"Furniture Guy" helps immigrant families feel at home

First, he delivered a sofa to a Kurdish refugee who didn't have any money. Then, he gave a $2,000 dining table to a Ukrainian couple in Federal Way. Later, he scrounged around for a bed and some pots and pans for a Liberian teen whose apartment was bare.

Lloyd Evans of Covington doesn't know when he became known as the "Furniture Guy." But for the past eight years, he has combed yard sales, swap meets and rummage sales for household items for newly arrived refugees, sometimes furnishing their entire two- or three-bedroom homes. He's helped some 500 families.

"I was helping the Kurdish. Then people like the Somalis were coming in. Then the Liberians were coming in.

"They kept coming and coming, and there was no one else doing what I was doing," he said. "So here I am eight years later."

Refugees who've fled war-torn homelands often arrive here with nothing more than a sack of clothes, many making do with lawn chairs and folding chairs for living-room furniture.

That the chairs and tables they get from Evans are chipped or mismatched doesn't matter because for many, the pieces signal a new start: beds that give some African tribal members their first night's sleep on a mattress, dining tables that allow families to catch up after long days at fast-food joints or other minimum-wage jobs.

Evans is a beloved figure in South King County, especially in the Kurdish community, whose members have named him Shwan (pronounced "sher vhan"), "the Shepherd," because he has furnished the apartments of most Kurdish refugees who live in Kent.

"I look for anything that will furnish an apartment house," he said, "anything to get these people started in America because they have no money at all to buy."

Evans, 67, worked as a hardware-store manager in Renton for 33 years before retiring in 1995 after his parents died within three months of one another.

DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES Lloyd Evans is a beloved figure among immigrant communities because of his efforts to help newcomers furnish their homes. He collects donated items from friends, neighbors and fellow parishioners, garage-sale and swap-meet leftovers and mattress-store returns.

Feeling down, he told his wife, Nancy, he wanted to make a difference in other people's lives — to find a useful niche and fill it. He didn't know what it would be.

Then in the summer of 1997, he met 35 Kurdish refugees at a church picnic. He was startled to find that many had no televisions for their children to watch cartoons, let alone cribs for their babies.

He collected furniture from church members, hopped in a truck one afternoon and knocked on the door of one of the refugees, Ramadan Shamdeen, 36, who was living in a bare one-bedroom apartment in Kent. Evans pointed to a truck stacked with furniture and said, "Take what you need."

"He brought us everything: dishes, couches, beds, TVs, dining tables, chairs," Shamdeen said. "We started with nothing. Lloyd helped us with things we needed.

"He is a great man."

Driving around in Kent one day, Evans realized that Sudanese, Vietnamese and Ukrainian refugees also needed help, so in 1998 he volunteered at World Relief, the state's largest resettlement agency, which has an office in Kent.

He now finds and delivers furniture to about 70 families a year, sometimes filling living rooms with complete entertainment centers; bedrooms with nightstands and dressers, and kitchens with dining tables and dishes.

He bought a pickup to aid in his efforts, sometimes driving as far as Queen Anne Hill or Olympia for a couch.

He asks neighbors for lamps and end tables stashed in their attics or basements and tells church members to keep their eyes out for old couches. He asks mattress stores for their returned items, and hauls away leftovers from yard sales and swap meets.

The biggest gem Evans received came from a Auburn woman who donated a $2,000 redwood dining table and six chairs.

He keeps the furniture in a three-room storage facility in Kent if he doesn't have an immediate taker.

Two years ago, Ansu Konneh, then 18, of Liberia, was sleeping on the floor of his one-bedroom apartment in Kent because he wanted to save money for rent.

"I wasn't even worrying about furniture," he said.

Evans furnished his entire place.

"This is like a miracle," said Konneh, who now makes windows for a local business and is saving money to attend community college.

"He is Shwan, the shepherd who takes care of sheep," said Yonis Razvani, who fled northern Iraq in 1997.

Razvani received a bed, couch, vacuum cleaner, table and lamp from Evans. "I will never forget that day."

Like many refugees, Razvani said he didn't fully understand the significance of Evans' work until later, after he landed a job at Boeing and had money to go shopping. Then he saw that a couch could cost $700, Razvani said. "I really appreciate what he does now."

Throughout the Kurdish community, Evans' "presence is everywhere" through donated items, Shamdeen said.

Years later, after the refugees have found jobs and moved into their first homes, many remain friends with Evans, inviting him to weddings and family gatherings.

Evans' cellphone rings constantly. A Liberian wants him to come over for sardines and rice. An Iraqi wants him over for a feast of lamb and dolmas.

The satisfaction, Evans said, comes from seeing "the smiles on their faces, the excitement of getting something. That is a thrill for me."

He focuses on his next pickup. This one is a real beauty, he said: "A matching couch and love seat."

Tan Vinh: 206-515-5656 or tvinh@seattletimes.com