Provide beds for 300 kids sleeping on the floor

This year marks Community Warehouse's 25th year providing donated furniture and household items to neighbors seeking the comfort, stability, and dignity of a furnished home! That's 25 years connecting the dining room tables, dressers, and beds already circulating in our communities to youth aging out of foster care, survivors of domestic violence, people exiting incarceration, immigrants, refugees, and families transitioning from homelessness. Since our founding in 2001, we've redistributed more than 91,000 household items, furnishing homes for more than 125,000 people in the Portland metro area.

Securing housing is a major milestone for the families who visit our furniture banks, but it is not the final step in their journey to stability and self-sufficiency. Community Warehouse bridges that gap, making furniture and household items accessible to those who need them most. People like Diane, who picked out what she needed to furnish her apartment after spending five months with only a twin mattress and a chair, or Ashley, who visited our furniture bank this fall with her family. “Thank you so much for the lovely furniture!” Ashley said. “It helped make my new apartment into a home for me and my baby girl.”

Thank you so much for supporting this collective effort of community care. We are so grateful to community members like you who keep showing up for our shared belief that everyone deserves the comfort and dignity of a furnished home.

When Saleam’s mom passed, he wasn’t sure how he’d start out on his own without her support.

“Coming from where I came from,” he told us, “community wasn’t always there. So, I didn't really appreciate the value of it until I came across people at Community Warehouse and the other agencies that helped me. I realized community is everything.” 

A recent study showed 32% of people across the United States are unable to access, afford, or  maintain one or more essential household furniture goods–think beds, dining room tables, and lamps. Living in a dark home without a place to sleep can lead our neighbors overcoming adversity back into shelter systems or harmful living situations where they have a pillow, lighting, and the pots and pans they need, at the cost of building self-sufficiency. At Community Warehouse, we are able to provide donated furniture and household items to community members seeking the comfort, stability and dignity of a furnished home.

“Community Warehouse played a major part in me continuing to walk on the right path,” Saleam told us, sitting on a couch he picked out in our North Portland furniture bank. 

Thank you for partnering in our work to provide security, self-sufficiency and stability to over 70 households per week, helping people like Saleam find comfort and security. I’m glad that we are working together to connect household essentials to the people who need them most.

Links:

• Furnish Together: The National Furniture Bank Coalition
• Check out Saleam's art here!