Remembering Damien Haussling from 2021

This is the plural of you, the podcast about people helping people. I'm Josh Morgan. So just quickly to introduce this bonus episode of sorts here. It's actually a rebroadcast of an old episode from a podcast I did called the best Kind. It was a video podcast that was local to Baltimore and featured helpers from around the Baltimore area. Didn't last very long, but I did feature one person on the podcast. First episode. His name was Damian Housing, and Damian was a co founder of an organization here in Baltimore called the Baltimore Furniture bank, which is still active today. I talked with Damian in late 2021, had a really good conversation with him, and I'll replay that for you here. The reason I'm replaying that episode is because I just found out that Damian passed away. He passed away on July 15, 2024. But he was someone that was just a real deal human being. I really admired him. He's one of my local heroes. Even after we recorded the episode, he would occasionally text me or call me to check on me and see how I was doing. So I don't know. I didn't know him very well. He was definitely an acquaintance. But I'm still sad about his passing, and I just wanted to honor his memory and replay the episode. So the format of the best kind was a little different in some ways, instead of a half an hour episode like the plural of you, it was more like an hour long episode. So be prepared for that. If you want to skip to the interview, skip the introduction of Damien and the Baltimore furniture bank. You can skip to about seven minutes or so ahead. But let's honor the memory of Damian housing of the Baltimore furniture bank. Damian's somebody whose story, I think, shows just how overwhelming the burdens of life can be for people who don't have a stable network of support. And, I mean, we all have burdens that overwhelm us. But for some, it can be more challenging than others. I've never been homeless. I've come close, you know, a few times financially when I was, you know, between jobs. But my impression of people who kind of fall into homelessness is it happens when people, you know, flat out run out of resources or people they can count on in their networks to support them. And some people might argue, well, you know, if you just make better choices in life that you don't have to worry about that, you know, just. Just make better choices, you'll be fine. And I think that's a little callous to say because, like Damien's story, you'll hear in a moment, he just had a series of events that, you know, it was like one after the other just stacked against him, and it was too much for him to bear as one person. So, you know, he suffered from a lot of harmful events that took him years to recover from. And what I admire about Damien and his story is that he really, he's an example of someone that can persevere through hard times and make something good out of it. Like, he came to Baltimore. He was kind of on an upswing, but not quite stable yet. He found a group of supported people, like a community to tap into in the city and really helped him get going again. And because he's doing better and he's on his feet, he's in a position now where he wants to pull other people up to his level with him and kind of in that spirit, like, he got together with some friends a few years ago, and they founded what's now known as the Baltimore Furniture bank. This is a nonprofit organization that distributes furniture to low income households in the city and to families who are escaping homelessness or in the process of, you know, finding housing when they haven't had housing for a while. I did say in the city, but they also distribute kind of in a radius. So there are some outlying areas, like in Baltimore county that they serve, and he'll talk about that. But, you know, this is something that sounds like a simple mission, you know, just distributing people or distributing furniture to people that need it, but it's a lot more complicated than that of, and it can be an expensive project to undertake. So they are really depending on the support of philanthropies and other funders in the city for grants and donations and such, but they are getting that support, and they're building a community of people around this furniture bank. And it really seems like they're growing pretty rapidly, not only because there's a need in the city for what they're providing, but also because they have a solid leadership team that making a lot of. A lot of compassionate choices. And I discovered them a few months ago because, as I mentioned, they have a lot of donations coming in. And one organization donated a new delivery van for them to deliver furniture with. They've also received funding to construct what they call a renewal room at their warehouse, which is in Woodbury, I believe. So this renewal room. And I didn't realize this until Damian told me, but when you get free furniture, sometimes, particularly things like couches and furniture and stuff that has upholstery, it can come with bedbugs and other pests. So they put the furniture in this renewal room for a while and basically cook. Like they heat the furniture to a point where it kills all the pests. So that way they can, they can deliver it to their clients and not spread those around, which is. I don't know. That's cool. I've never heard of such a thing, but I'm glad they're doing it. And they've also got some attention. They're getting more attention lately because WBAL published a story about them recently. The Baltimore sun published an article about them. So I have a feeling we're going to be hearing a lot more about Damien and the Baltimore furniture bank in the near future. So that's why I'm super grateful that he made time to talk with me. He's actually a really busy guy. He carved out some time in between some meetings. One day he was actually on a lunch break. So, like I said, super grateful. But now I'll let you hear what he's up to and how you can support their work at the furniture bank. Here's Damian housling. It sounds like during the course of your life, and especially, I guess, the last few years or so because we talked a little bit about your background before we got on this call and then also just reading about your bio, like on the furniture bank's website and that sort of thing. It sounds like you've had a lot of opportunities like this. How did you reach a point where you're doing the work you're doing now?

Well, I'll start with saying that when I went to college to get a degree and become some kind of professional, like most of us do, I entered a giving type profession right after college. So it's something that I've all, I mean, I did, of course, through parental encouragement. I did a good amount of volunteer work when I was a youth, before I was an adult. So I am a giving kind of person. Right. So I was a teacher first out of college.

And you're a high school teacher.

Right, right. I loved it. There's nothing like seeing somebody's reaction when some kind of topic that they didn't quite grasp prior suddenly happened. Suddenly they get it, right.

The light bulb.

The light bulb. Right, the light bulb. And it's like, I love that. I mean, you can't pay me for that. There's nothing you can pay for that. And I guess that was more often happened when I did on the side tutoring, of course, because that's when you don't necessarily get that as much in a classroom setting because you're teaching to 20 or so kids or more whatever, but, yeah, so it's always been in my DNA to do something that's a giving kind of thing. Right.

Do you think that came from how you were raised or is that just something you learned, like, in the course of going through school? Like, I'm curious, like who, like, what kind of influences brought you to that kind of mindset?

Well, I certainly would take it. Would it certainly happen have to be a little bit, especially due to my upbringing as well. So I, well, it's not because I was adopted, but I was adopted in all of my siblings. All seven of us are adopted. I'm not related by blood to any of my brothers, and we had a really pretty good upbringing. So, I mean, I have friends who were adopted who had awful. So I definitely know that I have a charmed background in that case. And then, like I said a moment ago, I did some volunteer work. Of course, I don't think I would have volunteered to do the volunteer work, but it was at parental encouragement. And I'll just bring one example. So one of my brothers is mostly deaf. I say mostly because he can hear a little bit, and he will not sign with hearing people. He prefers to read lips and speak. So for somebody with a sibling, for somebody with a sibling who is deaf, I'm really not that great at sign language. I'm certainly better than almost anybody else because this is something that we as a family decided to try to learn. But he didn't really, he only signs with other deaf people generally, so and so. But anyway, so partially because of that, maybe that was a little bit issue, but. So during my summer, starting in 8th grade, I volunteered at, in a summer camp for kids with mental and physical disabilities. When I graduated high school, I was paid. It's a paid position that you can do during the summer. And of course, high school graduation, I think, is the bare minimum. So I volunteered three or four summers before actually doing it as a, as a paid job for like two or three summers in college. Right. And, but I have fun with that because it's always, you know, it's a summer camp for you, too, in a way. Sure.

But that's where you kind of caught the bug, I guess, to, like, you learn, I guess, through that type of position that you, you enjoyed helping others.

Right. I mean. Right. I mean. I mean, again, I think, and I think it's probably the case with most other people who have that kind of background or whatever. I'm not sure. Background is a great word, but it's also fun. I mean, it's fun to. When someone else smiles, you want to smile. So, I mean, really? I mean, so there's a little bit of self gratification in that, I guess, but, yeah. So I ended up teaching as. I mean, that was an accident because I don't think I necessarily went to college to become that, but still.

And did you have a goal in mind when you started college? Like, was there a major you were interested in, or how did. How did that play out?

Well.

I know a lot of us, like, when we go into college, we don't necessarily know what we're doing. It's just like, I guess we're supposed to go to college.

We think we know, right? Yeah, I. Yeah. Well, first of all, part of this might have to do with the fact that you don't know what the possibilities are out there, right. But I sort of accidentally got an 800 on my SAT math score, and so I said, okay, I need a major. Math.

Oh, boy.

I mean. I mean, not knowing that there's other possibility out there. And while I did, I actually didn't actually finish the math major. I went to a university. Well, it was college at the time. I went to Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Mary Washington College no longer exists. The school is now the University of Mary Washington. I double majored in psychology and math, and I ran into a situation where a class required for the math major was offered once and only once, and also a class required for the psychology major was once and only once, and they were at the same time. And the psych class was more interesting.

That's always a pain to deal with, so.

Right, right.

So you eventually graduated from college, and then you transitioned into your career as a high school teacher. Is that how that played out?

Right. I started. So I also started a PhD program in statistics. And the.

At the same time, were you teaching and in the program, or did one happen after the other?

Yes, but. So, at the same time, however, statistics, it's different than math. It's math based, of course, but it's not the same. And I took all the statistics I could theoretically at my. In undergraduate, but there was plenty of work and actually some of it math related that I didn't have that I would. That I needed to do before I could actually be there. So my first semester was actually a couple undergraduate math classes. But, you know, after a year and a half in the PhD program, where I took a couple little bit of undergraduate stuff and then started grad work, although I don't have a master's degree. I essentially had a master's degree, essentially. Right. And they were looking for people to teach calculus and they wanted someone who had that kind of background. The first year I taught for two years. The first year I taught the two calculus classes and one other, I think was algebra two or something like that. And so I was actually a part time teacher the first year. The second year I was still part time but closer to full time. I taught the two calculus classes and a couple other classes. And so, yeah, I did pretty well. I liked it now. So when, so this is around close to the end of the second year is when my wife passed. So my wife and her mother were killed by a drunk driver and I'm.

Sorry to hear that.

Right. So I, but even before that happened, I actually was seriously thinking about not going back to teach the next fall because I was not credentialed to teach and so I was kind of an emergency teacher and I could do that for two years. And then after that I either have to be credentialed or I have to be actively getting those credentials. Well, the work at my grad work was going to get more involved and then like, actually, I think if I had taught the third year, I don't think the fourth year would not have made any sense because that's would have been in research and it just wouldn't happen. So a third year might have been possible if this didn't happen. But I was crazy. I was just not going too well. So I did not return for a third year. But one of the things is, had I finished, I did not finish my PhD. Had I finished my PhD, I had this vision that I might, I mean, I could have done something else, but that if I ever, if I taught well, first of all, I would have a hard time finding a k through twelve system to, they don't have, they don't have PhDs there. The only PhDs they have are people who got their PhD while in that career and many of them are principals and things like that. They just, they don't want to pay people what they're worth after that. So I recognized that. But I, but I enjoyed the act, the teaching in general. So I actually really felt like if I returned to teaching, it would be at like a community college kind of thing. I did not want to go teach at a, like a big college where I wouldn't be teaching. I'd be doing research and have to write all this stuff. It's like, no so that was one of the, that was what was in my mind. Had I actually finished down that line? Yeah. So I was also pretty young then, of course. So I was 30, almost 20 something, and was still young enough not to understand how much you actually have to have saved to actually live and survive on savings and not have an income. Seems strange, but it's probably the case because the intent was to take a year off. I wasn't going to be working well, working in any job paying capacity, I guess. Right. Because I began working six or eight months later when I started to do reading and preparing myself to go back to school. But that's not something you pay for it. But around that same time is when I noticed the savings was going to like. And so I ended up having to get a part time service job so I could keep my head above more for a while. And it was during that time that a misunderstanding at my undergraduate alma mater led to an arrest for something that I didn't do. And by the time the charges were dust, damage was done. I had less resources, so I couldn't pay rent, I couldn't pay this, I couldn't pay that, so I ended up homeless. When people ask if someone asked me how I became homeless, I might describe it and then say that maybe what happened to cause me to become homeless wasn't really my fault or just was an accident of issues. I certainly didn't handle it very well afterwards.

So you were still in Fredericksburg at this point, right.

I was living in Frederick Brigitte's time and almost immediately skipping out some details, but almost immediately I moved closer into DC. The idea was because at the time there really wasn't any, I no longer had a vehicle and there really wasn't any public transportation options in the Fredericksburg area. There is now, but it's not that great. And so the only kind of work that I could have gotten for temporary work was mostly service related jobs. Nothing against that, but it was kind of harder to get some of those jobs because they're looking at someone who they're pretty sure is not going to stick around. And so I figured, well, I'll get moving closer to DC. There's more resources to help somebody who is houseless and better job options. And that's when I learned that there might be more resources to help people without homes, but there isn't that many resources to help people without homes.

Exactly.

And so things went downhill from there, basically.

How long did that period last for you? Like, how long were you struggling with that experience of homelessness.

Yeah, mostly for the most often on, it was. Well, it was off and on, but it was mostly continuous. Right. So a decade, more than a decade. So I turned to, like, shoplifting to, like, survive, quote unquote, and got caught a bit. And so I would, you know, end up in jail for short period times. The last time, the actual offense was in sometime in 2009, but because of what was going on, I didn't actually face the charges until the spring of 2011, I had attempted to steal around $150 worth of books and cds. I was mostly. I stole other things, but I was mostly stealing books and cds. And ebay was my friend.

Oh, to resell them.

To resell. Right, right. I would resell them to purchase my metro tickets for the metro in the subway system and occasionally buy food. Not, why don't I just sneak on the metro? Why don't I just steal the.

Because at heart, you were so you wanted to be a law abiding citizen.

I guess at heart it felt like I was law abiding. But the other thing, too, is that I had started legally, quote unquote, selling my stuff on eBay prior to my homeless experience. So I think it was like, an easy. That's where it was. But, you know, when I sit, I always bring that up when I sit back and think about what did I do with the money that I actually got from those sales? And it was generally, I bought my metro tickets, I bought food, and made the essentials. The last criminal case was in Montgomery County, Maryland. And although. And although it was a misdemeanor, the value of the merchandise wasn't thousands of dollars. I think Maryland has to be over $1,000 for it to become a felony. And we're talking $100 worth of stuff as that I was a repeat offender, and so they used a kind of law to give me more time. And so that's how I ended up in prison rather than just jail. The actual sentence was five years with three suspended. So I got a two year sentence, and I was paroled. And parole is, of course, early release. I was paroled after, I think I served 13 months or something like that.

I'm kind of picturing myself, like, if I were going through the experience that you described going through for, I mean, more or less a decade, like, being in a situation where you're experiencing homelessness or unhoused, you know, in and out of the criminal justice system, I if that were happening to me, I would. I would have, like, some serious self confidence issues, like, why is this happening? To me, like, constantly questioning, like, why. Why am I on this planet? Like, am I being punished for something? Like, did you go through any of that?

So I guess there was a little bit of that. That's a good question. That's a good thought. Because I. Yeah, I'm not sure how to. How to actually say this, but, yeah, I had some thoughts and some doubts and wondering what's going on, and just. I mean, I think I got almost started to say this a little bit earlier, and I don't think I went down. This wasn't comfortable. But I do remember that there were good long periods of time that I was just like, okay, this is how it's going to be. Kind of. I accepted it. Right. Kind of thing. And so there was a bit of that, too. Right. But, yeah, I mean, I think I eventually, you know, some. There was some time that I woke up and said, you know, I can't continue to do this, or something like that, and basically try to work on stopping things, stopping my negative stuff, and try to see, let me get. Get back into the swing of things. And it also felt like. And I know this is really technically true in a way, but it also felt like I was, like, at a disadvantage because a lot of the easy support that you could find out, there were stuff that didn't really fit in my case, because I already had a college degree. I mean, I did not live in poverty during my lifetime. I mean, one of the things that. And I guess we can get this will get towards help, get towards the furniture bank is time talking was one of the things that helped me that. I'm pretty sure that there's very, very few other people who have this experience that I have who would have this kind of support. And it's only because I have a family who's a little bit better off. I mean, look, I'm a little bit old. I'm one of the older brothers. So when I was going through this, of course, my younger siblings are either not in the know or they're in college or they're still in high school, but they're not gonna help me, and they're not gonna be able to help me.

Yeah, they weren't in positions where they could probably help you, I guess, at that point.

Absolutely right, exactly. And so there was this eureka moment for my dad, who did know and helped in some ways that he could, and just tried to let me do it, fix it myself, too. But there was this eureka moment from my dad one time, and it was sort of a surprise for me at one time, too, this is still when I was in the DC area, not quite. Not in Baltimore yet. When I had secured a job at a local taco bell while I was homeless. Right? Yep. And I showed up for work, worked, was generally a decent worker. I had a colleague there at work, a young lady who was habitually late. You could expect her to be late when she was on the job. She was generally a decent worker. So I guess it wasn't. They just dealt with it. Right. But she was always late. And then unbeknownst to me, the owner of that restaurant learned that I was experiencing homelessness at the time. And he had had a negative experience employing somebody who was homeless in his past. And what he apparently told the management there is, as soon as Damian does something that's worth firing, fire him, because he didn't want someone, he didn't want to have that. And of course, I didn't know this. And sometime later, I don't know, I was only working there four or five months, so this is not a very long time. And so one particular day, I was about a half hour late because. And didn't call. I mean, just showing up late is not worth usually no late in no call. Right. Well, I didn't have a cell phone at the time. Most. I mean, nowadays, generally, folks experiencing homelessness, they generally actually have phones. And this is, and this is also at the time that the subway system in DC, only one particular phone carrier had, could work underground. So even if I had a phone, I might not have been able to use it.

I see.

And so I was, I took, I was. There was a delay in the metro system. And if I thought that it made a difference, I would have tried to find someone on the train who had, I think it was Verizon, who had a Verizon phone so that I can call in to say, hey, I might be a little bit late. And what happened is, when we eventually got to the metro stop that I need to go to, there was a bus that I need to take for to finish the trip to that. And of course, that's. I missed the bus that I needed because the next bus would get me there a little bit late. And that's what ended up happening. And so they dismissed me for not, for being late and not showing up and not calling. I was like, I mean, my first reaction was, well, this is. That's a good. Okay. But I thought, I mean, are you kidding? I don't remember her name. Jane. Whatever her name is, Jane shows up late all the time. And I said, all right, fine. All right. That's it. And so a couple weeks later, when I returned to get my last paycheck, because it was generally, you know, not acrimonious in other ways. Right. I mean, my interaction is with the management, the day to day management who actually was not happy to see me go. They were, they really wanted them there. And when I went to get my last paycheck, she pulls me aside and explains to me what actually happened. And I just sat there going, what? And when I told my dad that.

He was dumb, you've gone through these experiences, and I guess you had moments where it was certainly challenging, but at some point, I guess there was a turn. What was it that helped turn things around?

I mean, I mean, it's more than just this, but the biggest turn happened when I came to Baltimore. So when I came to Baltimore, I got, I was paroled to a, basically a program. It didn't last, but we'll go into that because it's not really that important. But after that didn't last, I was returned to homelessness. But because I was, you know, out and my parents were now interested in trying to keep me to succeed, that offer came up again. So let's see about seeing if we can find you a place and we'll take care of the rent for a little bit while you try to get a job and start over. And that's really generally what happened now. And that actually didn't last because I ended up having to have certain. It was, I think the agreement, the agreement was two to three months of rent, and then I'd be on my own. Right. But, like, almost right after getting that, getting this health housing, I had to have some surgery, another story for another time, which helped me down a little bit longer. So then the jobs search wasn't working too well, and so I ended up going ahead and just going back onto, back into homelessness, but with an eye, it's probably going to be really short. And it ended up being really short because I got into another housing program through. So one of the things that happened when I was in jail, when I knew I would be coming to Baltimore, I was generally unfamiliar with Baltimore. I've been here before, but hadn't lived here. But I was told about a program that helps folks in poverty here called beans and bread.

I've heard of that.

It's a program under St. Vincent de Paul. Vincent de Paul is a nonprofit that has lots of different programs, and one of their programs is beans and bread and I was. So I ended up going there. And among the things that. One of the things that happened when I was there is I met a. There was a counselor there, not a council. I can't remember what her position is. But who helped me get into a housing program that I was housed with for a couple years, ended up leaving that because they blamed me for bedbugs. How can you blame a person for bedbugs? But that's another story. And then at that time. So all this time was. So now we're talking about a two or three year period. And through most of that time, I'd done lots of different kinds of volunteer work or small little jobs for pay and all that stuff. And a lot of the volunteer work I did was in. Was anti poverty related. Was also. I went down to Annapolis to speak for and against bills and stuff that fight poverty and other things related. I even changed a senator's mind on a bill.

Wow. Well, that's intriguing, because when we were talking about your experience, like, for that decade or so, um, when you were experiencing homelessness and that sort of thing, I don't know if you were active, like, in those sorts of volunteer efforts, but it may be most of time now. But now it's like when you move to Baltimore, it sounds like something motivated you to get back into that kind of work.

Yeah, but. Well, in this case, it wasn't back into that kind of work. It was to join that kind of. Right. So, um.

Well, I guess I'm just saying, I'm thinking back to your summer camp days, like, you know.

Well, but this is. Well, I mean, it's.

I mean, I understand it's different, and it's, like, completely in the future, and it's different.

Yeah. And. Right, but I mean.

But still, in that spirit of wanting to get back to help people.

Right. Well, including myself. Right. Yeah, sure. So among that work was also working with a non profit called a word on the street, which is a street paper here in the state, in the city. It folded because of financial issues. But at that place, I met the guy who you see walking by occasionally, my roommate. That's Tony, my warehouse manager. Right. And another colleague, John, and the three of us. There was a conversation back somewhere in, like, the 2013 or 14 about how, I mean, how awful it was that people couldn't find furniture when they're starting to get back into housing. And wouldn't it be so nice, wouldn't be so great if there was some kind of furniture bank or something like that in here. We didn't really move on that at the time, of course.

Was there any inspiration for that idea? Like, I know there's one in Hunt. Isn't there one in Hunt Valley? Like a similar program?

So there is.

I don't know if, I don't know if it was around at that time or if you'd heard of it or any of that.

So I don't think we had heard of it in time. Right. And so, yeah, there is something up. It's a faith based. It's up in Hunt Valley. There's also one, there's also one in Harford county, but the one in Harford county only does Hartford county. Right. And there's a smaller, there's an even smaller something in Anne Arundel as well. But when we talk about, when I talk about furniture banks, I'm thinking large scale organization. There's really only other one other one in Maryland that's a wider circle in Silver Springs. And.

Okay.

And so, of course, it's seen as the DC one. Right. And so.

But there wasn't one in Baltimore when you had this idea.

There wasn't one in Baltimore when we thought about this. Right. Or a major one, because there's also. So St. Principal, the church. So the church that's in the city, that's right next to the shot tower, they have a small committee in that church congregation that has a, like a resource exchange is what they call it. But they. So it's a small. And they only. But they only work with clients from healthcare for the homeless. So only certain people can get help from them. So there are, and there's probably some, there's probably another one out there that we don't know about that's close by. That's really small. Right.

But what's. I think you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think what's different about your model is it's more based on referrals, and it's not something like a goodwill or a Salvation army like you actually. You work with case managers and social workers and that sort of thing who have clients that are in need of the furniture that you have in your warehouse. Is that accurate?

That is accurate. The reason why I'm starting to look up as, I'm trying to think here for a second. So the one in Silver Spring will take self referrals. I heard that. And all the other smaller ones probably do in some way. Again, the exception of St. Vincent Paul, which they only work with case managers from health care for the homeless. But. Well, furniture banking in general is not something new. There are furniture banks all over the country and of course, in North America. And if you look around what they do, there's a mixture of how they do things. Right. And some take self referrals, some don't. And so, I mean, I think our goal, our model at the beginning is to. So, I mean, we're getting furniture to people who need it and don't have the resources. That's the big picture. Well, the issue, the problem is is that if you have a definition like that and you have a city like Baltimore, that's half the city or more. Right. And so if we said anyone who needs furniture and don't have resources, give us a call, we'd never get anything done.

You'd be answering phones all day.

It would be answering phones and eagles all day. Right. And so, I mean, maybe, and this is maybe, and this is me talking, not my other three colleagues. Maybe in a few years we'll have a way for people to do, to do a self referral. I don't really think that's going to happen because, because, I mean, really, there's a very high need, there's an issue with supporting the project financially because you've got to, I mean, you can't, I mean, I've noticed that the other thing is that there are furniture banks out there that are completely volunteer run. There are furniture banks that have some paid some. And it is relatively clear to me that we could not do this with only volunteers. Why is that?

Well, I mean, I know that's a complicated answer, but I think it could eventually.

Oh, wait a minute. How about this? I think it possibly could eventually happen that way, but not from the beginning. Right. Because basically, essentially one of my thoughts is when before you talked about, I don't know if it's part of the recording, but you talked about one of the things that piqued your interest was, oh, they got a vehicle now. Right. That kind of thing. Right. So we were doing this for a couple of years with no vehicle. Right? Yeah.

You started in a garage, right, right.

We started in a single car garage, that cart. So the third co founder is John de Veecka. He works, he runs a radio station at Loyola. And how he got involved in the word on the street and therefore met me and Tony and others is there's a radio program that they have at the Loyola radio station called both Feed in, which is interviews with folks who've experienced homelessness. So a half hour interview with somebody.

And is that online? I've been meaning to check that out.

It is online. It is online. You can listen to radio station online.

Okay, I'll check that out.

And I don't know if there's somebody currently doing those interviews. So if there's interviews being played, they are repeat interviews, but there's an archive release.

I'll check it out.

Yeah, I could be wrong, and I was interviewed for that. So through that work, he and others at the college got involved with inviting the faces of homelessness speakers Bureau to come to campus. I left this out earlier. Is that so? My initial. So when I got. And this actually came from a connection at beans and bread, there was a young lady there when I first started going there, who was serving an AmeriCorps Vista terminal, doing, among other things, working to build a furniture, furniture speakers bureau here in the city, which I got involved in beginning as a speaker, because. So one of the days that I was at beans and bread, sitting in the waiting room, hanging my head in shame in the corner after getting my behind hit handed to me in chess, Joanna, the young lady Joanna comes out and who had, who had. We had previous connection, because like I said, she did other things there. And one of the things she did is she was. She helped me put my resume back together. And she herself, young person just out of college, was like, you went to graduate school? So she already knew me for that, but she saw me being not too happy in the corner and invited, hey, you know, I'm going to this meeting, if you just like to come on. I said, sure, whatever. And it happened to be a speaker's beer meeting, which is how I got in involved with that and to finish that line at that time. Those meetings were every Wednesday at the St. Prince of Wall Church, actually. And I showed up one Wednesday for my speakers beer meeting, which normally had like ten or 15 people there. I walked in and there's like 50 people in there, and I'm like, what's going on? And it turned out that they were holding a word on the street meeting. This is the street paper I just talked about.

I thought it was because you were speaking.

Well, these meetings weren't necessarily speaking engagements. These were powwows to practice speaking and talk about related things and stuff like that. So there's like 50 people in the room. I'm like, what's going on? And a couple people said, oh, well, actually, we didn't tell you this for sure, because we wanted to try to see if you. To get you involved in this, all these people in the room. And they said, oh, yeah, it's actually, a word on the street meeting today, we canceled the speaker's memory, tell you about it? And I said, oh, and so I'll stay and sit around.

I'm trying to rep you in.

And of course, that's how it. That's how I got ripped in, actually.

But all of this led up to you. And John and Tony identified the need for the furniture bank.

Right. So shortly after that. So shortly after the conversation, it happened, actually, after there was a gentleman who. So most of the people who sold the paper, the newspaper, are people who are homeless or in poverty. And there was two guys, one particular or two guys, who did really well with it. One of them used his proceeds to take a CDL class and ended up getting a job with the food bank driving trucks. He now actually works with the furniture bank, by the way.

Nice.

But the other guy, who was also relatively successful, had gotten him. Gotten enough. Gotten enough resources. Not a lot, but enough together pairing with, I think, a disability check he was getting so he could actually look at maybe probably getting housing, but it was just no furniture kind of thing. That's actually when that conversation happened. And so, a little bit later, the paper folded because of financial issues. I went and got a real job and then moved on. Right. And so two years later, after I got laid off from that real job, and during my job search, again, the conversation came up again. This was in basically the spring of 2017. And John, Tony and I just said, you know, let's start that furniture bank, let's do it kind of thing. Right? So for around two years, it was mostly a, you know, like a passion project on the side for us because didn't have much support out there. The single car garage. That's what the single car garage. So John Leslie said he works at the radio station there. The radio station at the college used around 50, I don't know what cost was something like $50 or so, around $50 a month to pay for that storage unit for us. For the garage for us while we sort of operated all that. I had a couple other couple part time on the side jobs so I could, like, stay housed and not be homeless and chased a couple small grants. The first one. So that full time job that I had that I got laid off from was a place called Baltimore Corps. And Baltimore Corps has, among other things, they have a seed grant program called a elevation award. It's $10,000 for folks of color trying to have an idea to improve their. All right, so in 2017, I immediately tried for that, didn't get it don't remember, don't know why. Shame on them. I tried again in 2018 and got it. And so we got a $10,000 grant. When that grant, when I got that grant, we moved from that single car garage over to the Langston Hughes Community and Business center in Park Heights in northwest Baltimore. It's an old school. And so we were renting a classroom size room for our, for the furniture bank. The idea in my mind, I think, and I think in the other's minds was, this is our start. Maybe in a couple of years, we'll get. We'll move bigger and bigger and bigger. But, I mean, within a month or two, we got an off. We, Perry moving Services, Baltimore moving Company, reached out to say, hey, we have eight tractor trailer foot trucks full of dorm furniture from american university. How much would you like? And that was the same reaction I had. I said, sitting in my room, looking around in my packed room, thinking, yeah.

Oh, goodness.

Basically said, when can I tell you? And through some connections, through John and some others, we got some donated space here in the city so we could take that. That donation. Then I, shortly after getting that donation, I won the OSI fellowship. I tried in 2018 and failed to try to 2019 and got it. And so in the fall of 2019, when I got that fellowship, we were in the process of doing basically community giveaways with this dorm furniture. The idea was, this is a good way to introduce ourselves, in a way. And then I would start looking for further supports so that I can start renting a place and all that stuff. That donated space was initially only intended to be until the end of the year. We ended up being there until the end of 2020. But most of that is Covid related. We ended up, I think what happened is we were able to stay a little bit longer. And then in February, right before the pandemic, the landlords there said, okay, we have a plan for that space now. So we're looking at maybe two to four months. Could you be out and that. Great, no problem. Then, of course, almost immediately after that, that's when the pandemic hit. Nothing happened. And so by the end of that year, which is last year, by the end of 2020, we got our warehouse space in Woodbury. So we're in 10,000 sqft in the Maryland Book bank building. That's so great.

So you're at a point now where it seems like you're, and you kind of mentioned this before, like, there's such a demand in the city for what you're offering. It just seems like you're growing and growing. Like, you know, we talked and you mentioned, too, like we talked before we got on the call about, you know, you have this new van and you just, you just opened this renewal room, and it's just like, exciting to follow along to see all this progress that you've made together with the leadership team. And it's just really cool to see the difference that you're making, because I can imagine you have all kinds of stories, people's lives you've touched. Do you have a favorite one? Do you have one that's terrifying?

You have a really good favorite one. And this is back in our earlier days. One of the times I was there at my desk, one of the ladies, an older lady who had gotten furniture in the past from us, came essentially in tears, thinking, you got to see this beautiful bedroom I now have for my, I think with her grand nephew or something like that. Her grand nephew, two grand nephews. They were in a. They both had twin beds prior, but the room was so small that it didn't have that much room and all that stuff. And being able to bunk the beds gave more room, and she was very thankful that it's one of my favorite ones. I always remember that one.

That sounds awesome. Yeah.

I don't get to experience a lot of that as much. I mean, hopefully you might be able to get to talk with Tony, but he gets to see that a lot more often because he's out there doing more of the physical stuff. I'm the one sitting behind talking to all the case managers and stuff. I don't get to see that much of the giving stuff.

Are you the numbers guy? I mean, it would make sense given your background.

Well, a little bit, so. But I don't really. But one of. One of my colleagues on my team is a retired financial analyst, so she takes care of Camille. Yeah, Camille, right. She does the money stuff for. I mean, I guess I'm. Since my work with the furniture bank, excuse me, with the speakers bureau and with word on the street and all that stuff, I've gotten. I've become more of an outreach guy, too, so I do pretty well. Reaching out to the case managers and all that good stuff. Well, actually, mostly it's reaction. They're reaching out to us. They find out about us and they say, hey, I've got a client. And we say, okay, we got furniture.

So speaking of that, I can imagine some people will hear this and they'll think, wow, I have some furniture I want to donate, or I know somebody that could use your service. What is the best option or the options, if there's more than one, to get in touch with you about something like that?

The best way to reach out to us is the email. It's baltimorefurniturebankmail.com dot. Yeah. So you'll get an auto response with some information and then a personal response, usually within a day or two. Usually faster than that. There is a phone number and I'm happy to give it to you. Our phone number is 443-424-7798 but because we don't really have someone who can answer the phone and the volume, all incoming calls go directly to voicemail. And we do. If you leave a message, we return the phone. We return the call. The issue is that it has sometimes taken five, six days to return phone calls. It is not ideal.

I can imagine what the volume. Yeah.

Right. And it is. It's also best. So for anyone who doesn't have email access, most people have a smartphone, I guess. Right. And can text. You can text that number and it's just like emailing. So if someone is actually in the email at the time, reading emails and all that stuff, and sees the text come in, they may be able to respond a little bit sooner. So the order of the fastest way is email. Second fastest would be text and then the final way would be by phone. If it's somebody who is in. If somebody is in need of furniture, if you're reaching out because you or your family needs furniture, we're going to unfortunately have to tell you that we can't take self referrals. So we're going to need to have your social worker or case manager to reach out to us. And the best way, of course, is by email. The ones who know us already know how to do it and the ones who don't, they'll send us an email and we'll get them hooked up. Right. So if you need furniture, reaching out on your own is not, I mean, you can do it, but we'll share how to do that. Got it. If you have furniture to donate, it's most best way to email with the items that you have to donate. So these are the kinds of things that we're looking for. We are looking for beds, we are looking for dressers, we are looking for bedside tables, couches, loveseats, armchairs, smaller dining and kitchen tables with chairs. You'll notice that's where I stopped. That is not an exclusive list, but that is essentially an exclusive list. So if you have something that's not on that list. And you want to donate it, please. When you reach out to us, let us tell us what it is and include a photo. In fact, you probably best include photos of anything and everything you have. I did mention beds, but I will say that we can't take king size beds.

Storage space.

Well, number one, the typical client is not moving into a place that can accommodate some of them. Can't even condomate a queen. But also, yeah, it is storage. We only have, I mean, I say 10,000 people say, oh, that's a lot of space. No, it isn't.

I'm sure it fills up quickly.

We're already basically full. In fact, actually, right now, as we are taping this, anyone reaching out to make a donation of furniture is getting an auto response saying, reach back in a couple of weeks. And because we've just got a little bit too much stuff at the moment, we're trying to focus on getting that sorted and getting some of that out. We have a good number of referrals that we're trying to do too. And one thing, and I would be remiss for not to not share this. We always need money.

I was going to ask, I know you can use donations. Yes, yes.

We always need money. We have pretty expensive warehouse. We have four robust employees who I'd love to pay full time. We can only really pay them part time. I'm not drawing a salary at the moment because we don't have enough resources. So I have a second job to keep myself from being homeless and poor and all that stuff. It would be nice so I could focus more on this work because, you know, some things have, have to get put on the back burner because I can't work all the time on this. And so we're, yes, we're hoping to expand. We do have a limited area that we can serve at the moment, but that's, I'm hoping that's only temporary because that's, because we're limited.

Oh, that's a good question. Are you offering services citywide or is it just in certain areas of the city?

Oh, thank you for this. Thank you for the question. So, yeah, we will serve. And I mean, it would be criminal not to do it citywide, I would think. But, yes, so we do citywide, but we don't do a whole lot more. We'll serve roughly up to about 15 miles from our warehouse in the city. So almost Columbia ish to the south and west. I mean, basically, I mean, really, it's a case by case basis when it comes to outside of the city.

Got it.

We do. I mean, the furniture is free for the clients, and we're hoping that it's going to be free for the clients. Totally. But we would not be, we would not be able to survive if we did not charge a small cost to the referring organizations who refer the clients. And we do understand that on occasion, they're passing it on to the client, which is not.

It's not ideal, but, I mean, that's the cost of business.

Yeah, the cost of business. Right. And so one of the hopes is, one of my hopes is to reduce or eliminate that.

And so that's where donations can come in handy.

That's where donations. That's where this grant writer. Well, one of the other things is that in the fall of 2019, when we really started moving, that's when I won the fellowship for this. You know, there was a, my goal. I mean, I had this plan of what I was going to be doing, which didn't happen because of the pandemic. And I would have thought that by now we would be holding an annual, annual gathering, you know, to, you know, to party and raise money.

Like a gala.

Like a gala or something. Can't do that yet. I haven't been able to do that yet.

You'll get there. I'm pretty confident you'll get there, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if we don't get there, then we probably won't succeed because, you know, we can't get grants forever. And somehow, I mean, it's, you know, we've done a, done a budget, and it's pretty conservative. It's not cheap.

I have been trying to practice something, this phrase I've seen online, and I don't know if you've seen this, too, but it's this phrase, giving your flowers. It's apparently from this old Kanye west song that he wrote about Jay Z, like, give people their flowers while they can still smell them. I was wondering if you'd be willing to highlight the people that you think have helped you the most, like, get to where you are today.

Oh, yeah. There's already a handful of people I can think about. Oh, do they have to be in Baltimore, though?

No, just, I mean, people you've encountered in your life that, like, made a difference, made an impact?

Well, first I'm going to tell you about the person that I don't remember their name, and I really, really want to try to remember the name eventually. And so this is when, this is when I was young, college student, so I lived in Loudoun County, Virginia, around a 45 minutes drive into DC. And one day I drove into town alone. Drove into DC alone. I was living with my dad, drove into DC alone to attend a concert at the 930 club. I had fun at the concert. Right as I was driving back, my car was disabled just before I entered it into Loudoun county from Fairfax county. So basically, sterling Reston area or something like that on route seven. And it ended up being an oil issue that I didn't oil. That car died, by the way. Anyway, so a random guy pulled by, I went to a hotel for the night, and we towed the vehicle to a garage nearby. And he came back to the hotel the next day. Well, actually, I think he told me he would do this, so it wasn't a surprise. So I was still a good. I mean, at the time, my dad lived in western Loudoun county, which from there was, you know, a good at least half hour longer. And, you know, I. My dad's a retired scientist, worked for the government, and, you know, we're not in. We're in pretty good place, so. And so he drove me home that day.

Wow.

I kept telling, I told him, no, I can call my dad. I mean, I can call my brother and my dad, because he was. I mean, I was like, this is not Leesburg, if you're going to. Because Leesburg is a well known town in the county. It's 15 or 20 miles or 15 or 20 minutes, excuse me, from Sterling, where I was. But we were going to be driving to Lovetsville, which is the other side of the county, and, nope, he said, nope, I'll drive you home. And so he did, and wouldn't take a. Wouldn't take anything for it. And this is somebody that, I mean, it's strange how that's the one person. Well, I mean, I remember other things. That's another. That's somebody I remember from a long time ago. So, not really related to my story, but, but, but I remember that.

I mean, it's those kinds of people that we cross paths with, because I've had. I have similar stories, too. And, I mean, for me, those are the kind of people like, that have informed, like, my view of humanity, just that they took the time out of their. Out of their lives, because they did.

He did. So before driving me out, we stopped by his home because obviously wanted to tell his family what he was doing. And, like, he's a failure. He's a dad with two kids, and I think with two kids, maybe three or whatever, and he's a young.

That'S impressive.

So another person would be my dad.

And I was going to ask you, like, what does he think about the.

Story now, Lily, both parents? Well, they're generally, really, generally proud of me. I guess they did a pretty good job with all of us. I think so. More locally, there's a couple.

Is there anybody in Baltimore that you admire, like any other organizations or people that you'd like to shout out?

Oh, how much time do we have?

Oh, yeah, it's a long list, I guess. Yeah, right.

Yeah. So there's a lot. But I will say that this person would probably not want me to say their name because they're kind of giving on the side kind of thing, in a way. But I had a person who allowed Tony and myself to stay with him for several months while we, each of us had a small job, but not enough to really rent anything while we were basically still trying to rejoin society kind of thing. He gives a lot to other, in other ways, too.

He's here in the city.

You said he's here in the city.

Well, he knows who he is. That's awesome.

And there's a couple other people like that. A couple other people like that. I've actually made contact with my natural family. Have a really, well, he's younger, but he feels like he's older. I have a younger brother that I'm kind of getting pretty close to too. But I remember relatively recently, a couple years ago, talking to a shopkeeper, actually, who was doing a little thing about who do you admire? And asking people to write and tell people write about that. And everyone had all, I mean, all the ones that you would see up there are famous people, and many of them were.

I'm sure they have reasons to be admired. Yeah.

Like, like, you know, Mother Teresa and I mean, all the ones that you would think of. Right. And then, but then when he sees me write down, I just put, my parents didn't know what, I didn't necessarily want to put things like what? And I said, well, I mean, it's the first thing I think of. And I kind of a surprise to me a little bit that, um, and that didn't occur to some people. I know some people have horrible experiences when they're growing up, but I still ultimately think that most people, their parents are probably their biggest, their biggest fans and they them. So it's kinda.