Bed shortage approaches desperate levels for organization helping the homeless

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Almost every single day volunteers and staff at Bridging load up trucks and furnish about twenty households for people transitioning out of homelessness.

The community relations coordinator with Bridging, Diana Dalsin, says the current bed supply is prompting her desperate public call for donations.

"Just where we are now in COVID," says Dalsin. "We are 20 months in and the supply chain has caught up to us."

Dalsin says individual donations, making up about 70% of the warehouse inventory, have slowed significantly. "Everyone purged items from their homes early in the pandemic.  That’s not happening now."

The other 30% of Bridging’s supply comes from the hospitable industry and corporate partners. Hotels that would normally be renovating, buying new mattresses and box springs, and sending used ones to Bridging,  have but that breaks on that typical turnover because of supply chain challenges.

"We are the point the retailers we work with are amazing, can’t get their hands on foam, and coils, and steel," says Dalsin "If you aren’t buying a new bed, they can’t make it, you can’t get the new shipment, which means they can’t provide us that used swap out we would normally get."

Between Bridging’s two locations in Roseville and Bloomington, they need a minimum of 175 mattresses and 175 boxsprings each week.  The current daily count shows a steady decline since September.

"The reality is we need these beds to really provide the foundation of that home," says Dalsin.

Supplies of other furniture helping make a new house a home are in better shape but Dalsin says full and queen size beds are a top priority right now.

"Now we are at that next layer of really starting to shout and say please consider, please tell other people that we need to give other people an opportunity to thrive and get a good night's sleep."