Goodwill thrives at San Francisco thrift store

By LISA LEFF, Associated Press
Associated Press November 28, 2010 01:37 PM

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/11/28/national/a094415S53.DTL

(11-28) 13:37 PST San Francisco (AP) --

Before Goodwill Industries opened its newest retail outlet here, no one would have argued that San Francisco had a shortage of thrift stores for its avid recyclers and trendy hipsters. What the city did lack was enough jobs for its transgender population, a group with an unemployment rate thought to be twice the California average.

So when a prime piece of commercial real estate languished vacant in the predominantly gay Castro district, activists and city officials saw an opportunity to put a dent in the problem. The result is the nation's first Goodwill, and perhaps the first store of any kind, designed as a jobs program for workers whose genders are different from the ones they had at birth.

Goodwill in the Castro?  Oh god, I'm going to need body armor.

Bad is it tekla?

Oh no, the neighborhood - the first real gayborhood in the US- is, of course, absolutely fabulous.  It's just full of pro shoppers.

I see. Never mind. The middle classes do think they need to keep up with fashion.

Still, it gives the rest of us a laugh.

Fashion in SF tends more anti-fashion, which makes Goodwill (Let's see if I can find five things that the original owners wouldn't wear at all and wear them all together at the same time) a gold mine.