Taryn Chambers just wanted a bed — one that didn’t exist in the back of her SUV and wouldn’t deflate by sunrise, time and time again.

She and her fiancé felt that $20 twin air mattress growing smaller and smaller while she laid there pregnant with their first child. She wanted to stop applying rubberized adhesive day after day to keep the air from hissing out at night, especially after two cans of the stuff still didn’t do the trick. She just wanted it all to stop.

“We’re like: I’m just done with it,” said Chamber’s fiancé, Tyrone, recalling how it felt like they had “no support, no answers.”

But all of that changed with the aid of a certain Walnut Creek nonprofit.

Working with the staff of Trinity Center, the couple found an apartment of their own just weeks before little Giovanni entered the world on Aug. 31. They got a hand in furnishing the place, and then aid in applying for jobs to make sure they could afford the rent — right down to the cash needed to pay for Chambers’ background checks. The organization’s staff even threw a small baby shower to make sure the infant had enough clothes and diapers.

“If you would have asked us, ‘Where do you see yourself in five months from now?’ I honestly could not tell you we would be where we’re at right now,” Tyrone said. “And Trinity Center was a big part of that.”

The organization’s origins date back nearly 25 years, when it was a “pretty ramshackle” outfit called Fresh Start that was operated out of a small, two-bedroom house, according to Pam McGrath, the nonprofit’s associate executive director. The initial goal in those early days was simple: Serve meals and provide basic aid to people experiencing homelessness in the area.

Thirteen years ago, the operation transitioned into the Trinity Center — marking a significant turning point in the nonprofit’s ambitions. The house was eventually bulldozed to make way for its current building, a facility that opened in May 2020 with a bevy of services.

These days, Trinity Center offers job placement assistance, housing help and intensive case management, so that people trying to navigate the morass of paperwork and red tape while applying for benefits don’t get lost in the system. And the results show it’s working.

In just the last 12 months, the nonprofit helped about 130 people find housing, often by assisting them in tracking down open units, paying for application fees and ensuring they have enough money to cover security deposits.

Nearly 20,000 people have walked through the nonprofit’s day center in the last year, where staffers have served about 24,000 meals and distributed about 25,000 articles of clothing. Dozens of its clients have found local jobs with the help of case workers, and nearly 400 people have received health and wellness resources.

“We like to say we provide people a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging,” said Pam McGrath, the nonprofit’s associate executive director. “We want people to really feel connected. We want them to stop feeling isolated and unseen.”

For Taryn and Tyrone, that meant a real chance at a fresh start.

The two met in early 2024 on Instagram and instantly felt like kindred spirits. Taryn had been homeless for nearly two years and living in her Audi sedan, while Tyrone — who had previously experienced homelessness — was working through a rehabilitation program. They chatted online for a couple months, until Taryn offered to meet up with Tyrone after he had a particularly difficult day.

“From that day, we were inseparable,” said Tyrone, 35, who quickly invited her to live with him.

Their lives crumbled again earlier this year, leaving them once again homeless. That’s when they went to Sportsman’s Warehouse and purchased that leaky $20 twin air mattress to jam into the back of their Chevy Equinox.

They bounced around on friends’ couches, and often parked along the banks of the delta in Contra Costa County, not far from where Taryn grew up in Concord. To some, it looked like the couple was simply vacationing outside — pulling out a small propane stove to make meals, while Tyrone even tried his hand at fishing in the delta’s waters. Yet it felt like a camping trip they could never escape.

As Taryn, 30, neared the due date for their first child, they became increasingly desperate for shelter. They lost count of how many organizations they contacted for help, only to discover a hard-to-navigate bureaucratic maze.

“I had given up any motivation to work with programs,” Tyrone said.

A final, desperate online search turned up the nonprofit’s address, and led them to the organization’s front doors. Almost immediately, their lives changed for the better.

Abby Shamelashvili remembers racing to get them sheltered before the couple’s baby arrived. A case manager for the nonprofit for the last year, Shamelashvili first helped them get the basics: meals, showers and some new clothes. Then she and her colleagues started helping them gussy up résumés and to find new jobs — a particular challenge for Tyrone, given that he had a felony firearm charge on his record.

Finally, she helped them find an apartment. Trinity Center paid for their application fee, then coordinated with another entity to help the couple ensure they could pay for their storage unit. Then Trinity Center covered the couple’s pricey security deposit, paving the way for them to finally stop living inside that SUV.

“They were worried that she was going to have to give birth in this car,” Shamelashvili said. “I was trying everything I possibly could to make sure that didn’t happen. And when we finally got everything into place and they moved in, it was great.”

For Taryn and Tyrone, the assistance felt life-saving. Taryn is training to be a sterile processing technician at Kaiser Permanente, and she’s working on being reunited with her four children from a previous relationship. Tyrone also now has a job as a carpenter, and a fresh chance to be a role model for his new son.

“Trinity Center — that was our blessing, that was our light at the end of the tunnel,” Tyrone said. “They gave us hope.”