Talk to anyone walking around The Furniture Co-op during “shopping hours” on a Tuesday or Saturday morning, and you’ll find they have an amazing story. One recent client was Ruth, who is 63 years old, and never thought she’d be living in a subsidized apartment, unable to afford furniture, lamps, dishes and picture frames on her own.

In a previous life, she was a teacher raising her children in a single-family home in a quiet, sunny neighborhood in North Carolina. Her life took a turn for the worse when she was in her 50s and diagnosed with a serious case of clinical depression. Right around that time, her children left home, and she had to get used  to an empty nest. Then the disease forced her to give up her teaching job. Soon after, her husband, who had been growing increasingly distant, told her he wanted a divorce.

After a few years, Ruth ran out of money, and she came to New Haven to move into a small apartment in the home of a relative. But the house was in a dangerous neighborhood, and there were gunshots at night and fights, and she was sure that other people in the house were selling drugs. The apartment itself had peeling paint and plumbing problems her relative wouldn’t fix.

Finally she made some calls and found a room at Martha’s Place, one of New Haven Home Recovery (NHHR)’s emergency shelters. After several weeks there, an NHHR case manager helped Ruth find an apartment. She’d given up many of her belongings when she came to New Haven, and left everything else at her relative’s house. When she visited The Furniture Co-op, she was amazed and then grateful. “I thought there was nothing left for me,” Ruth said. “But now I see there is a way for me to make a home for myself again.”

The Neighbor-to-Neighbor LifeLine program recently gave NHHR a grant to support The Furniture Co-op, which NHHR established to provide furniture and housewares to families in Greater New Haven who have been homeless, or are living with disabilities or insufferable hardships. People throughout the Greater New Haven area make donations to The Furniture Co-op, and volunteers help sort and organize them. Clients who have been prescreened by NHHR or a partner agency come to The Furniture Co-op warehouse at 30 Morris Street in West Haven to look for items they need and can take for free. Thanks to Neighbor-to-Neighbor Lifeline’s generosity, more women like Ruth will be able to use The Furniture Co-op to make a home for themselves as they rebuild their lives.