Original Press Release: Puget Sound Business Journal
Originally published by Puget Sound Business Journal • September 2, 2025
For unsheltered families, finding a place to live is only the beginning of their journey out of homelessness, said John Stromberg, owner of Happy Hauler.
“The next step is to furnish a home with items that will help them stabilize and thrive as they move forward,” he said.
Happy Hauler, a Seattle donate-and-discard removal business, works with nonprofits to fill a critical gap in homelessness services and reduce waste.
Stromberg gets calls from Seattle-area homeowners to dispose of things like unwanted furniture and other household goods. These items are stored in a 5,500-square-foot warehouse until they are rehomed to families.
“We get designer tables and higher-end stuff,” Stromberg said. “Unlike most businesses and nonprofits, everything we take gets dispersed. And it’s often amazing stuff. We just gave a family a $5,000 couch.”
Happy Hauler also has built a library of children’s books and collected bikes and other toys to welcome kids to their new homes. In most cases, the business will deliver furniture and home goods the same day it’s called to help.
For families, finding a home is a celebration, said Dominique Alex, CEO of Mary’s Place, one of the nonprofits Happy Hauler works with. But going into that space empty-handed “can be heartbreaking.” Happy Hauler fills rooms with “joy and dignity,” she said.
Mary’s Place, which operates family emergency shelters in King County, helps people find affordable and stable environments to live in. The difficulty is that some families arrive with little more than the clothes on their backs, said Dominique Alex, Mary’s Place CEO.
If items don’t go to Mary’s Place families, Stromberg gives to similar programs run by Solid Ground and the YWCA. Happy Hauler also donates goods to the Seattle Fire Department, Goodwill and other nonprofits.
“We extend every effort to donate and repurpose everything we can before taking anything to the landfill,” Stromberg said.
Nationwide, most unwanted durable goods like furniture and small appliances end up in landfills, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In 2018, the most recent year for available data, 22.6 million pounds of these goods went into landfills nationwide.
“So, you’re saving something that would have gone to the landfill, but instead it goes to help people,” Stromberg said.
Mary’s Place has helped women and families since its founding in 1999. Through a three-pronged approach — shelter, outreach and prevention programs — Mary’s Place is addressing the family homelessness crisis, Alex said.
The nonprofit’s Make a Home Program is a wraparound service that has been operating since January 2020. Alex said such services are crucial to address the underlying factors of homelessness.
“I think of wraparound services like a big hug,” Alex said.
Mary’s Place also offers other services, including health care resources, parenting support classes and job training. Through a partnership with Columbia Bank, among others, Mary’s Place began offering financial literacy classes to help families work toward a stable financial future.
“There are so many complexities when a family is experiencing homelessness,” Alex said. “If you just put a family in a home and don’t think about those other components, it’s likely that they will return to homelessness.”
The couches, nightstands, pots and pans, kid’s toys and books and everything in between “allow for families to not eat on cardboard boxes or sleep on the floor,” Alex said.
It allows them to “make a house a home,” lowering families’ rates of returning to Mary’s Place shelters, she said.
“Partnerships like Happy Hauler and many others are really what makes our mission move,” Alex said. “Without these critical partnerships, we would not have healthy families and thriving communities.”
More than 800 Mary’s Pace families have used a program that connects them with home furnishings when they move into permanent housing.
“I’m giving it everything I’ve got,” Stromberg said. “A third of our net profits goes to funding our mission. It’s expensive.”
Stromberg said he donates Happy Haulers’ time and goods because he wants to help families stabilize and let them know that the community values them.
“I like to see everyone around me doing well,” he said. “All these people we help (we) just want to live happy, productive lives. They are in crisis and just need a little stability. The relief and satisfaction I see on their faces when they get all this good stuff is very satisfying.”
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Source: Puget Sound Business Journal
Original article link: https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2025/09/02/happy-hauler-furnish-homes-families.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBExWnVxMkRoOHVndWpHMEduZHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR5QYSuceVTF6FN-Vh74AbGnARVe_QmKzzIFpypdoigJBSYFF0OfADLrGBWY9g_aem_rjcca6gWsE08FJl_IZ34wg
We’re proud to feature the following press release exactly as it originally appeared in the Puget Sound Business Journal. It highlights an initiative we support and believe deserves wider attention. The full text is reproduced verbatim below with proper attribution.
Community-focused initiatives like these help reduce waste, support families in crisis, and demonstrate the impact local businesses can make when they lead with generosity. Programs like Happy Hauler’s set an example for how companies in the home service space can contribute meaningfully to the people they serve.
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