New Britain resident Jenneane Chambers and her boyfriend Keith Johnson, walk around cedar chairs, stacked above dining room tables inside of the largest furniture bank in Connecticut, in search for the perfect set of recliners.
“Right now we're both sleeping on little blow up mattresses, and we have one tiny, tiny TV on a little stand,” Chambers said.
After testing a couple chairs, Chambers and Johnson finally select a gold embroidered set of recliners donated to the furniture bank by a local hotel.
Chambers and Johnson recently moved into an apartment after being unhoused for several months while battling drug addiction.
Now in recovery, Chambers’ social worker referred the couple to the furniture bank in West Hartford.
“We had nothing. We were both homeless, and they got us involved here,” Chambers said.
The furniture bank is owned by Journey Home, a nonprofit which provides services for unhoused residents. Over the course of nearly 11 years, Journey Home’s furniture bank has grown to be the largest in Connecticut, according to Sara Salomon Wilson, Journey Home’s deputy director.
The furniture bank’s humble beginnings
Salomon Wilson started the bank from the garage of her West Hartford home after noticing there was more to housing than a roof.
“When people were moving into their apartments from homelessness, they were coming into an empty space, and it wasn't creating sustainability in housing, and people would quickly just want to get out because they didn't have a bed or a dresser,” Salomon Wilson said.
Salomon Wilson left her previous job as a pastor after becoming disillusioned with the church.
“I was really sad with how the church was addressing poverty in our city,” Salomon Wilson said. “I was working in two very large congregations in very poor neighborhoods, and I just felt like I wanted to do more. I didn't really want to just sit inside those fancy buildings.”
To qualify for furniture, residents must go through Connecticut's homeless response system, often by calling the state’s 211 emergency hotline. Anyone unhoused in the last year can be referred to the furniture bank by their case manager, Salomon Wilson said.
The furniture bank, now located on New Park Ave. in West Hartford, serves about 400 families annually and all of the furniture is donated. Over the years, Salomon Wilson said organizers noticed another way to improve the service.
“There were a lot of items that we just decided we can't take for our clients, and so we were encouraging our donors to just donate them to places like Goodwill and Salvation Army, which is fine, but we started to think like, maybe we could actually open up our own thrift store,” Salomon Wilson said.
A new kind of thrift store
In February, Journey Home opened a thrift store located across the street from the furniture bank.
The store, called Home for Good, is filled with high-quality antiques that were donated.
Home for Good is housed inside of a former warehouse with a sordid history, which includes a raid by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to Salomon Wilson.
“It was an illegal gambling place, like there were poker tables, and somebody, I think, lived here. It was vacant for a year before we signed the lease,” Salomon Wilson said.
About $60,000 of work went into remodeling the building and bringing it up to code, including rezoning the space from industrial to commercial, Salomon Wilson said.
Now, the store’s beige walls are a hub of altruism, with therapy dogs in training sniffing merchandise and formerly unhoused clients stopping by.
All of the proceeds from Home for Good go directly to the furniture bank’s operating costs.
Tina Heffernan, who manages the store, once worked for Williams Sonoma. Heffernan is Home for Good’s only paid employee. Register and stocking duties are fulfilled by a series of volunteers.
How the thrifting works
All of the store’s items are first filtered through the furniture bank.
“We never want to be taking from their resources, taking their inventory,” Heffernan said. “We are always in support of that program first, so only whatever they don't need makes it to me.”
The goal, according to Heffernan, is to get customers to learn that they’re thrifting for a cause.
“I want a new generation of thrifters to come in here and say, ‘Oh, I just wanted to find something cute for my apartment.’ And then I get to tell them about our mission and our story,” Heffernan said.
Heffernan’s favorite item in the store is a vintage HiFi stereo system nestled in a back corner.
The store is filled with donated items like Great Depression-era glassware and mahogany furniture worth several thousand dollars, but now have a much lower sticker price.
“I want people to linger,” Heffernan said. “If they have to do a couple laps around the store to see everything, then I've done my job right.”
The value of the store’s work is evident as formerly unhoused resident Jenneane Chambers continues to browse the furniture.
Chambers keeps a note tacked to her apartment wall. It’s a flier for Journey Home that reminds her of the goal for the week, completed with the help of the furniture bank.
“It turns a house into a home,” Chambers said.
