Vita Group donate 300 mattresses to help homeless

Posted by on 24 Jun 2021

Rochdale-based The Vita Group is donating 300 mattresses to Shelter Greater Manchester to help tackle the region’s housing emergency. Vita, which is headquartered in Middleton, is the UK’s leading provider of polyurethane foam and employs 2,700 people across Europe.

The first 100 mattresses are being distributed to temporary accommodation providers across Greater Manchester, bolstering the city’s ability to house its hundreds of rough sleepers and families affected by the housing crisis.

Shelter is working with Manchester City Council’s temporary accommodation provider, ICCG Services, to allocate the mattresses to temporary and emergency housing, so that people staying there have a clean, suitable bed to sleep on when they are most in need.

The Vita Group has committed to donating a further 200 mattresses by the end of the year, bringing the total donation for 2021 to 300 mattresses, with a value of over £50,000.

Ian Robb, Group CEO at The Vita Group, said: “Shelter’s work is instrumental in helping tackle the homelessness crisis in Manchester and we are incredibly proud of our team who have worked hard to manufacturer the mattresses, which can now be distributed to places most in need of them. 

“At The Vita Group, we have always been committed to supporting local communities, and believe it is more essential than ever that businesses are looking for ways to help charities and organisations. We look forward to continuing our work with Shelter and providing more mattresses in the future.” The mattresses have been designed and manufactured to meet the stringent CRIB 5 fire regulations required in hostel premises. 

In 2017, a report by Shelter revealed that 1 in every 154 people in Manchester was homeless, a statistic that looks to snowball after the pandemic. The mattress donations will help to ensure the temporary accommodation offering within the region has clean and suitable beds. 

Currently, 520 beds are available to rough sleepers, and more than £660,000 has been pledged, as part of the city’s A Bed Every Night scheme launched by Greater Manchester Major Andy Burnham, to support young people identified as being at high risk of homelessness.

The Vita Group’s donation is the latest in several efforts from the company to support the local community. As suppliers of polyurethane foam, Vita partnered with healthcare companies at the height of the pandemic last year to supply foam for more than 25,000 additional mattresses used in the NHS Nightingale Hospitals.

John Ryan, Shelter’s HUB manager for Greater Manchester, added: “We are extremely grateful for The Vita Group’s support. We have so many people needing these beds at the moment and one of the biggest costs is trying to refresh mattresses. Vita’s donations allow temporary accommodation providers, who are already struggling for funds as a result of the pandemic, to provide more, clean beds to those who need them.

“It is more important now than ever that we are all coming together to support those who need it most, and donations such as this from local businesses can really help in our aim to provide safe spaces for rough sleepers.”