A Long And Bumpy Road

Macy DeLong, who used to work in Harvard's Bio Labs, now runs the Cambridge Furniture bank. From Harvard to homelessness to being a helping hand, DeLong has traveled...

After a two-year struggle with mental illness and homelessness, Macy DeLong, a former employee for almost 20 years in Harvard's biology department, says she has regained control over her life and is now committed to aiding other homeless individuals.

For the past five years, DeLong has operated the Cambridge Furniture Bank, a Central Square based agency which repairs used furniture and gives it to homeless families moving off of the streets.

Beginning in 1972, DeLong worked for Harvard's biology department, rising from a laboratory technician to a senior research associate. She says she uninitiated the creation of a bio safety office to monitor the procedures for work with live organisms.

Charles J. Ciotti, director of administration for the biological labs, says DeLong was a strong, dedicated worker.

"She was a force," he says. "If anyone needed help she would be there. She really wants to do good for people."

However, DeLong says her life took a sudden turn in 1986 when she was diagnosed as manic depressive and began to suffer cycles of hypo mania and severe depression.

Unable to continue at the biology lab, she says she took a leave of absence during which her condition worsened. Her marriage fell apart and she moved out of her house, she says.

"I went from fully-functioning to losing control in four weeks," she says. "I lived in the graveyard at Harvard Square and in the back of my car."

She says at one point she attempted suicide by swallowing cyanide.

DeLong says her co-workers in the biology department were very supportive and concerned with her deteriorating condition. "The chairmen watched someone they cared about fall apart mentally," she says.

"I still had my key and I.D. when I was on leave," she says. "I used the showers there when I was homeless."

She went to University Health Services for treatment, but says she was disappointed with the care she received there, until they recommended a non- Harvard therapist who helped her overcome her problems.

DeLong says she has not suffered another incident of depression since that episode.

While she was living on the streets in Harvard Square, DeLong says she found support and comfort from other homeless people.

DeLong says it was an unpleasant stay at a Boston homeless shelter that instigated her political awareness of the plight of the homeless.

"I hated their condescending attitude," DeLong says. "It gave me the first glimpse that I was still a human being--upset at not being treated as an equal."

She says the incident gave her "a healthy dose of reality" and motivated her to "use my skills for getting things started that I learned at Harvard."

She used these skills to help found Bread & Jams, an organization that serves meals on the Cambridge Commons and provides transportation to shelters at night.

DeLong says the organization where she presently works, the Cambridge Furniture Bank, serves 800 households a year and provides stable and temporary employment to 65 people.

"We provide for people moving from homelessness to housing," she says.

DeLong says she is also the executive director of Solutions, the agency which runs the Furniture Bank, as well a group that provides moving aids for the disabled and a children's clothing exchange.

She says Solutions and the Furniture Bank are run mainly by individuals who are either homeless or formerly homeless, "developing and implementing their own solutions."

DeLong says many of the clients give back their time to the Bank after receiving furniture. "Then they move on to the next step of their lives," she says.

She says the Bank's greatest difficulty is maintaining funds and paying its own employees decent wages. She says the budget for last year was only $32,000.

"We need money desperately," she says, "and we definitely need furniture. I have had to cash in my retirement and savings to keep the bank going."

Macy says Harvard students have worked with the Bank in various capacities over recent years.

For the past two years, Harvard's First year Urban Program (FUP) and the Alternative Spring Break Program have contributed time to the Bank. DeLong says that Harvard's 5th and 25th year reunion classes will also work at the Bank this year.

FUP leader Ilana S. Ruskay '94, who worked at the Bank this fall, says she was impressed with both DeLong and her work.

"She's amazing a remarkable human being, committed to helping others," Ruskay says. "She has a tremendous amount of vision."

DeLong says Solutions believes in getting volunteers to work alongside the homeless.

"We're trying to get people to understand the importance of working with the homeless instead of doing something for them," she says.

DeLong says she is trying to work out a system with the superintendents of Harvard's undergraduate houses to pick up any unwanted furniture left by departing students.

"We hope to staff a room in the houses where we can screen the furniture and take whatever is in good shape," she says.

However, DeLong says she does not think she will go back to working at Harvard.

"Once I walked out of the Ivory tower and saw what was going on. I realized what a breakdown there is in the community, she says. "Once you are homeless, it is always a part of you."

She says Harvard taught her how to "step into a vacuum" and take charge of an unstructured situation.

"At Harvard no one ever said to me, 'you're just a technician," she says. "Everyone treated me as a person who could do things with her hands and her mind.

DeLong says working at Harvard gave her an "intellectual support framework" which helped her to maintain her strength and assertiveness.

"I learned that if you stand in front of a door, it will open for you," she says.