Furnishing Futures

United Kingdom · Nonprofit Organization Management

Furnishing Futures is a new small charity based in East London, that fully furnishes and decorates the homes of vulnerable women and children who are rehoused in empty social housing after escaping domestic abuse. We partner with the interiors industry and the local community to repurpose high quality products that might otherwise be sent to landfill, and we combine social work values with interior design skills to create healing homes for families who have experienced multiple disadvantages and trauma. The charity was established by Emily Wheeler, an interiors stylist, journalist and interiors author who is also a registered social worker with more than 15 years’ experience in frontline child protection services. Deeply affected by the poverty she saw in her frontline work with families in the most deprived areas of London, Emily realised she could combine her experience and contacts in the interiors industry with her social work skills and knowledge to tackle the issue of furniture poverty. Emily set about furnishing the homes of vulnerable families using donated furniture to relieve poverty. Furnishing Futures is now partnered with local women’s refuges, baby banks and food banks and has developed relationships with interiors brands, stylists and designers who donate furnishings together with the local community.