The Adelaide Day Centre for Homeless Persons usually delivers between one to three second-hand beds and mattresses each week to people who are moving from homelessness into public or community housing, as well as new migrants, ex-prisoners and those on low incomes who have a home but cannot afford to purchase a bed.

Its Queen Street warehouse in the city is normally full of donated beds and mattresses ready to find new homes, but stocks have gradually depleted over the past 12 months, leaving just a handful of mattresses lining the walls.

“We’re not really meeting the demand that people have,” charity worker Joel Wood told InDaily.

“Pretty consistently we’d be giving out at least a mattress a week, if not one to three, depending on how many people are going into houses.

“We rely on donations, so if we don’t get them, we can only really offer what we’ve got.”

The reason behind the recent shortage of second-hand beds and mattresses is a mystery to the charity, which relies on word of mouth to get donations through the door.

Health guidelines stipulate that it can only accept mattresses which are intact and unstained.

“Where a wardrobe or another piece of furniture is scuffed, we can sand it and repaint it, but we can’t do that with mattresses,” Wood said.

“I think the pinch of the last few years has meant that people aren’t replacing their beds or mattresses, they’re just sort of making do.

“Otherwise, mattresses are just big items that people often will just throw out and see as disposable.”

As the number of people seeking support from the charity increases, it has purchased foam camping mattresses as a stop-gap measure while it waits for more donations to arrive.

The warehouse at the Adelaide Day Centre. Photo: Stephanie Richards/InDaily

Wood said some people who seek support from the charity are in “desperate” situations and sleep on the floor for weeks before they receive a proper bed.

“A lot of the time we’re helping people who have nothing – they don’t have a bed, they don’t have a kitchen table, they don’t have anything to sit on. Often, they don’t even have a spoon or a bowl,” he said.

“There are people having to sleep on the same mattress with their kids, or sharing a single mattress with their partners.

“We have had to use funding to go out and buy cheap foam mattresses – just something to give people to stop the gap a little bit.”

The Adelaide Day Centre has a delivery truck that can pick up donated furniture, including beds and mattresses, within a 10-kilometre radius of the CBD.

Those who wish to donate are urged to call the centre on (08) 8232 0048 to organise a time for their mattress or bed to be picked up.

“Aside from being the difference between sleeping on the floor and sleeping on something soft and warm, receiving a bed is a big morale thing,” Wood said.

“We’ve talked to people who have gotten houses and they’ve been living in there for sometimes weeks without something to sleep on.

“Sometimes it is quite demoralising, so receiving a bed does seem to make a big difference in people’s lives even as an encouragement and a reminder that things can change and move in the right direction.”

The Adelaide Day Centre also provides other household furniture, food, sleeping bags and blankets to those in need.

It follows warnings that skyrocketing housing and rental prices are forcing more South Australians into homelessness.

Latest data from the Adelaide Zero Project shows on January 31, 189 people were classed as “actively homeless” – meaning they were sleeping rough, temporarily sheltered or had an unknown address.

Of those, 20 were identified as sleeping rough for the first time.