For tamariki, a bed isn’t just a piece of furniture, it’s a place to dream and grow. According to Stats NZ, 143,700 kids live in poverty across the country and many sleep in damp, cold, mouldy bedrooms – often without access to adequate bedding or a bed of their own. 

Research shows 75 children a day from Aotearoa’s poorest communities are admitted to hospital for preventable conditions like rheumatic fever, pneumonia and bronchiolitis because of where and how they sleep. 

When a child has been hospitalised for one of these illnesses, they are three times more likely to be readmitted, and may face serious health implications later in life.

This is where Variety New Zealand – the children’s charity – comes in. They’ve been working with Healthy Homes Initiative (HHI) to address the need through Variety’s Bed for Kids programme, established to provide beds and bedding to the one-in-10 children in our poorest communities who do not have a bed of their own.

HHI assesses homes and works to make them warmer, drier and healthier for children and their whānau. About 40% of the homes that HHI visits have mouldy mattresses or non-existent bedding. Through the Beds for Kids programme, Variety supports HHI by donating funds for beds and bedding for New Zealand kids they’ve identified are most in need. 

Professor Nevil Pierse works with HHI and is also the co-leader of He Kāinga Oranga – Housing and Health Research Programme. Pierse has a deep understanding of bed poverty and its wider context: child poverty. In his view, housing instability underpins both issues. 

A 2020 study conducted by Pierse and a team of researchers found that one-in-10 kids in our poorest communities don’t have a bed to sleep in. “We have very high hospitalisation rates for asthma, respiratory diseases and infections in New Zealand, and that’s because of poor housing and the cold mouldy environment kids are growing up in,” Pierse says.

Around 27,500 children each year are hospitalised because of living in inadequate housing in Aotearoa. The World Health Organisation recommends a minimum indoor temperature of 18°C, or 20°C for houses with young children, elderly or ill people. 

In their research, Pierse and his team found that 99.5% of children’s bedrooms in low-income houses don’t meet that standard, and approximately 10% of those bedrooms drop below 9°C. More than 70% of hospitalised children have inadequate bedding, 20% share a bed, 24% have no bed, 18% have no mattress and 41% have mouldy bedding.

This represents a huge health burden. “We had a kid hospitalised for asthma four times in one year, and when the house was insulated with a heat pump, he wasn’t hospitalised again,” says Pierse. The impacts are also felt across entire families.

“If you improve the house, you improve the children’s health and the adults’ too. If one person has a stronger immune system, has a good night’s sleep and their lungs function better, then it saves the whole household from the health effects of infectious diseases,” Pierse adds.

While housing instability issues loom large, Variety’s Beds for Kids programme aims to get more tamariki into beds of their own as quickly as possible. In 2023, Variety gave funding for 3,060 new beds and/or bedding packs. These donations totalled more than $392,000 in value. 

“We’re only limited by the amount of funding we have. We could give out thousands more to children in need,” says Variety chief executive, Susan Glasgow. “Poverty is increasing in our country and bed poverty is increasing exponentially,” she says.

“Having a bed is something most people take for granted. But you dream of a bed when you’re sleeping on the floor. If you’re sleeping on a pile of washing or a cold hard mattress with springs poking into your back, your ability to dream and realise your potential is limited,” says Glasgow.

“With a good night’s sleep you have the freedom to dream bigger and realise your full potential,” she adds. 

Recipients have felt the profound impact a warm, safe bed has had on their whānau. One parent noted that since getting their child off an old mattress on the floor, their asthma has improved and they haven’t missed a day of school since. A caregiver observed that their child has finally been able to get a solid night’s sleep, is happier and has less back pain by being in a decent bed.

For Variety, working with HHI to support the families most in need just makes sense. “They are the funnel through which we can get our funding to those who need it the most. We’re not reinventing the wheel. HHI are the experts, so we just align ourselves with the experts,” Glasgow says. 

The 2024 Kantar Better Futures report found that New Zealanders consistently rate “protection of children” among one of the most serious concerns facing our country. So it just made sense for Variety to work with HHI, in the same way it made sense for AA Insurance to support Variety. Since 2021, AA Insurance has partnered with Variety and supported them with charitable contributions. 

AA Insurance came onboard as the lead partner of the Beds for Kids programme to help more children and young people thrive in Aotearoa. AA believes it’s important that every New Zealand child has a bed of their own and they trust this campaign will help more New Zealand kids fulfil their potential and protect their freedom to feel like a kid. Glasgow praises the organisation for stepping up and advocating for those who don’t always have a voice. “We’re only going to get real change in our communities when people work together in tandem,” she says.

As the cold winter temperatures bear down on Aotearoa, Variety is urgently aiming to raise $500,000 to provide kids living in material hardship with beds and warm bedding to keep them safe from preventable and life-threatening illnesses. AA Insurance is backing the appeal by donating 100 beds.

Glasgow hopes more New Zealanders get behind this campaign. A warm, safe place for tamariki to sleep can have a transformative impact on their lives. “They wake up rested, prepared for the day and they can learn better at school. They are healthier, there are fewer doctor visits, there’s less stress at home,” she says.

While the systemic issues at play here sometimes feel bleak, the work Variety, HHI and AA Insurance are doing to address bed poverty gives Pierse hope that the wider issue of child poverty is fixable when organisations work together. 

“I want everyone to be in healthy, stable and affordable homes,” he says. “Variety and AA Insurance are doing the right thing here. This is what we should be doing as a country.”