Intro #
Beginning November 2022, New Life cannot guarantees a bed due to inflation and growing demand.
In addition to donated beds, New Life purchases 13 full bed sets (or different sizes for an equivalent price) per month. If additional funding becomes available, more beds will be purchased. Agencies also have the option to provide funding for New Life to purchase beds for their clients (i.e. reserved beds).
New Life is developing partnerships with public and private entities to acquire more donated beds. The ultimate goal is to provide beds to as many households as possible.
Policy Summary #
A client can only receive the bed(s) indicated on their referral, unless the Client Administrator approves additional in extenuating circumstances. If no beds were requested on the referral, the client cannot receive beds. The following applies to referrals that request a bed.
- Beds are shown in two different categories under Beds in the store.
- Reserved Beds are for clients whose agency contributed toward bed funding.
- Twin & Full – Platform & Mattress
- Queen – Frame, Mattress, Box Spring (subject to change)
- These are pre-added to orders.
- General Beds are for clients whose agency did not contribute toward bed funding.
- Offer donated first. Purchased can only be distributed once donated are gone.
- They can take a platform from Reserved only if they are on an upper floor and fitting a box spring is a major concern. This should only be done when absolutely necessary.
- Limited to 3 beds per household, only one of which can be a full/queen.
General Beds #
Clients referred by agencies that did not provide funding.
Limits #
- Households are limited to 3 beds and cannot receive more beds than there are household members, with couples accounting for 1 full/queen bed.
- Housholds can only receive 1 full/queen set for the head of household. Adult children and other adult members of the household are limited to twin and twin XL beds.
Donation First Policy #
- Offer donated first. Purchased can only be distributed once donated are gone. This may lead to a combination of donated and purchased.
- Clients that can fit a queen are encouraged to take a queen if there are any in stock regardless of if they’re purchased or donated. Queen mattresses are only purchased when there is an excess of donated queen box springs. It is more cost effective for New Life to purchase queen mattresses to complete an existing set than it is to buy an entire full size set. New Life never purchases queen box springs, as we accumulate more box springs than mattresses. Mattresses are more likely to be stained and, therefore, turned away more often.
- Donated frames are harder to store in large quantities safely, while purchased beds can be stored longer since they’re packaged.
- In circumstances in which a box spring won’t fit, the Client Administrator can choose to provide a platform.
Reserved Beds #
Clients referred by agencies that did provide funding.
- Clients are offered purchased mattresses and a platform from Reserved Beds.
- These beds are pre-added to orders. There quantity is determined by the amount of funding from the agency.
Order Gathering #
Reserved purchased beds and general purchased beds are labeled the same. Order gatherers will pull from the same beds.
Is NLF looking into fabricating platform or slat beds that can be assembled on site? This might be particularly helpful for kids’ beds that will not bear too much weight.
Could you see if UHaul might donate some of their mattress bags to help keep donated mattresses clean?
Great ideas! We’ve had some platforms donated from retailers, but we had a lot of challenges with missing parts. It still could be a viable option though. A donation of mattress bags would be very helpful. We hope to include bags in our 2023 budget.