Statistically, Heather Moore stopped being homeless several months ago. Her new home was just mostly empty.
Moore, 33, did have a couch near the front door of her La Mesa apartment. She and her 5-year-old son sometimes slept on that. There was a rug in the back and a TV balanced on wobbly drawers. But no beds. No table. No desk. No shelves. No toys visible on the floor for her son, who had recently started kindergarten.
All that to say, Moore was willing to open her door on a recent Monday morning to let in two women who thought they could help.
At least 600 homeless people in San Diego County get housing each month. Often the total is much higher: More than 1,000 landed a place to stay in July, according to the Regional Task Force on Homelessness. There are many reasons why those numbers haven’t eliminated encampments — including the fact that, month after month, far more residents become newly homeless — but the problem can be exacerbated by individuals who find, and then again lose, housing.
Last year, researchers at UC San Diego examined whether people were more likely to stay housed if they had a nice place to come back to. Or, as they put it in more academic language: “Since the concept of ‘home’ encompasses a sense of control, privacy, security, and permanence, it is important to understand how factors like furniture, decor, and design impact one’s sense of autonomy, safety, and stability.”
On the whole, around 25% of homeless people who got housing during a recent two-year period ended up losing it again, according to the report from the university’s Homelessness Hub. Yet that share dropped to 2.3% when researchers looked only at individuals who had worked with a nonprofit called Humble Design.
Micheline Grimm, an interior designer with Humble Design San Diego, sits between her colleague Danii Veney, right, and Heather Moore, left, a formerly homeless woman who’d been living in a largely empty apartment in La Mesa. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The interview
The women who walked through Moore’s door were Danii Veney, one of Humble Design’s movers, and Micheline Grimm, an interior designer.
“How are you feeling today?” Grimm asked.
“I’m a little bit nervous,” Moore responded.
Humble Design uses donated goods to furnish homes around the country, free of charge. The group focuses on people who previously lived outside or in shelters, although the nonprofit also aided families that lost belongings earlier this year when a small plane crashed into a military housing complex. Moore’s apartment would likely be Humble Design’s 550th project in San Diego County.
The process begins with an interview. Grimm spent about 45 minutes questioning Moore. Do you like having a lot of stuff? (Yes.) Favorite colors? (Black, red, maybe some blue.) When you and your son go to the zoo, what are you favorite animals? (Koalas.)
“As far as the kitchen, are there any appliances you need?”
“I really, really, really want a crockpot,” Moore said. Later, she added that a blender would be nice, too.
Grimm promised to look for blenders in their warehouse but wasn’t optimistic. “We don’t get them a lot, for some reason.”
At one point, Grimm used an app on her phone to map the two rooms and kitchenette. She would use the 3D renderings to determine what should go where. Other times she just let her eyes wander over the space. Ideas might come from anywhere.
Before wrapping up, the group noticed a tattoo on Moore’s arm that read, “Never Lose Yourself.” Perhaps that might inform the design.
Grimm left La Mesa and headed to Humble Design’s warehouse.
Humble Design San Diego’s 15,000-square-foot warehouse in downtown San Diego stores donated household items. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The warehouse
Humble Design began more than a decade ago in Michigan and expanded to San Diego in 2018. The nonprofit is now in four cities, and tax records show that annual spending for the national organization increased to $5.4 million in 2023, the most recent year available.
A spokesperson said this year’s operating budget for the San Diego branch is about $1.2 million. A little less than a fifth of that, around $220,000, goes to overhead expenses such as moving trucks. The group has two, which are named “Wish Wagon” and “Dwayne ‘The Box’ Johnson.” (“Boxy Cleopatra,” alas, perished in a flood.) Leaders estimate that the week-long process of designing and furnishing one unit costs $10,000. The work is done by 16 staffers, several of whom are part-time, and dozens of volunteers.
Grimm entered the warehouse in downtown San Diego and began walking the aisles.
The 15,000-square-foot facility was packed. Metal shelves held lamps and plants and wooden dressers while an upstairs conference room had been overrun by 180 chairs. The only thing more astonishing than the volume of goods was the color-coded organization of it all. The main floor feels like Comic-Con for Marie Kondo fans. (One leader at the nonprofit confessed to being the type of person who makes her bed in hotel rooms, even on mornings she’s checking out.)
Grimm spotted a small dinner table featuring black triangular designs. That would fit the color scheme. In another area she saw a painting of a koala. And a blender! She brought the pieces to a staging area to play with arrangements.
Her boss, Executive Director Laura Lavoie, worked nearby. “Everyone thinks that, once you have permanent housing, that’s the end of the story,” Lavoie said. “But there’s so much more that we all take for granted.”
Many of the people helped are able to pay their own rent, they just don’t have, say, plates. The UC San Diego researchers recommended that Humble Design expand its work, and the group was now trying to furnish four homes a week instead of three. Reducing the chances that somebody returns to homelessness could certainly ease pressure on an already strained shelter system.
Yet it’s a tricky moment in the world of social services.
Most of the nonprofit’s funding comes through philanthropy. U-Haul, The Home Depot Foundation and The Lucky Duck Foundation are just a few of the outside organizations that have chipped in. That has partially insulated the group from budget cuts caused by deficits at the city, county and state, to say nothing of rapidly changing policies at the federal level. Nonetheless, Lavoie is seeing some donors shift support to other causes amid the upheaval.
“It’s a terrible time and a wonderful time to grow,” she said.
Eric Allidem and Danii Veney install a curtain rod in Heather Moore’s living room. The team from Humble Design San Diego spent hours furnishing and decorating the La Mesa apartment. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Move-in day
The move-in at Moore’s apartment began around 9:30 a.m. on a Friday.
Moore and her son went elsewhere as a team from Humble Design pulled up in the “Wish Wagon.” Over the next four hours, volunteers carried in mattresses and scrubbed child-sized fingerprints off walls. Somebody turned on music. Somebody else turned on a vacuum cleaner that immediately drowned out the music.
One hiccup: A bed frame was incomplete. Lavoie announced that she would go back to search for missing parts, but a colleague objected. Nobody else was at the warehouse, meaning there wouldn’t be someone to call for help in case of an accident. Lavoie relented. They would just have to set the mattress on box springs for now.
A volunteer carried in a stuffed animal for the boy’s bed. It was Scuttle, the seagull from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.” Then the woman realized that the bed already held three stuffies, all of which were Dr. Seuss characters. Mixing Disney with Dr. Seuss would break the theme. The volunteer looked around until she spotted a container holding a basketball. “Scuttle plays basketball,” she murmured as she squeezed the seagull inside.
In the front room, Grimm hung an original piece of red-and-black art she had created with another volunteer. In the center were the words, “Never Lose Yourself.”
The apartment filled up. The team told Moore and her son they could return, and the family soon pulled up outside.
On the sidewalk, the mom looked expectant while the boy appeared downright eager. King Moore, age 5, ran ahead and began pounding on a front door.
“No, King, what are you doing?” his mom said. “That is not our door!”
The family found the correct door. The Humble Design team ushered them in.
Heather Moore and her 5-year-old son, King Moore, survey his new bed and toys. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Moore was all smiles during the tour, and she gasped when volunteers showed off the kitchenette. “Oh my gosh!” A KitchenAid mixer was one of several additions to the counter. Before, Moore hadn’t even owned a whisk.
King was more reticent inside. The apartment obviously looked nothing like it had that morning. And who were all these strangers? King stayed close to Moore’s leg as they walked.
After checking out the bedroom, the group drifted back to the entrance. King, however, stayed behind. He walked over to shelves that held books and toys. King picked up a plastic ball, then set it down. He ran his hands across the Dr. Seuss characters. A car and a plane were similarly lifted up, each kept at arm’s length.
Finally he spotted Scuttle. King picked up the seagull, pulled it toward his chest and embraced it with his whole body.