The curved sectional out back came from Cardi’s Furniture. So did the chest of drawers and the table near the front door.

“Cardi’s keeps our doors open,” says Mary Landreville.

And if the rest of the state worked as Cardi’s does — if people saw the simple, common sense appeal of putting unneeded or surplus goods back in circulation — then the Rhode Island Donation Exchange Program would be spilling over with goods moving from those who don’t need them to those who do.

But back around the beginning of this year, Landreville and the rest of the people who work at this place of renewed resources started noticing a change. They started seeing fewer individual donations.

“The first round of subprime foreclosures was in the fall of 2007,” says Roz Rustigian, a member of the Donation Exchange board. “It’s cause and effect, the relationship between the housing market debacle and the flow of merchandise. There’s a lot of furniture that could be here that has been locked up and left. We’ve got more clients and less furniture.”

The bad news is compounded. People who lose their homes sometimes leave everything behind — the house and the furniture inside it. Other people, who have places to live but little or nothing to put in them, could use that furniture but won’t find it when they walk the aisles of the Donation Exchange, on River Avenue in Providence.

“And I can’t imagine what this winter is going to be like,” says Landreville, who has been executive director for 4 ½ years.

The Donation Exchange is a place and an idea that makes the simplest of connections. It has 85 member social-service agencies. The agencies refer low-income clients for whom a couch, a table and chairs and a set of dishes might be all that’s needed to provide a sense of home.

There are 30 to 35 new clients coming in every week.

The used or surplus furniture is sold at nominal cost. Sometimes, circumstances dictate that there be no cost at all or the cost be sharply reduced. A victim of domestic violence desperately trying to put a life back together, a woman just out of rehab who needs furniture to get her children back — the situation dictates the terms. Sometimes, there’ll be a call from Family Court. Beds are needed, a crib, to put kids and parent in a livable place. The fees are waived.

For those who do pay, a studio apartment can be furnished for as little as $125.

As part of its clothing bank, the Exchange runs Project Under Cover with the Girl Scouts of Rhode Island. It’s a statewide clothing drive to collect new undergarments for needy children. It runs Project Cover-up to provide coats for kids.

Sometimes, it goes on the road in Rhode Island, setting up in church parking lots.

It’s so darn easy to make it work. People who have good usable stuff can just call the Exchange at 831-5511. The Exchange picks up and delivers. It spent $18,000 on gas last year.

That stuff with the sentimental value gathering dust in the basement or garage? Forget the sentiment and free up some space. And feel really, really good about doing it.

“Look at what you have,” says Rustigian. “We need critical mass. We need things.”

Just a few yards from the back door of the Exchange, there’s a house that used to be vacant. It has been renovated and turned into transitional housing for veterans. It’s something Landreville says she always wanted to do.

The house has no official connection to the Donation Exchange. It just seems to fit so nicely with the spirit of the place.

bkerr@projo.com