Complaint Review: Community Hospice Thrift Store Beach Blvd

I have worked with an organizaiton called Community Hospice for a long time.  My mother's sister was placed there following a pro longed illness and while the Hospice side of things is exceptional, the care, outstanding and the love and atteniton to detail simply wonderful, their Thrift Stores are not.

After her passing, I decided to donate my aunt's belongings to Hospice in shifts.  Pretty much, room by room, being careful to remove the personal items family members would like to have.  The gentlemen picking up the merchandize were wonderul, kind, gentle hearted with the same attitudes I saw reflected at the Hadlow facility during my aunt's stay there.  It was a pleasure working with them.

I began to notice something after the first donation of living room furniture which caught my eye.  I had neglected to provide the hardware needed for one of the cabinets so wthin a couple of hours of the pickup at my aunt's house, I was at the Beach Blvd facility thrift store.  I walked in the front door and a man in his early 40's came up and asked me about the cabinet in question.  He stated it would be pretty difficult to find it if it has already been unloaded and placed into storage.  I provided a picture of the cabinet and left leaving the hardware.

Time and time again, I showed up at Hospice, thumbing through their items and dropping off addtional things from my aunt's house.  

To make a long story short Community Hospice is not selilng nor giving away 90% of the goods being donated.  They are stock piled at the back end of the main buidling there and they are so over crowded with donated furniture, Community Hospice will have to get another facility.  Thisi is insane.  The prices they charge for the handful of items they put out on the floor is ridiculously over priced as a thrift store should be helping to provide to the community and those needing help as well. There is no way the average lower income family could afford most ot their furniture products.  So, only people fairly well off, can shop the furniture there.

Oh, they have unannouced sales and 50% off days, but 50% off of something that cost you nothing to begin with should be the norm.  Instead the Manager there just tells the staff to charge so much for this item and so much for that one.  Several items there actually cost more than brand new in the stores.  Community Hospice has nothing on BJ's and Sam's.

After finding out from the volunteers that the store is almost completely run by our retired elderly living on social security, (with only a handful of actual paid employees) despite the need of the volunteers to have additional income....many of whom cannot afford to purchase the items there themselves.... I was shocked and appauled.

Eventually, I wandered into the back on my own.  I was equally appauled at the tens of thousands of square feet of donated furniture and other goods back there.  I believe the storage facility is over 70K sq feet and the volunteers said they are looking to get another space for more storage.

Excuse me but, What the Hell?

The cost of Hospice is through the roof, yet they are stockpiling millions of dollars worth of inventory and selling what little is out on the floor for high prices when the purpose of both of the Thrift Stores was to make money for hospice to offset the expenses of patients who cannot afford the cost of the care.

I feel cheated, exposed and ripped off.  All those wonderful volunteers are being cheated top.  Pay these people!!!  Make life better for everyone, not just the corporation.  The millions of dollars made by hospice thrift stores to offset expenses is being pocketed and wasted and the organization is not living up to the its own mission statement.

Besides that, there are dozens of truly resourceful agencies out there that are contributing to the needy and would go crazy to get some of hospice overflow so they can provide for the needy in our community for sure.  Instead, Hospice is stock piling it, and we must keep in mind that people die everyday and their estates distributed to the family, for donation or for sale.  There will never be a lack of items for sale.  So what is the purpose of these decisions?  I don't know, but it is wrong.

I will never again give to Community Hospice Thrift Stores because they are greedy and not living up to the standards they established in their own mission statements.  Shame on you, Community Hospice....all your good has been wiped out by the horrible actions and decisions being made by your leadership.