When Rita Chavez and her son Dominick left their Chula Vista apartment on Dec. 12, 2024, it was empty.
No furniture. No pots or pans. No family photos.
Just a few months earlier, Rita and Dominick had been homeless.
"I was going through a lot,” Rita said. "I was having problems with certain people, and I had some addiction problems as well, and it closed roads for me. So I needed a new start."
In September, they went to the South County Lighthouse in National City. It’s a 30-day emergency shelter run by the San Diego Rescue Mission.
Scott Miner was Rita’s advocate there.
"Rita was the person that was able to grind and work her way and she just was hungry. She refused to go back to the streets and for her son, Dominick. And so she worked very hard. She put in the work,” Miner said.
"The work" included completing legal paperwork, doing chores and staying sober.
Because Rita did her part, Miner was able to find them an apartment in October, making them the first official graduates from the South County Lighthouse.
"They pushed us, like, to say, 'everything's going to be okay. You are going to get a home,'" Rita said.
But that home was an empty apartment, with nothing more than blankets and pillows on the floor.
Enter Humble Design San Diego
"It's one thing to have shelter, to have a space, but it's another thing to make it a home. And a step further, a home that is catered to the individual or individuals that are inside," said Courtney Brown, a designer for Humble San Diego.
The nonprofit designs and fully furnishes home interiors for people transitioning out of homelessness at no cost to their clients.
"There's a dignity in having a home and not having to worry about having a bed to sleep in or not being able to have pots and pans to cook with," Brown continued. "Everybody deserves that."
San Diego is one of four cities served by Humble. The others are Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit. The San Diego branch opened in 2018.
Humble has a 15,000 square-foot warehouse in Logan Heights, filled with rows and rows of donated furniture arranged by type and size. Large items like couches and dressers, tables and chairs, desks and bookcases are neatly stacked and on display.
There’s a whole section of shelves full of donated housewares for a home, from dishes to pots and pans, glassware and towels.
There’s even a special arts and crafts section where staff and volunteers create custom creations for the clients.
Staff and volunteers organize incoming donations, collecting items for upcoming furnishing and some are outside refurbishing furniture.
"My favorite thing about Humble is all the hands and people that go into it. From somebody who's just making a donation and how that donation comes to our warehouse. It's touched by volunteers, it's pulled by volunteers and it ends up coming to a space to better somebody's life," Brown said.
While their clients receive everything for free, it costs Humble $10,000 to furnish a home. The nonprofit gets help from sponsors, such as organizations or companies, who help underwrite the cost with a $5,000 donation. Sponsors normally provide extra volunteers to help furnish the homes too.
To date, Team Humble has furnished 450 San Diego homes.
Between October 2023 and June 2024, researchers at UC San Diego's Homelessness Hub conducted interviews with Humble clients to analyze the nonprofit's impact. They found 98% of those clients were still in their homes. And the researchers found other benefits: 80% of clients said they feel more in control of their lives, 86% said they have a greater sense of self-worth and 74% felt a greater sense of belonging.
Designing a home
The Humble process started with an initial client meeting. This is where Brown and her team got to know Rita. They learned what motivates her and what a home means to her: "With relatives, everybody, where you guys can unite in one place and one area to have a lot of good times together," Rita said.
The designers for Humble had Rita look through several mood boards and took copious notes on her requests and ideas.
This is the first time she’s had a say in the design of her space.
"I would like a little recliner right there, you know, a little sofa recliner. Right there in the corner," Rita continued. "I want an altar in my room, where I can put Jesus’ face and the Archangels, like crystals, quartz, like tourmaline. I like stuff like that. It relaxes me."
Throughout the meeting, Rita told the designers her son had one request: a gaming console.
After the consultation, it was time for the designers to choose what would fill that empty apartment.
"I come back to the space and I think about Rita as a person and what she would want and just kind of the energy she brings. And I try to find items that match that," Brown said.
Team Humble’s "Day of Joy”
Three days after the client meeting, the Chavez family were sent out of the apartment for a few hours. Team Humble got to work unloading furniture and decorating the space for what they call the client’s "Day of Joy" — the day the apartment becomes a home.
The Chavez’s "Day of Joy" was sponsored by the San Diego Padres Foundation, and several volunteers from the foundation helped Team Humble get the apartment ready — then welcomed the family in.
"Oh my God! What?!" Rita exclaimed when they first walked through the door.
"This does not look like our house!" Dominick added.
"This is beautiful!" Rita said, and hugged one of the Humble team.
After seeing their living room, dining room and kitchen, Dominick and Rita each took turns knocking on their bedroom doors and seeing their spaces for the first time.
Rita got the altar she wanted in her room. “This is perfect. This is what I want. This is more perfect than I thought!” she said.
Dominick couldn’t believe how his room looked, with a big bed, dresser and a desk with a sign over it bearing his name and the number 13 in Padres' colors. "I was excited. Surprised. I was expecting something else," he said. "I was expecting, like, something not this good. I love my bed."
And remember the one thing Dominick wanted: A game console? He got it, thanks to the Padres Foundation.
"I wasn’t planning to cry, but I’m gonna cry," Dominick said.
Rita said she’s going to treat her home with care and make visitors feel as welcome as she felt during her Day of Joy.
"It was overwhelming because nobody ever did this for us. This is the first time anybody ever has did anything like that for us," Rita said.
"And I feel safe. I feel like nobody could come in here and do anything. Just I don't know, it just makes it home. That's the perfect word. That's the key word. Home," Rita said.
