71-54 Austin St. (Google Maps)
Sept. 12, 2018 By Tara Law
Housing Works will open for a new thrift store on Austin Street— the nonprofit’s first in Queens— on Sept. 29.
The store, which will be located at 71-54 Austin St. will offer men’s and women’s clothing and accessories, home goods, books and art. Proceeds from the thrift shop will go towards the New York City-based nonprofit’s charitable and advocacy work combating HIV/AIDs and homelessness.
Housing Works’ work includes the operation of five health centers and 250 supportive housing units, as well as providing outpatient drug treatment services and job training, according to GuideStar.
The Austin Street location will be Housing Works’ 14th thrift shop; the nonprofit also operates 11 locations in Manhattan and two in Brooklyn.
Housing Works spokesperson Katherine Oakes said that each Housing Works offers a unique, curated selection of merchandise.
“The difference from shop to shop is the community that surrounds them as they thrive off donations from members of each neighborhood,” Oakes said.
“We’re thrilled we can introduce Forest Hills to our beloved Thrift Shops, it has been a long time coming but we’re excited to finally have a shop in Queens!” said Cheryl Grimm, Vice President of Thrift Retail
The thrift store will be open from Monday to Saturday 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Donations will be accepted during business hours.
For more information about the donated items Housing Works does and does not accept, visit the link.
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13 Comments
Negative comments must come from people who either never donate anything or just donate garbage. Many of us donate good quality and expensive items.
Pretty sad what’s happening to Austin Street. There’s too many variety stores and so called ice cream shops. We should have better high quality shops and diversed restaurants.
Welcome to the hood! This is what the community has become tbh. They give you all this randomness, then slap “diversity” on it when it’s really chaos and confusion!
Not good.
Awesome. What’s wrong with a thrift shop? There will be nice furniture most likely with the proximity to Forest Hills Gardens.
I’ll take a thrift shop any day over another 99c store or shaved ice shop.
This is great news!!
I’ve been donating to Housing Works for years. First the SOHO store and now on Chambers Street and have bought many things from there. Don’t judge until you have seen what they have. I have seen sets of china that were beautiful. At least it’s not another “kosher”/Russian garbage catering place. Give it a chance people.
We are going from upscale, expensive shops on Austin st, to thrift shops?
Better thrift shops than those disgusting, despicable fur hag and leather boutiques that sell dead animals!
The ‘factory store’ branches on Austin Street are not upscale by any means and Housing Works is a socially-conscious store that is often frequented by hipsters and others with an affinity for quality vintage products. This is a welcome improvement to the store quality IMHO. I don’t shop anywhere on Austin Street currently for clothing and home goods. Looking forward to this opening! If you’re uncertain, check out the existing locations in Manhattan like UES and MSP.
Don’t bother trying to convince them, FoHi. It’s no surprise that the majority of people commenting here have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. Par for the course in the comments for every neighborhood this site covers.
When I lived in F H. On Austin st. Had a lot of great stores. Nothing wrong with a thrift store helping other people have nice items in thrift stores
God forbid we help people in need. Read the mission statement of Housing Works and stop being shallow and upper crust.