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just 2 people
What does this mean?
If every church houses two homeless people, no more homeless people.
Assuming the distribution is the same for both
Maybe OP believes every town in the US has exactly 1 church and 2 homeless people and is mildly infuriated that the church doesn’t allow the 2 homeless people to live there?
I think OP believes every town in the US has twice as many homeless people as churches, it doesnt need to be exactly 1 church and 2 homeless people.
But either way, that’s probably not true. Since homeless people tend to be in larger cities.
But then again, lots of people become homless in the suburbs and then move to the city to get the social services. If churches in the suburbs housed a few people as they become homeless, it would probably help. It’s better to keep people in their communities so they have a better chance of returning to housefullness.
But probably not that much, since homelessness rates are strongly correlated with housing prices, so expensive cities create more homelessness than cheap suburbs.
Not sure why you’d think OP is saying 1 church per town. Just that there are ~380k churches in the United States, and less than twice as many homeless people.
I agree, far too many people are left out in the cold at night when we have many public, climate-controlled buildings with working bathrooms and possibly even showers that are empty after a certain hour. If the homeless were able to regularly get a good night’s sleep and a shower in, they might be more able to hold down jobs and become contributing members of society again.
Schools certainly would be great as a shelter after hours, most have gyms with showers, possibly laundry machines, and certainly ample space for someone to sleep with a sleeping bag. If we could just figure out a way to make sure everything stays clean for students to use the next day, no left-behind drugs, no vandalism, etc. that could be a wonderful solution.
My guess is that in most places the homeless population would easily fit within the gymnasium alone.
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They’re implying that there are two homeless people for every church and that every church should house two homeless people to solve homelessness. Not agreeing with OP, just trying to answer your question.
and that every church should house two homeless people
Not even directly house. Even helping support those 2 people would go a long way toward demonstrating that churches actually do some good.
I’m also confused by what the image itself is trying to say
There’s only two more homeless people than churches in the United States. If we make every homeless person into a church, we can also have more churches.
That rate of homelessness seems like a wild underestimate. However, I don’t know much about the southern united states other than that they basically export the homelessness they create to other states through bussing programs. So this number might be better calculated considering both the spatial distribution of homelessness and the spatial distribution of churches. With out knowing where the churches are and where the homeless are, the number is a bit beguiling. That being said, it does seem that its the areas with lots of churches that create the conditions for homelessness, and then those areas export the problem they create to other areas (rural red states have been bussing the homeless and other ‘undesirables’ to metro areas of blue states for decades, rather than fund and operate local solutions).
That being said, it does seem that its the areas with lots of churches that create the conditions for homelessness
Huh? Is this like a red state/blue state thing, or do you have something to indicate that towns with more churches generate more homeless? It doesn’t really make sense to me because homelessness is tied to housing prices, and cities are where housing is more expensive, and the ratio of church to population is probably a lot lower in cities.
It’s a red state blue state thing.
Red states (rural areas) deal with homelessness by buying the homeless bus tickets and sending them to metropolitan areas within blue states. Basically, red states create issues with homelessness because of their social policies, then externalize the consequences of those policies. This has been the case for decades. Before 2010 this was almost exclusively a red state issue. They would buy a homeless person a bus ticket to CA or NY and that was that. However, more recently some blue cities like Portland are trying the same strategy.
I thought this was common knowledge around homelessness in the US, that it was a blue state problem caused by red states.
Well it can’t be exclusively caused by red states, but I see what you mean. I’m just not a fan of the implication that churches have something to do with it.
Bruh who the duck do you think is buying the tickets.
It’s not an implication, it’s an direct consequence.
Churches are a toxic venom in the vein of society, this kind of exclusionary behavior is precisely why the exist.
You conflate Christianity with Republicanism. Please do not act like churches are the mastermind behind politicians who use vaguely church-scented branding to try to pander to Christians while acting against many of the principles laid out in the Bible.
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You’re reaching
My home town had four churches and no homeless people. What homeless people are those churches supposed to help?
Meanwhile, in the city I now live in, there’s tons of churches and half of them give free food to the homeless every single day, and there’s lines going around the block at all of them.
There is no magic bullet that can solve homelessness. Anything proposed must be a part of a larger solution. There are tons of proposals that, if actually done and not half-assed, would help immensely.
I do not understand these downvotes. Like how dare you see churches that actually help the poor like they’re supposed to?
Those churches might have already helped. I’m no fan of religion for it’s various stupidities, but I am a fan of organized good will.
One per church?
They’re not spread out like churches though. Here, it might work, we have an insane # of churches per capita and a lot of homeless, but what about LA? No way there are as many churches as homeless there. Same with houses, as someone suggests upthread. There are few vacant spaces here and many who need homes but in any state beginning with the letter I maybe there are thousands of homes and few homeless because they would freeze to death in the winter.
ITT: People who don’t know homeless people can catch a ride to a different town like anyone else.
I mean, I don’t actually think in churches is the right idea, but that’s a nitpick, not a gotcha.
I hate the idea of treating homeless like babies. Most of these people got to where they are by choices. If they wanted to stay at the church they probably can. Most churches I know have cots for people down and out. If these people wanted to stay at the church they would have.
You have no clue wtf you’re talking about
Ever lived near a significant homeless population?
some homeless people got there by making bad choices.
But, you know what I’ll say it, making a few bad choices shouldn’t convict you to a life on the street and being treated as subhuman by people around you
I agree.
But you also can’t help someone unless they want to be helped. There are people out there who will take every advantage of any resources available while making absolutely no effort to change the pattern of behavior that led them there.
Motherfucker, I’ve been homeless a lot in my life and I live/work downtown, surrounded by all types of homeless.
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I can’t even imagine someone being this tone-deaf, and yet, here we are.
A good friend of mine had the audacity to develop a chronic health condition in America. He should’ve known better.
It was cancer.
Want to know how I became homeless? I turned 18, and my parents said, “Alright have a nice life, you’re 18 now don’t be home when I get back.” After 18 years of teaching me zero life skills. Took me until my late 20s to find stability, meanwhile being constantly harassed by police for looking for a place to rest between time at school and work.
And before you go to the obvious speculation that lazy commenters always do. I didn’t and don’t drink alcohol, don’t do drugs, spent all of my time building computers. My parents just didn’t like having to spend money on someone that wasn’t them. I was always in advanced classes in school and most always was a solid B student even with zero home support. If it wasn’t for me winning the genetic lottery with my mind, I’d likely be dead or in prison like most of my childhood friends.
But you know, this is an anecdote and has no value in the vast scheme of things. Data driven results are all that matter, and yet, they still disagree with your lazy assessment that people are the source of their own situation. Believe it or not, these questions have been asked and answered, yet you remain unaware of them. The safety and support systems in the society you live in dictate homelessness, and I can tell you first hand, we have none in my country.
But that’s all the energy I can send to you, its not useful trying to teach chess to a pigeon, at the end of the day you’re going to spread your shit around and knock over the board anyway (a summary of your comments in this thread).
Hope you open your eyes and your mind some day.
Footnote, if anyone cares about the ending to the homeless part of my story, I became a home owner in my 30s after living in rented rooms with Craigslist randoms for about a decade. Interesting times, most people are great.
Mic drop.
TLDR.
I need 21 words max. I’m kidding I read your pointless rant and I have only 1 observation. You are either stretching the truth or you are a liar. Take care my homeless friend.
Sometimes I feed the trolls.
Hope your belly is full.
But my story is what I said it was.
Pigeons do what pigeons do.No one reading this thread is surprised that 21 words is the limit of your cognition. I sincerely believe that you are doing your best.
A lot of them have severe mental health issues
If churches are going to be a tax free non-profit, we need to see ‘services done’ at roughly a similar order of magnitude as their receipts would allow. And no, a couple of cots is not the answer. Perhaps a small apartment building with 8 units that the church owns and operates, and provides permanent residency for a small local population of the unhoused.
Other wise I think they church should be disbanded and its organizers held liable for tax fraud.
Well I don’t think you should go trying to disband someone’s religion. In my area Churches usually donate people and money to organizations that help the homeless. I’ve worked in the soup kitchens serving hundreds
I mean if they’ve got the receipts of how the money is spent like any other non-profit has to provide, I have no issue with it. If they can’t provide the receipts, that’s a for-profit institution, and should be taxed as such.
By definition of non profit they should not be making profit
If I run a 501-3c (and I have), I have to provide what amounts to a complete budget of where my organizations income came from, where it went to, and how much was spent on things like overhead, office expenses, executive pay, travel, etc. My board is responsible for me getting those numbers right, otherwise we run afoul of the IRS.
Churches are not held to the same standard. A church is effectively granted tax free status on its receipts (income) and is not required to provide any charitable services as a product of those receipts. They are fundamentally different legal entities, however, I’m arguing that they shouldn’t be, and that churches and “faith based” institutions should be held to the same standards as any other charitable organization under the 501c3 definition of a non-profit.
If your church or faith based organization doesn’t exist to provide a charitable mission, then it shouldn’t be free from taxation (or it should not exist).
Churches don’t make money. That wouldn’t make any sense unless someone is embezzling
Are you serious?? Like, honest to goodnesses, are you serious?
