Meet the woman furnishing homes for domestic abuse survivors given empty flats with no beds
A social worker turned interior designer is tackling furniture poverty by transforming the homes of social housing tenants through her charity.
Emily Wheeler, founder of Furnishing Futures, says the need for her charity is not just cosmetic design – domestic abuse survivors are often driven back to their perpetrators after being given empty social housing with no beds for their children.
When families escaping domestic violence are rehoused by their local council, properties are often stripped of all white goods, furniture, and flooring for health and safety reasons.
Having left their old homes suddenly without any of their belongings, families often end up in a flat or house with nowhere to cook or store food and no beds to sleep in, Emily Wheeler, founder of the charity Furnishing Futures, tells Sky News.
Pic: Furnishing Futures
Pic: Furnishing Futures
“There are no curtains at the windows, there’s no oven, no fridge, no washing machine,” she says. “Children are expected to sleep on concrete floors with no beds or bedding.
“Mothers may have experienced economic abuse or coercion and might not have access to their money and find themselves having to start again.
“So you can understand why some women think ‘this is actually no better for my children than going back to my previous situation’.”
Emily has been a frontline social worker in east London for more than 20 years. During a career break, during which she had her two children, she retrained as an interior designer.
When she returned to social work in 2014, she says austerity meant council budgets were being cut and previously available grants for social housing tenants were no longer funded.
“I’ve always seen furniture poverty throughout my career, but it had got worse,” she says.
“I was meeting families living in these conditions without furniture and without access to support.
“When you look at the amount of stuff councils have to spend money on just to keep people safe, furniture isn’t the priority.”
Pic: Furnishing Futures
Pic: Furnishing Futures
Pic: Furnishing Futures
Moved into empty flat two days after giving birth
Laura, not her real name, moved between different emergency accommodations while she was pregnant with her first child after being abused by her ex-partner.
She says she was offered a council flat two days after giving birth.
“When I first moved in it was all dirty, there was no furniture, no carpet, no cooker, fridge, or washing machine.
“I had to take out an emergency loan from Universal Credit to get away from my partner, so I didn’t have any money left when my baby was born. The first couple of nights I could only eat takeaway food because there was nothing to cook with.
“It had concrete floors. I’d get up in the middle of the night to make my baby a bottle and it would be freezing, so I had to put blankets all over the floor.”
Pic: Furnishing Futures
Pic: Furnishing Futures
Chief executive of the National Housing Federation Kate Henderson says: “In social housing, carpets have historically been removed as standard practice for practical reasons, to ensure hygiene between lets and to prevent any possible contamination.
“In some cases, housing associations provide new flooring as standard when a home is re-let, or in other cases they may provide decorating vouchers to new tenants, which can be used for flooring of their choice.”
According to a 2021 study by the campaign group End Furniture Poverty, only 1% of social housing properties are furnished.
Councils under ‘no legal obligation’
The Housing Act 1985 states that a local authority “may fit out, furnish and supply a house provided by them with all requisite furniture, fittings and conveniences”.
But Emily says this means there is no legal obligation to do so.
“Councils are fulfilling their duty by providing housing, so in the eyes of the law they’re not doing anything wrong.
“But having an empty shell of concrete is not a home – just because you’re not on the streets.”
Pic: Furnishing Futures
Pic: Furnishing Futures
Having seen the problem on a wider scale when she began chairing multi-agency child protection conferences, she decided to combine her skills as a designer and social worker – and create a charity to help bridge the gap.
Furnishing Futures was set up in 2019. Emily and her team refloor, paint, and furnish empty properties given to trauma and domestic abuse survivors by councils.
She uses her industry connections, which include Soho House, DFS, Dunelm, and others, to source donated furniture, and fundraises for the rest.
She believes it is the only charity of its kind in the UK.
So far they have furnished more than 80 homes across east London, and a pilot scheme with Waltham Forest council and housing association Peabody will see another three completed there.
But with thousands of families on social housing waiting lists in each of the capital’s 32 boroughs alone, she wants to expand nationally.
“The hardest thing about my job is having to say no to people because we don’t have the capacity,” she says.
“Every day we get inquiries from women, midwives, health visitors, other local authorities, domestic abuse agencies – but we’re just a small team and the demand is huge.”
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Pic: Furnishing Futures
Pic: Furnishing Futures
The charity has a 4,000-square-foot warehouse, a team of five full-time staff, and a group of regular volunteers who help with flooring, painting, and assembling furniture.
As situations are often urgent, work is usually done in just one day.
Empty homes are form of ‘revictimisation’
Jen Cirone, director of services at Solace Women’s Aid, one of the charity’s partners, says being housed in an empty home and having to start again is a form of “revictimisation”.
But she says of the charity: “It’s not only the practicalities of having a beautiful space to live in but also demonstrates that others care.
“Together, Furnishing Futures is able to complete the road to recovery that work with Solace has put them on.”
Pic: Furnishing Futures
Pic: Penny Wincer
Hannah, not her real name, is another of Emily’s clients.
She was homeless after leaving her ex-partner and given emergency accommodation a day before she was due to give birth to her first child.
“I felt extremely stressed and vulnerable,” she says. “As a victim of domestic violence and heavily pregnant, I already felt alone and unsupported.
“This empty space didn’t feel like ‘home’ and it certainly wasn’t suitable for baby.”
As a type one diabetic she also had nowhere to store her insulin injections, she adds.
“I ended up staying in hospital for some time due to an emergency C-section and during that time Emily turned my empty, scary space into a home for me and my child.”
Emily says that although COVID and the cost-of-living crisis have opened the conversation about poverty and how it affects domestic abuse survivors, the situation is “worse than ever”.
“We’re not just talking about poverty now, we’re talking about destitution,” she says.
“People need safe and comfortable homes. You won’t be able to recover from trauma, rebuild your life, and be a productive part of society if you don’t have your basic needs met.”
Pic: Furnishing Futures
A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “Domestic abuse survivors deserve a safe home and we are grateful to Furnishing Futures for the work they do to help these families rebuild their lives.
“We expect social housing providers to play their part and provide homes that are of a decent quality, if tenants are unhappy, we encourage them to speak to their landlords.
“Our Social Housing Regulation Act is also driving up standards and strengthened the role of the Ombudsman so that it is easier for tenants to raise complaints.”
The parents of survivors of the Southport attack have revealed the “untold stories” of how their “hero” children escaped.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, murdered Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, in what the chairman of the public inquiry Sir Adrian Fulford called “one of the most egregious crimes in our country’s history”.
Eight children were injured along with two adults at a Taylor Swift-themed class in the Merseyside seaside town on 29 July last year, while 15 others escaped without physical injuries.
The surviving victims and their families have been granted anonymity during the inquiry, with one girl referred to as C3. Her father was the first to give evidence at Liverpool Town Hall on Wednesday.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King were murdered in the attack
Reading a statement on behalf of him and his wife, he told how their daughter was the first girl to escape the scene by running from the Hart Space building and hiding behind a parked car before jumping through an open car door.
“Our nine-year-old daughter was stabbed three times in the back by a coward she didn’t even see,” he said.
“Although she didn’t know what was happening – she knew she had to run. She ran out of the studio door, down the stairs, and out of the building.”
Read more: Southport inquiry as it happened
He said she can be seen “looking scared, confused and pained” in CCTV footage of the incident, adding: “It was troubling for us to see what she had to go through, before either of her parents had arrived at the scene.”
“We are so thankful and proud that despite being critically injured, she was able to make the decisions she did in that terrible moment,” he said.
The girl’s father said his daughter “continues to astound” them with the way she dealt with the attack and her recovery, saying: “It has been inspiring for us to witness.”
Inquiry chair Sir Adrian Fulford at Liverpool Town Hall. Pic: PA
He said she has difficulty sleeping, experiences flashbacks, looks over her shoulder scanning for potential danger when she leaves the house, has a fear of loud noises and has to turn off some songs when they come on the radio.
“Our daughter knows that she is loved,” he said.
“It is through this support and love that she will continue to thrive. We couldn’t be prouder of her. She is our hero.”
Stabbed 33 times
The parents of a girl referred to as C1 told how their “beautiful, articulate, fun-loving little girl” was stabbed 33 times.
After being attacked she escaped the building, but Rudakubana was seen dragging her back inside in CCTV footage played during his sentencing hearing, which drew gasps in court, before she was stabbed 20 more times.
“That is how she became known in this nightmare. The girl that was dragged back in,” her mother said.
Police at the scene. Pic: PA
She thanked the teachers who escaped to call police and flag down help but said: “The most painful of truths for us though, and what has been most devastating to come to terms with, is that there were no adults to help during both of her attacks.
“She was only supported by other children. The courage and strength she found leaves me crushed, but in complete awe.”
She added: “It is these untold stories of remarkable strength and bravery that are missing when we have heard other accounts of this day.”
The mother said the “hours and days that followed the attack were a living hell” and her daughter’s memories – including a concert of her “idol” Taylor Swift – have “been forfeited to make space for the trauma that she carries”.
“We tell her she was brave. How proud we are that she was able to help other girls. How her strength makes us feel strong. How important what she did that day was. She is her own hero. She may be a survivor of this attack, but she is still trying to survive this, every single day,” she said.
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‘We need to understand what went wrong’
Attack ‘changed everything’
The mother of a girl referred to as C8 said she was “like any other seven-year-old little girl”, “with an incredible energy” and “full of life”.
But in a statement read out by a legal representative, she said the attack last year “changed everything” when she got a “panicked phone call” from a friend’s mother, who couldn’t find the girls.
“That moment, the sound of fear in her voice and the panic I felt will never leave me,” she said.
“I rushed to the scene and what I saw is something no parent should ever see. My daughter had sustained serious physical injuries including a stab wound to her arm and a cut to her face and chin.”
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‘We don’t want Elsie forgotten’
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She said her daughter “remembers the attack vividly” and later told her “she thought it had to be fake, because she couldn’t believe something that terrible could really be happening”.
“Where she was once eager to go off with her friends, she now needs my support if it is somewhere public or unknown,” she said.
“Simple days out now need a level of safety planning that we would never have considered before.”
‘Constant flashbacks’
The mother of a girl referred to as Q, who escaped without being physically injured, told how she arrived to collect her daughter to find “children running from the building, screaming and fearing for their lives”.
In a statement read to the inquiry by a legal representative on her behalf, she said it was “the most horrific experience of my life”.
“What I saw on that day will stick with me forever, I constantly have flashbacks and relive what happened,” she said.
She said her daughter has become “very withdrawn” since the attack and has asked her parents, “How will I ever be normal again?”
Rudakubana was jailed for a minimum of 52 years in January and is being investigated over an alleged attack on a prison officer at Belmarsh prison in May.
The public inquiry, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in January, is looking into whether the attack could or should have been prevented, given what was known about the killer.
Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, had contact with police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services, and was referred to the government’s anti-extremism Prevent scheme three times before the murders.
A rapid review into his contact with Prevent found his case should have been kept open and that he should have been referred to Channel, another anti-terror scheme.
C1’s mother said: “She deserves the truth, she deserves accountability. She deserves an apology. Our girls deserve an apology.
“Backed up by the promise that changes will be made and this will not be allowed to happen again.”
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While the politicians talk, so many people come from around the world to try to get across the Channel on small boats. But why?
Why make such a perilous crossing to try to get to a country that seems to be getting increasingly hostile to asylum seekers?
As the British and French leaders meet, with small boats at the forefront of their agenda, we came to northern France to get some answers.
It is not a new question, but it is peppered with fresh relevance.
Over the course of a morning spent around a migrant camp in Dunkirk, we meet migrants from Gaza, Iraq, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sri Lanka and beyond.
Some are fearful, waving us away; some are happy to talk. Very few are comfortable to be filmed.
All but one man – who says he’s come to the wrong place and actually wants to claim asylum in Paris – are intent on reaching Britain.
They see the calm seas, feel the light winds – perfect conditions for small boat crossings.
John has come here from South Sudan. He tells me he’s now 18 years old. He left his war-torn home nation just before his 16th birthday. He feels that reaching Britain is his destiny.
“England is my dream country,” he says. “It has been my dream since I was at school. It’s the country that colonised us and when I get there, I will feel like I am home.
“In England, they can give me an opportunity to succeed or to do whatever I need to do in my life. I feel like I am an English child, who was born in Africa.”
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He says he would like to make a career in England, either as a journalist or in human resources, and, like many others we meet, is at pains to insist he will work hard.
The boat crossing is waved away as little more than an inconvenience – a trifle compared with the previous hardships of his journey towards Britain.
We meet a group of men who have all travelled from Gaza, intent on starting new lives in Britain and then bringing their families over to join them.
One man, who left Gaza two years ago, tells me that his son has since been shot in the leg “but there is no hospital for him to go to”.
Next to him, a man called Abdullah says he entered Europe through Greece and stayed there for months on end, but was told the Greek authorities would never allow him to bring over his family.
Britain, he thinks, will be more accommodating. “Gaza is being destroyed – we need help,” he says.
Abdullah says ‘Gaza is being destroyed – we need help’
A man from Eritrea tells us he is escaping a failing country and has friends in Britain – he plans to become a bicycle courier in either London or Manchester.
He can’t stay in France, he says, because he doesn’t speak French. The English language is presented as a huge draw for many of the people we talk to, just as it had been during similar conversations over the course of many years.
I ask many of these people why they don’t want to stay in France, or another safe European country.
Some repeat that they cannot speak the language and feel ostracised. Another says that he tried, and failed, to get a residency permit in both France and Belgium.
But this is also, clearly, a flawed survey. Last year, five times as many people sought asylum in France as in Britain.
And French critics have long insisted that Britain, a country without a European-style ID card system, makes itself attractive to migrants who can “disappear”.
Read more:
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Migrant Channel crossings hit new record
A young man from Iraq, with absolutely perfect English, comes for a chat. He oozes confidence and a certain amount of mischief.
It has taken him only seven days to get from Iraq to Dunkirk; when I ask how he has made the trip so quickly, he shrugs. “Money talks”.
He looks around him. “Let me tell you – all of these people you see around you will be getting to Britain and the first job they get will be in the black market, so they won’t be paying any tax.
“Back in the day in Britain, they used to welcome immigrants very well, but these days I don’t think they want to, because there’s too many of them coming by boat. Every day it’s about seven or 800 people. That’s too many people.”
“But,” I ask, “if those people are a problem – then what makes you different? Aren’t you a problem too?”
He shakes his head emphatically. “I know that I’m a very good guy. And I won’t be a problem. I’ll only stay in Britain for a few years and then I’ll leave again.”
A man from Sri Lanka says he “will feel safe” when he gets to Britain; a tall, smiling man from Ethiopia echoes the sentiment: “We are not safe in our home country so we have come all this way,” he says. “We want to work, to be part of Britain.”
Emmanuel is another from South Sudan – thoughtful and eloquent. He left his country five years ago – “at the start of COVID” – and has not seen his children in all that time. His aim is to start a new life in Britain, and then to bring his family to join him.
He is a trained electrical engineer, but says he could also work as a lorry driver. He is adamant that Britain has a responsibility to the people of its former colony.
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“The British came to my country – colonising, killing, raping,” he said. “And we didn’t complain. We let it happen.
“I am not the problem. I won’t fight anyone; I want to work. And if I break the laws – if any immigrant breaks the laws – then fine, deport them.
“I know it won’t be easy – some people won’t like me, some people will. But England is my dream.”
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