A BAY AREA NONPROFIT that provides furniture to people emerging from homelessness has found its own permanent home.
Make It Home collects donated furniture and household goods, refurbishes them and distributes them to people moving into housing after experiencing homelessness, domestic violence, poverty or foster care transitions.
Make It Home has been operating out of a donated warehouse in San Rafael that is now slated for demolition. The organization celebrated its move Monday to a new warehouse. The new 11,000-square-foot facility at 15 Pamaron Way in Novato will serve as the organization’s permanent base and is expected to allow the charity to double its capacity while improving operations and distribution.
Founded in 2020 by interior designer Carolyn Rebuffel Flannery, the organization partners with more than 150 social service agencies and government entities across the Bay Area to furnish homes for individuals and families in need. In fiscal year 2025 alone, Make It Home furnished 790 homes in 13 counties, according to the organization’s annual report.
The move to Novato was made possible through a community project fund administered by U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael.
“We all know meeting the cost of living and finding housing in a place like Marin County is inherently tough,” said Huffman at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “What you’re doing to folks getting their first place, giving them quality things, making it beautiful, you’re doing it so well. This whole community is just with you all the way.”
Beyond bare walls
Meredith Parnell, chief program officer for the nonprofit St. Vincent de Paul Society of Marin County, said Make It Home has helped their social service organization transition people from the streets into supportive and affordable housing.
“At St. Vincent’s, we truly believe in the dignity of all people, and there’s nothing dignified in getting housed after years of homelessness and being given the key to a completely bare apartment,” said Parnell. “No bed, no couch, no pots and pans, nothing.”
Parnell said their clients would drag and use furniture off the streets, buy used mattresses from unreputable places and eat dinner sitting on the floor. She said St. Vincent de Paul has used the design services of Make It Home to furnish over 80 households, giving clients the dignified housing they deserve.
“Mattresses that are bug-free, rugs that aren’t threadbare, chairs and couches that don’t have springs sticking out of them,” she said. “We are completing the promise of housing first by utilizing Make It Home to create the dignity that housing can and should offer our clients.”
Marin County Supervisor Mary Sackett described a project in which Make It Home decorated a meeting room in the county jail, where families can reunify while they’re incarcerated.
“Make It Home heeded the call, showed up, brought in some rugs, some nice pillows, some couches that little kids and adults can sit on and talk to each other,” Sackett said.
She credited the charity with helping 97% of people placed in affordable and permanent supportive housing in Marin County remain housed.
“We want people to be comfortable and successful and to be able to take a deep breath and be stable,” Sackett said.
Bay City News reporter George Alfaro contributed to this story.