Steve Sacre used to be homeless. Now he points to all of the furnishings in his new apartment.

He shows off correspondence from people he does not know but are helping him transition from the streets to the first home he has had since he was 17.

“This is unbelievable what I’ve been given,” he says. “Look at the furniture, the glasses, the kitchen table, and there are more pots and pans in these drawers than I can ever use. It’s a perfect kitchen and I can’t even cook.”

Sacre, 62, moved into his apartment on Oct. 30.

He had joined the Army at 17. He was in the military for nearly six years, and after leaving the service he spent 32 years in prisons for various crimes.

 When not incarcerated, he lived under bushes, on friends’ couches and in homeless shelters. Through the efforts of two medical and disabilities workers in Albany, he now has his own place to live.

A story about Sacre appeared in the

Democrat-Herald on Nov. 3. Since then, Vietnam veterans, organizations, foundations and others — many from out of state — have contacted Sacre and the newspaper with offers of help and understanding.

He has received dishes, two queen beds, a loveseat and a couch, and a framed lion done in needlepoint.

Inside an envelope sent to the newspaper were a note for Sacre and two $20 bills.

A reporter hands him the envelope. “Ah,” he says, “razor blades. And $20 will buy me a round trip bus ticket up to see Mom in Salem.”

A woman in Arizona invited Sacre for Thanksgiving dinner.

He already has a turkey in his freezer, and he plans to have a few people over that day, including friends who live at the Albany Helping Hands homeless shelter.

Also in the freezer: five quarts of ice cream to serve. He loves ice cream.

Sacre says a former Albany police officer, a Vietnam veteran, met him for coffee, took him to a doctor’s appointment and paid for six months worth of cable television.

Sacre is grateful.

“I never figured I’d own this much stuff,” he says. “There’s more here than I’ve had in my whole life, except when I was growing up.”

Sacre keeps his apartment neat and all of his belongings are in perfect order.

“When you’ve lived in a cell for 32 years, you learn to keep things straightened up.”

To remind him of the life he once led and why he never wants to fall back into it, he keeps a camp stool in the living room. “It’s the only piece of furniture I had at one time.”

For the first time in years he feels better physically because he does not have to scrounge for a place to stay or worry about what he is going to eat.

“I’m home,” he says. “This is where I’ll live and die.”