Posted on 08/04/2009 6:42:30 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
'Cash for Clunkers' takes toll on local charities
SAN DIEGO - The parking lot used by Father Joe Carroll's car donation program used to be filled with nearly 1,000 aging vehicles. Now it is almost empty.
"I feel good for the dealerships making money, but I feel miserable that it will affect my help with the poor," Father Joe said.
While many dealerships are thriving thanks to the Cash for Clunkers program, several local charities are taking a hit, because they rely on donated old cars to raise money for their services.
"About 20 to 25 percent of our funding actually comes from our sales of donated cars," Father Joe said.
Car donations also make up between 5 to 8 percent of the funding for Jewish Family Services, spokeswoman Jill Spitzer said. If clunkers stop rolling in, the group will have to slash programs, she said.
"The concerns are that people who might have ordinarily have donated the car will not," Spitzer said. "If people don't donate to us, that means it puts us in a position to not serve as many people that need our help."
Father Joe has the same worry. His charity helps more than 3,200 people a day in downtown San Diego. He can offer donors a tax write-off, but many people are opting for cash for their clunkers instead.
"There's no way to make up for it, because the state's cutting back, the county's cutting back and the city's cutting back," he said.
Cash for Clunkers launched right before his peak donation season, Father Joe said. He wishes Congress and the White House had considered charities when devising the program.
"To me, the idea would have been donate your car to a charity, get a $4,000 write-off, then go spend it," Father Joe said.
(Excerpt) Read more at fox5sandiego.com ...
OTOH, maybe they are just idiots who cant understand the Law of Unintended Consequences.
In my experience, it’s too abstract for the liberal mind.
Wouldn’t surprise me one bit, either.
Obama hates poor people.
That is Zero’s position. The state exists to provide everyone with all the services they need - and any nongovernmental organization is redundant at best and subversive at worst.
Well the average is 100.00 per car if you have a service to pick them up.It’s 500.00 if you want to sell it yourself.Also clunkers wants up to date info which most donated cars don’t have and are not running.God bless Father.
My thought exactly!
When our daughter finally moved on to a different vehicle, my wife and I donated her 3 cylinder, automatic 1994 Geo “Ghetto” Metro to “Cars for Kids” who came and got the vehicle, gave us a generous receipt for the value of the car, then took it away, overhauled it, and put it back on the road after some other person bought it again.
A lot of potential donation are on the way to the shredder, not to mention affordable cars to help some other kid learn how to drive in.
They said on the radio that two major car dealerships here have stopped the cash4clunkers deal because they just simply dont trust the government to come thru with the rebate cash.
that’s always been a goal of the left—
remove private and church giving.
giving should be by the feds. /s
No no no Father, you don't get it. The real reason for this was to get gas guzzlers off the road, permanently, not just sell new cars for old. Can't have them driving around spewing fumes even by poor people. Better to let them ride mass transit, or walk.
Gotta get green, padre.
This is the most anti-charity administration ever.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.