Here's an idea

I was in housing management for 25 years, housing officers were always asking: "Where can I get hold of basic household things like mattresses?" The only thing I could suggest was to go down to the local shops and buy them. But then you had the problem of what to do if something went wrong with the goods you bought, especially electrical items.

In this scheme, we buy furniture and white good wholesale and sell it on to social housing residents. It's easier and we can guarantee the white goods – things like fridges, washing machines and other big electrical kitchen equipment – for up to two years and all other goods for up to five years.

Our scheme is aimed at helping people with limited finances who are setting up in social housing, and it helps social landlords overcome the problems of providing enough furniture for their tenants.

People can buy any furniture they need. If they are working they pay the cost of the furniture as a part of their rent and if they are on benefits then part of that goes towards it. Social landlords try to balance the rent so that people aren't paying too much and tenants can have a choice of what they want up to the value of £2000.

Often we get single people in desperate need of furniture or we get families, who, thanks to this scheme, can at least put the basics such as tables and chairs into their home.

It gives people who don't have much the opportunity to get some really nice furnishings.

Our organisation has been running for five years. The scheme has been enormously successful. This year we have had a turnover of £800,000. Although our scheme covers the South-west region specifically, we also work in partnership with another furniture centre in the North.

Being part of a group means we have collective buying power to meet the needs of our customers.

This makes it cost effective for us – on our own it would be difficult to buy goods such as cookers, fridges and freezers economically.