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Mr Motivator is lobbying the government to tackle the number of children in the UK who have no bed of their own as Barnardo’s reveals demand for furniture from struggling families has surged by 40% in the last year.
The children’s charity said beds had become“like a luxury item” as the war in Iran threatens to exacerbate cost of living pressures.
Meanwhile, TV and online fitness coach Mr Motivator, real name Derrick Evans, who lives in Greater Manchester, is urging government to treat “bed poverty” as a national crisis and include it in child poverty planning.
The former GMTV star said: “I have always hated the fact that it’s merged into poverty in general, which means it gets lost.
“Beds can end up at the bottom of the list for families in a desperate position, and the consequences are enormous. Not having a proper bed or getting a good night’s sleep affects children’s health, their mood, their learning ability, behaviour and emotional stability.”
In the first quarter of 2025, 187 households accessed Barnardo’s’ services for “essential furniture”. But from January to 16 March this year, 261 households came to the charity for beds, cots, tables and chairs, sofas, food and window coverings – a rise of nearly 40%.
In 2023, polling commissioned by Barnardo’s and YouGov found 226,000 families in the UK had children sharing a bed with an adult or sibling, because of financial pressures.
Ruth Welford, Barnardo’s head of special projects, said: “Families are still really struggling to meet basic needs – and I can’t imagine current events are going to make it any easier.
“Beds, a fundamental right for every child, have become almost like a luxury item.”
Welford said problems included children sleeping on pallets on the floor, older children in toddler-sized beds, and beds becoming mouldy in houses with no floor coverings.
“There are children who aren’t dry at night sharing beds with children who are, and families don’t have the money to put the water on to wash clothes before they go to school.
“There are issues with temporary accommodation, issues with overcrowding – and life having become so expensive that working families are simply trying to feed children and struggling to do that.”
Leon Evans, head of Year 7 at Canons High School in Edgware, north London, is among teachers seeing the impact of cost of living and housing pressures, which have lingered since the Covid pandemic.
He said: “On a yearly basis we have families who get kicked out of their homes and then councils have to relocate them far away from school. And often these kids will then have to share a room, won’t have a bed to themselves and get up very early, because they’ve had to move 30 miles outside London, but still value education and come to the same school. And so we have students that come to school tired.
“Sleep allows students to learn. Not having a bed, not having a secure place to sleep impacts that. Across five years, that problem is going to be multiplied – and so the equity that education provides, the opportunities that students would have, can be lost or degraded.”
Evans has started a charity, Mr Motivator’s Bed Bank, to address bed poverty and launched a petition to call on the government to formally recognise the issue.
Meanwhile Barnardo’s has been working with beds and bedding brand Simba to distribute bed bundles – including mattresses, duvets and pillows – to children and families in need.
The Department for Work and Pensions said the removal of the two-child limit for universal credit claimants, which restricted support for third and subsequent children, would put 450,000 children “on a pathway out of poverty” and was “the single most cost-effective measure” to drive down poverty rates. The removal of the limit passed into law this month and will take effect from 6 April.
The government is also expanding free school meals to every family on universal credit from the start of the 2026 school year, is promising that 500,000 more children will benefit from free breakfast clubs from September, and has said 1,000 Best Start family hubs will be created across every local authority in England by 2028, offering free classes, events and activities and advice on finance and housing.
