IKEA and Shelter Spotlight Harsh Realities of Homelessness with Unwelcome Home

IKEA and Shelter have joined forces to create the 'Unwelcome Home' doll's house, a powerful display highlighting the stark realities faced by children living in temporary accommodation. The installation, found in IKEA stores across London, Manchester, and Birmingham, transforms the retailer’s popular FLISAT Doll’s House into a visual representation of the challenging conditions many homeless families experience in England.

The display urges people to take a closer look at the reality for many of the 151,630 children homeless in temporary accommodation, revealing mouldy walls, rats, dangerous wiring, cramped spaces and mattresses on the floor.

A dire shortage of social homes, rising evictions and sky-high private rents are forcing more families across the country into homelessness. As a result, the number of children currently in temporary accommodation has increased by 15 per cent in the last year, marking the highest number since records began in 2004.

The campaign was developed in collaboration with IKEA's retained corporate PR agency, Weber Shandwick, which handled the creative development, visual assets and earned media relations.

Hiliary Jenkins, partnerships lead at IKEA UK and Ireland said: “Everyone deserves a safe place to call home. Families homeless in temporary accommodation face insecurity, cramped conditions and sometimes serious hazards, which is unacceptable.

“Alongside Shelter, we’re shining a light on the horrifying conditions experienced by families who are stuck in homeless accommodation which is proving to be anything but temporary. Our Unwelcome Home doll’s houses are there to encourage customers to take a closer look at the issues right on their doorsteps, as we call on the Government to build a new generation of social rent homes for families, to help tackle the housing emergency.”

This ‘temporary’ solution is far from temporary for many. Temporary accommodation is provided by councils to qualifying families who are homeless while they wait for their application to be processed and to be offered a settled home, and can take the form of emergency hostels, B&Bs, one room bedsits and cramped flats. It was never intended to be used outside of emergencies, but with a chronic shortage in social housing, almost half (47 per cent) of families who are homeless in temporary accommodation have been there for more than two years – often trapped in uncertainty and intolerable conditions.

Polly Neate, CEOof Shelter, said: “Temporary accommodation truly is horrifying, with families crammed into emergency hostels and grotty B&Bs often miles away from their schools and jobs. Through our partnership with IKEA, we’re showing the grim reality facing the one in 78 children growing up homeless in this country, from being forced to share beds with their siblings, or bathrooms with strangers, to dangerous and damp conditions.

“With rents at a record high, evictions rising and so few social homes available, we desperately need government action. The only way to help families into a safe and secure home and end homelessness is to build genuinely affordable social homes - we need 90,000 a year for ten years.”

Cities that have some of the highest rates of children living in temporary accommodation include London with one in 22, Birmingham with one in 28 children and Manchester with one in 30. Find out how many children are homeless in your area.

The Unwelcome Home doll’s house was based on Shelter’s 2023 landmark report into the realities of living in temporary accommodation, which found three-quarters (75 per cent) of households live in poor conditions.

One in five (21 per cent) experienced a safety hazard, such as faulty wiring or fire risks. More than two thirds (68 per cent) of people have inadequate access to basic facilities, such as cooking or laundry facilities. More than one in three (35 per cent) parents said their children don’t even have their own bed.

IKEA and Shelter are continuing their partnership to raise awareness of the housing emergency, calling on the Government to build more genuinely affordable social homes, ensuring that by 2030, half a million people have access to a better life at home.

The Unwelcome Home doll’s house urges people to take a closer look at the scale of the problem and to sign an open letter calling on the Government to commit to building 90,000 social rent homes each year for ten years.

Shelter and IKEA’s 'Unwelcome Home' will be on display in IKEA’s London Wembley, Manchester Ashton-under-Lyne and Birmingham Wednesbury stores from 18th September.

To understand the scale of the problem where you live, visit here and sign the open letter, calling on the government to commit to building 90,000 genuinely affordable social rent homes a year for 10 years.