Real Life Roomsets

Kate's story

A qualified nurse and teacher, Kate became homeless when she lost her job during the pandemic. She moved into a room like this with her twenty-four-year-old daughter after someone set fire to the tent they had been living in.

“It’s like a nightmare we can’t wake up from,” says Kate.

The room was dirty, as though it had never been cleaned. The carpets were stained, curtains falling off the rails. There was no kitchen, microwave or a fridge so they had to often survive on noodles. Sometimes they’d skip meals because it made their stomachs hurt.

To make things worse, some of the other residents were aggressive. And as someone who’d experienced domestic violence in the past, Kate felt particularly vulnerable.

Kate’s story isn’t unique. Thousands of families are stuck in places like this because they have nowhere else to go. IKEA have joined forces with Shelter to highlight this issue and call on the government to build 90,000 new social homes a year. By 2030, our aim is to ensure that half-a-million people with have access to a better life at home.

Kate's story was represented in IKEA Bristol store