With a new bed and brown leather couch provided by Grateful Gatherings, Harrison Coleman now feels at home after spending years living out of his car and in a storage unit in Oakland.

His journey to this point wasn’t easy.

The Missouri native, Air Force veteran and clergyman never thought he’d become homeless. He’d always worked to support himself, finding odd jobs while studying theology at San Francisco State University and earning his master’s degree from American Baptist Seminary of the West.

He had community and friends, and was working to build his own congregation in Sacramento.

But he struggled to build a following there and despite his best efforts, Coleman ended up spending more than two years of his life on the streets of Oakland from May 2021 to August 2023.

A heart attack put him in the hospital and from there he was taken to a temporary shelter. Being placed in an apartment building for seniors was a key step toward Coleman’s recovery. But after weeks of sleeping on the floor, getting a bed was his next priority.

That’s when Grateful Gatherings stepped in and provided Coleman with a couch, bed frame and brand new mattress and bedding, a far cry from the ironing board Coleman used to lay his head on while living in a U-Haul shed.

“There is such power in the safety of a home,” said Grateful Gatherings co-founder and executive director Donna Wright Somerville. “We all have a deep desire to have a home that feels like a refuge and feels like a safe place from the world.”