Never been a better time to share a chair

When the South Perry Blog visited Interfaith Hospitality of Spokane last week, Ashley Sprecher stopped by. She is the manager of Spokane Community Warehouse – which is located at a secret address – that serves as a clearing house for donated furniture.

“It used to be that people gave their used furniture to St. Vincent de Paul, but now they aren’t around any more,” Sprecher said. “Sometimes it all goes to Goodwill – other times people look for different agencies, but they don’t know about all of them or their specific needs. We do.”

Spokane Community Warehouse is sponsored by Catholic Charities of Spokane and supports 11 nonprofit agencies, among them Interfaith Hospitality of Spokane, SNAP and Volunteers of America.

Having one central warehouse for donated furniture makes it much more likely that the agency that really needs a bed right now actually gets one, Sprecher explained.

“Before the warehouse, one agency would have extra beds that another agency could use, but they didn’t know about each other,” she said. “Now we know how many beds we have and who needs them.”

Right now, Sprecher has a list of 15 referrals waiting to be filled. Clients are typically families who have been homeless or for other reasons have lost their furniture.

“We don’t charge for the furniture,” Sprecher said, “and we deliver.”

The warehouse is in a borrowed space and the address is kept secret because there’s no retail sale off the site and because people tend to dump stuff at nonprofits.

“We do have some standards, like no stains or tears on the mattresses or the linens,” Sprecher said.

She has turned into a bit of furniture repairer during her time at the warehouse.

“If things are wobbly or kind of falling apart a little bit, I can put them back together,” Sprecher said.

Right now the Spokane Community Warehouse needs more beds of all sizes except king, which is often too big to fit in smaller bedrooms or apartments.

“We always need dressers; they fly out of here as soon as we get them,” Sprecher said.

Dining and coffee tables in all sizes are needed, too.

“Sometimes a family needs to seat 10 people around the dining table, sometimes it’s just two people, so we need sturdy tables big and small,” Sprecher said.

The need for furniture is pretty constant.

“It’s humbling to make the deliveries,” Sprecher said. “There are a lot of families out there right now who never pictured themselves in a situation where they’d need donated furniture.”