At this Colorado furniture boutique, shoppers receive bargains while workers get a second chance
DENVER — After years of experiencing substance abuse, homelessness and jail, Wiley Goodman was asked to interview with yet another program that said it could help him.
But this program felt different.
Lola Strong, the managing director of The Other Side Academy, told Goodman things about himself that were difficult to hear. “Things my own family had never said to me,” Goodman recalled, “you can’t fool a bunch of former convicts and drug addicts, you just can't."
That is when Goodman knew, it was time to make a change.
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The Other Side Academy
Former convicts and people in recovery operate The Other Side Academy, a training school near Denver’s City Park where students learn social, vocational and life skills to emerge “on the other side.”
The academy is modeled after a program that saved Strong’s life.
“I struggled with addiction for over 20 years,” Strong said. “I was a heroin addict for 20 years. I’ve been to prison four times.” Strong knows what it takes to break that cycle, and by running her nonprofit she hopes to do the same for others.
There are two ways of entering the program: someone can write a letter from prison or they can simply walk up to the academy’s building at 1859 York St. in Denver.
“The lights are always on,” Strong said.
After a rigorous interview, The Other Side's staff decides whether to offer prospective students admittance. People who have a successful interview can start that very day. Students commit to at least 30 months of training in exchange for free food, housing and toiletries.
The Academy has the capacity for up to 70 students. The students are told to arrive without possessions. That way, Strong explained, everyone has an equal starting point.
The Other Side Academy accepts people who are 18 years old and older. Strong said they do not accept sex offenders, arsonists or anyone experiencing severe mental illness who is taking psychotropic prescriptions.
"We don’t have doctors or therapists here; we believe those three areas require a little bit more than we’re able to offer,” Strong added.
The mansion where the students live is impeccably maintained. Students also run the commercial kitchen on the property that feeds both staff and students, all of it is privately funded.
“We don’t accept any government funding,” Strong continued. “The way we do it is, we own and operate our own vocational enterprises and the students will work there and any money that’s generated is the money that’s used to cover our operational expenses.”
Furniture Boutique
The Other Side Academy started as a moving company.
“For a while, these men were going out on the move and were getting donations from people,” said Strong. “You’d have a perfectly good table that you didn’t want anymore, and you’d say, ‘I don’t want to take this to my new home, would you like it?’”
Strong’s organization started selling those pieces in yard sales and quickly realized they had enough inventory to start a boutique. The Other Side Furniture Boutique is located at 4400 Wynkoop St.
Stores like West Elm started donating pieces that people returned or they did not want in their showroom anymore. Pieces from Restoration Hardware are available, too.
If the pieces need a touch up, students of the academy fix them up and post them online to their Facebook Marketplace account and their website.
This self-sustained model gets people great bargains on high end furniture pieces and is giving students a second chance at life.
“We don’t just get people clean and sober,” said Strong. “We’re about whole-person change.”
Sonia Gutierrez is a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach her at soniagutierrez@rmpbs.org.
