the basics. They provided countless examples of families unable to afford to replace or repair broken beds, sharing beds, sleeping on the floor or a sofa and using broken or dirty mattresses. They also heard from families using inadequate bedding that didn’t provide enough warmth in freezing temperatures, such as sheets, or bedding which was dirty, mouldy or soiled, including cots.
Between October 2022 and September 2023, the charity's crisis support has helped 7,200 families, including helping them to buy beds, mattresses, duvets, blankets and sheets.
One Barnardo’s worker said: “I often see families sharing mattresses on the floor with no sheets on or badly soiled duvets. These items come very low on the list of items to purchase when families are struggling to make ends meet, especially since the rise in food bills and heating bills. On some occasions children and mum are all sleeping in one bed.”
Another Barnardo’s worker supported a family after the father had a sudden illness that left him paralysed and in hospital for a year. She said: “The four children were all sleeping on old mattresses on the floor with minimal bedding. The children couldn't get proper sleep and they were going to school tired. This was affecting their concentration and therefore their ability to learn.”
Mum Shelley and her daughters aged 16 and nine, slept together in the living room of their home near Carlisle, unable to afford the cost of heating the house. The children shared a double mattress on the floor for three months, while Shelley slept on the sofa. A lack of suitable bedding and insufficient clothing meant they were unable to stay in their own rooms, with temperatures plummeting and heating bills rising.
Shelley said: “Because the girls’ mattress was right next to the sofa, the body heat from all of us was just enough to keep us warm through the night.”
Daughter Ash, who was in Year 11 at the time, explained how hard it was to study for her GCSEs while sharing a mattress with her younger sister.
She said: “Sharing with a nine-year-old isn’t easy. People on the street, people at school might have no idea at all of what you’re dealing with at home, that you’ve barely slept. It does make it harder to concentrate at school, and then when you get home you haven’t got your own space to study or anything.”
Emergency support from Barnardo’s has now paid for new bed bases and more bedding for Shelley and her family.
Barnardo’s is making the following key recommendations to the Government:
- To end the two-child limit on benefits for families with over two children. This policy effectively operates as a “sibling penalty”, affecting families entitled to benefits who have had a new baby since 2017. These parents are denied £3,235 per year per child, if they already had two children and went on to have more.
- To implement an Essentials Guarantee** that would ensure that, at a minimum, Universal Credit protects people from going without essential items. This would enable families that are struggling to better accommodate unexpected costs, like replacing broken beds or bedding.
- To fix the Household Support Fund so that families in crisis can get help with essentials like beds and bedding for their children when they are in most need. Funding for the Household Support Fund will run out in March 2024. Without renewal of the funding, local crisis support will be significantly affected. The Government should announce in the Autumn Statement an extension of the Fund so the scheme does not end in March 2024.
Lynn Perry MBE, Barnardo’s CEO, said:
“It is unacceptable that at least one child in every classroom is sleeping in the floor because they don’t have a bed of their own, in one of the richest countries in the world.
“Bed poverty is just one aspect of child poverty, yet it starkly illustrates the challenges faced by families not having enough money to afford the essentials needed to raise happy and healthy children.
“Families in crisis are having to prioritise essentials such as food, heating and electricity over things like replacing mouldy bedding or fixing a rotten or broken bed. Children are sharing beds and sleeping on the floor, all of which is affecting their development, attendance at school and their mental health.
“The Government must take urgent action to address these deep-rooted issues.”
Notes to editors
Link to Barnardo’s report ‘No Crib For a Bed: The Impact of the Cost-of-living Crisis on Bed Poverty’.
YouGov surveys:
*All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc.
Parents survey:
Total sample size was 1049 parents with children under 18. Fieldwork was undertaken between 25th - 30th August 2023. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).
Children’s survey:
Total sample size was 1013 children aged 8 to 17. Fieldwork was undertaken between 25th - 31st August 2023. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB children aged 8 to 17.
The population extrapolations are estimated for the UK population and therefore assume results in Northern Ireland would be similar to those in the rest of the UK. Population extrapolations for children aged 8-17 are based on the ‘ONS Mid-Year Population Estimates, UK, June 2021’ published in December 2022, using 7,937,715 as the base number of children in the UK aged 8-17. The figures presented from the online surveys have been analysed independently by Barnardo’s. The views expressed here are not the views of YouGov.
**The Essentials Guarantee is a campaign proposed by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Further information here.