"This was my last hope": Unique nonprofit furnishes homes for free
The rising cost of seemingly everything has created an even bigger divide between what different people can afford. A Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit is working to help, by finding and keeping usable items out of landfills so that people can furnish their homes.
Gloria Antillon moved her three children to the nation's capital with nothing, this past summer.
"I got tired of running," she told CBS News. "Violence, the struggle. This was my last hope."
Antillon said for three to four days, she and her kids slept in her car until they were given housing. They received an apartment, furnished for free, by the nonprofit FurnishHopeDC. The organization, which relies entirely on donations, even filled Antillon's freezer.
"They came with the whole box truck and stayed the entire day," she said. "When the kids got home, they was like, 'Wow!"
Adriane Herbert, who helps run the group, said seeing the joy in Antillon's kids made her cry. "They made me think of my own children and some of the obstacles we've been through."
Herbert and her five children live in public housing, but she spends her days helping others alongside Niki Mock, a longtime community volunteer and the founder of FurnishHopeDC.
Mock believes there is enough furniture in the world for everyone to have a comfortable home.
"Around the corner from me, there was a beautiful queen mattress sitting out with the garbage. You know me. I had to stop. I went and knocked on the door," she told CBS News.
She said she's done pickups like that, in her own pickup truck, at least 250 times. One of the days CBS News was with her, she brought a bed to a family that lost everything in an apartment fire.
"It costs us zero," said William Delaney, who was given the bed.
And Antillon now also spends some of her time volunteering with FurnishHopeDC. She said the organization "plays a big part" in helping her.
