{"id":411026,"date":"2026-07-24T18:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T18:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411026\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T18:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T18:08:08","slug":"san-jose-councilmember-urges-residents-to-report-illegitimate-donation-bins-the-press-democrat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411026\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose councilmember urges residents to report illegitimate donation bins \u2013 The Press Democrat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you ever see all those big donation bins seeking used clothes and household items sitting in parking lots across San Jose?\u00a0 They are likely collecting donations illegally<\/a><\/p>\n

Goodwill of Silicon Valley has raised the alarm over roughly 300 \u201crogue\u201d donation bins across the city. The organization warns these unpermitted boxes siphon revenue away from legitimate nonprofits \u2013 such as Goodwill, the Salvation Army, and other local charities \u2013 that rely on those funds to support the community\u2019s most vulnerable residents.<\/p>\n

The bins often sit in commercial parking lots without clear information about who operates them, where donations end up, or who actually benefits.<\/p>\n

Councilmember Michael Mulcahy is asking the public to help spot and report them to his office so the city can remove them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started seeing a series of these green bins going up in the district I represent,\u201d said Mulcahy, the District 6 representative whose area includes Rose Garden, Delmas, College Park, and parts of Willow Glen. \u201cWe really understood the impact \u2013 these sham businesses operate without any approval, permit, or often permission from the property owners. We want to tackle how to get rid of these because they\u2019re taking revenues away from organizations that use the resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Jose required permits for donation bins over a decade ago, charging a $509 fee, and capped the total number of allowed bins at 18. Yet, the city has issued only two permits so far since 2013 \u2013 and it\u2019s unclear if those bins are still in operation, according to city officials. This means most, if not all, of the bins in the city are collecting donations illegally.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s happening as well is that for-profits are putting these donation bins there and they\u2019re not being transparent,\u201d said Christopher Baker, Goodwill of Silicon Valley CEO. \u201cThey do a great job of branding, but the reality of it is very little of what gets donated goes back to charities that are noted on those bins.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nonprofit organization has been operating in Santa Clara and San Benito counties since 1928. Goodwill does not use drop-off bins, instead accepting donations in stores. The organization says this approach keeps usable goods out of landfills and funds workforce development programs that benefit hundreds of local residents each year \u2013 including veterans, formerly incarcerated individuals, unhoused people, and individuals with developmental disabilities.<\/p>\n

Baker noted that 86 cents of every dollar in sales goes directly back into those programs.<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s no official report on exactly how much revenue operators earn from donation boxes, Mulcahy says \u201cwe\u2019re not talking about a little bit of dough here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking millions of dollars in value getting taken away from local nonprofits that would otherwise be invested back into the things that Salvation Army and Goodwill, and others like them do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Unauthorized donation bins and the lack of operator transparency have been long-running issues in San Jose. In 2013, city leaders began requiring operators to secure permits for donation boxes. Two years later, former District 6 Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio also called for a crackdown on illegal bins.<\/p>\n

More than a decade later, little seems to have changed. Part of the problem, Mulcahy said, is that many of the boxes offer almost no information about who is behind them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are protected by layers and layers, and we have not been able to get to the bottom of it,\u201d Mulcahy said.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s encouraging the public to reach out to his office to report these bins at District6@sanjoseca.gov.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re asking the public to do is to let us know where these bins are,\u201d the councilmember said. \u201cSend a photo and address, because we want to start developing an inventory beyond our own district so that we can really get the city to act and get these off the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baker recognizes the limitations of local government resources, but hopes to work with authorities in pushing for full transparency on the bins, which he says are a problem across the country, \u201cso that well-meaning donors can actually understand where their donations are going.\u201d<\/p>\n

To those donating, he encouraged them to choose a transparent local nonprofit \u201cthat serves its neighbors, and responsibly handles anything it can sell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you ever see all those big donation bins seeking used clothes and household items sitting in parking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[7,8,100,88,90,89],"class_list":["post-411026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-news","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}