Most homeless are in the big cities, most churches are out in the boonies. The homeless are very unlikely to accept being bussed to a flyover state to sleep in a church in bumfuck nowhere. For a myriad of reasons.
Keep in mind also that a lot of them have a very hard time accepting any help due to past trauma as well.
It’s not a situation with a quick fix. Really the first step isn’t even ensuring housing for the homeless, it’s making sure we don’t get more homeless. We likely can’t save a subset of today’s homeless because they don’t want/or won’t accept any help that comes with any strings (like no drugs or just they can’t trash the place). But we can ensure no-one else ends up on the streets by beefing up mental healthcare and social services.
spujb@lemmy.cafe 1 year ago
This is an silly post with silly implications, even though I appreciate its rhetorical goals
The really c/mildlyinfuriating fact is there are more empty homes in the US than homeless.
You don’t even need to involve churches. You need to hold individuals and businesses who hoard real estate for profit accountable.
I appreciate the background sentiment of this post, but check your predetermined biases before you use the text of this meme to inform your opinion on policy.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I don’t follow what’s silly here. These motherfuckers are not taxed and also not obligated to give back and that should matter. Tax them, would be the obvious solution
spujb@lemmy.cafe 1 year ago
If all churches were to be taxed, the estimated new income would be a paltry $2.4 billion yearly. src
If you have an “obvious solution” to homelessness that can be accomplished with $2.4 billion, please do enlighten us. Otherwise you might want to get comfortable with that “silly” label. 👍
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 1 year ago
Yeah the moral bit is we know people who hold housing for profit are douches. Churches are worse because they think they’re doing the Lord’s work and love talking about caring for people, but very few actually do any good.
rwhitisissle@lemmy.world 1 year ago
There are plenty of valid complaints about (many) American religious institutions, but the constant shoe-horning in of complaints about religion in unrelated posts comes across as bitter and myopic.
melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee 1 year ago
A lot of us have been victims of the church(hi); its leaves a bloody trench in its wake.
or tried our hand at activism and been smacked down by religious groups for doing the shit they espouse on paper (not strongly me, in any way I care about) and are understandably bitter.
And it hits harder, because most people grew up hearing these are the paragons of moral virtue, and then then pull this shit.
Plus they won’t shut up and get a ton of special treatment, but almost never use it for good (notice nobody’s talking shit about Harriet Tubman, john brown, or the quakers. Diggers levellers anabaptists, too, not even the ULC or church of Satan). Makes a hell of a target.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Lemmy has a weird hate-boner for Christianity. It’s like a visceral toxic hatred. Sure it would make more sense for you to take from the top one percent in society to actually solve the problem, but that way you don’t get to punish an entire religious group for their vocal minority 1% who squander wealth and strive for political power, using Jesus as nothing more than a stepping stool
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
And caring for them, because a lot of them can’t function as normal members of society for whatever reason. The real estate is only one piece of this. But yeah, if someone would be willing to pay for all that, it wouldn’t be a problem.
spujb@lemmy.cafe 1 year ago
Correct. The “whatever reasons” you cite include chronic illness, mental illness, addiction, and abusive relationships. These are not unique to homelessness but are disproportionately prevalent in the population and therefore a key obstacle to overcome.
Addressing this takes labor and money to handle, a process that is often undertaken by nonprofits with funding from government, but also from charities and churches.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Mmm I think you’re missing one of the core points of this though: churches have historically and traditionally offered and been used as sanctuaries, often by the poor and downtrodden in a society. In the US these days, you don’t see nearly as much of that. It’s more about evangelism and dogmatism and prosperity gospel. Christians in the US demonstrably doesn’t care that much about poor people these days.
More broadly: as someone who was raised Christian but is now a staunch atheist, I and many others would have far fewer issues with Christians if they would actually fucking practice what their religion preaches instead of whatever some MAGApastor tells you that Supply Side Jesus says.
spujb@lemmy.cafe 1 year ago
I don’t disagree with you per se? I simply haven’t seen empirical evidence to support this statement:
Meanwhile the evidence that the ultra wealthy are actively screwing over the lower class piles up daily. If you have a citation for that thesis above I’d love to talk.
Furbag@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, this was my first thought as well as soon as I read the image. We have tons and tons of literally empty housing units. Even if you take away the ones that are only temporarily vacant while searching for a new tenant, you’re still left with a bunch of housing units that sit empty, waiting to be flipped for a profit by real estate investors.