Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Are you a nonprofit?  Who owns this store?

         Answer: Hope Nuevo is an IRS registered 501(c)(3) public benefit nonprofit organization approved as of January of 2024.  No one owns the store since a nonprofit's profit is designed to be used solely for the stated mission of the organization as reported to the IRS.

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Question:  Where did the name Hope Nuevo come from?

        Answer: Hope Nuevo (New) is what we believe that all people need to make it in life, especially those who are struggling with food, shelter, finances, and difficult family situations.  We aim to offer people new Hope starting with how we treat them, the essentials that we offer for free and the sincere long term relationships we offer.

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Question: What does Hope Nuevo do for the homeless?

         Answer: We offer all of our homeless visitors/customers a "Friend in Need" program where essentials are stored and shared with them Free upon request.  These items include shirts, pants, shoes, toiletries, hats, adult diapers, ready to eat foods, and clean underwear.  We also offer those who sign up with our program a $25 a month voucher to be used to purchase other essentials sold in the store at a 25% discount.  (See our Community Care Program page for more details)   We also deliver all the above Free items plus blankets and jackets to our local homeless encampments once a month.

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Question:  Do you have paid employees or do you only have volunteers?

         Answer: We are staffed by a paid part-time store manager and some paid interns.  The rest of our staff are volunteers.

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Question: Does your Managers and Directors get paid?

          Answer: Our store manager is a paid part-time staff.  Our managing director (Minette) and program leaders are all volunteers.  (No million dollar CEOs here :) )

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Question: What kind of donations do you accept. Or what do you not accept?

          Answer: In general, we accept all items other than furniture, baby items, large bedding, and intimates (like underwear and PJs) .  We do accept clean blankets, new socks/underwear, toiletries that we reserve for our homeless visitors.

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Question: What do you do with donations you don't sell?

          Answer: We donate about 50% of our clothing and larger items to City Team Ministries for them to distribute for free through their many city wide programs. In fact we do this before they are put out onto the sales floor.  We only discard about 10% of our donations because of their un-sellable condition.

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Question: How do you help the homeless that visit your store?

           Answer: We welcome the homeless at our store by letting them know that we have a number of FREE items that we can share with them as long as they are essentials.  These items include basic clothing, toiletries, water bottles, adult diapers, water/food, socks/underwear, umbrellas, travel bags/suitcases.  We also offer assistance if they wish to consider participation in City Team Ministries Recovery Programs.

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Question: Do you have a fitting room in the store?  Why not?

            Answer: We don't have enough space in our store for a fitting room.  Since we are staff mostly by volunteers, we do not have enough manpower to take care of a fitting room and making sure that it is always safe and clean.

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Question: What is your return policy?

             Answers: All items sold are in AS-IS condition and no returns or exchanges are allowed once you leave the store.  We do make every effort to test all of our electronics and other items before they are sold on the sales floor.

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Question: What kind of volunteers are you looking for?

             Answer: Our number 1 requirement and only requirement for volunteering at our store is the willingness to engage with our homeless visitors and the willingness to be kind to them and help them as with the things we have reserved for them.  We will train volunteers on all other remaining operational work at our store.

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