The impact of living in an un‐ or under‐furnished house on individuals who transitioned from homelessness

Very few empirical evaluations have been conducted on the impact of furniture on the lives of those who have transitioned from homelessness into permanent housing, especially within the United States. Our study contributes to this limited body of research by exploring the impact of furniture on the lives of 20 recently housed individuals residing in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. In partnership with the Furniture Bank of Southeast Michigan, we conducted semi‐structured interviews with recently housed individuals that lived for a period of time in an un‐ or under‐furnished house before receiving furniture support. Given the study's exploratory nature, interview questions were purposefully broad to allow themes to naturally emerge and were analyzed using a qualitative data analysis software package, NVivo (release 1.0). We present a conceptual model that outlines our findings and conclude with a discussion of the limitations of our approach, avenues for future research, and policy implications.