Getting Danbury's Homeless Off The Street: The Brass Tacks Approach

DANBURY, CT — If you are living on the street, odds are you don't have a proper kitchen table or couch.

For Danbury's homeless who may finally be transitioning from cardboard mattress to indoor plumbing, that's a not-frequently-discussed speed bump on their path. Although there are many organizations geared to helping the homeless find a job and get housing in the Danbury area, there are surprisingly few who are prepared to help them settle in to their new apartments.

That's where non-profit Off the Streets steps in. These are the brass tacks people, the ones who physically lift the homeless from curbside to crash-pad, who pay that game-changing security deposit, who stock that first larder with bagels for that new toaster.

"The pieces of the puzzle that the existing social service agencies don't cover," Danbury Off the Streets administrator Joe Simons explained. "We find that we can really do a lot."

They already have. In the 13 years the organization has been in business in Connecticut, it has placed over a thousand people into homes.

"A lot of the times, we found that the people we're able to help are people who have a source of income to pay rent … but they lack a security deposit."

So Off The Street will pay that for them, from community donations. And because it's unlikely the newly homed family was rocking a microwave oven, kitchen table or even a frying pan during their stint on the streets, Off the Street will pony those up, too.

Simons says his group of 25 volunteers gets tipped off about who needs what and where by various municipal social services agencies, and sometimes inquiries direct from the client. In every case, city social workers will do the vetting to ensure no one is trying to scam the Samaritans.

New Fairfield resident Simons said his work at Off The Streets was "an offshoot" from his time spent volunteering at the Dorothy Day Homeless Shelter in Danbury.

"We saw the same people at the shelter year after year," Simons told Patch," and this was a way we were able to make a permanent change in their lives."

The winter of 2022-23 is the worst and best of times for Danbury Off the Streets and its clients, Simons said. The cost of housing has gone through the roof, but people have never been more generous.

Simons is hopeful that generosity will extend to contributions beyond the financial. The all-volunteer organization has chapters in Danbury and Bridgeport, but is itching to expand, and needs more workers.

"We would love to see (chapters) in some of the other Connecticut cities, in Hartford, in Waterbury, in New London, in New Haven. So if anyone feels the calling to start a chapter, we will definitely support you. We've kind of got it down to a science, on how to get a chapter up and running. And it's a very, very gratifying experience to do this kind of work. I mean, we give a lot of our time, but the rewards of just seeing someone move into a place of their own, to be able to share that after a number of years on the streets is, I mean, I can't, it's just amazing!"

Danbury Off The Street's next scheduled furniture donation drop-off is Jan. 7 from 10 a.m. to noon at Prime Storage, located at 20 Old Ridgebury Road in Danbury. A list of the items most in demand can be found online here.