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Good Being Done by Religious Groups

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Since the Great Recession of 2008, the homeless population in my town has exploded. Years ago, there was counted to be around 200 'hardcore' homeless people in town -- people who had been homeless for a year or more. Today, the authorities have almost lost count of the number, but place it well over 2,000. To put that in context, the town 'elders', in their infinite wisdom have passed a number of municipal ordinances effectively criminalizing being homeless due to their having adopted a strategy of 'solving the homeless problem' by running the homeless out of town. So only a relative few stay in town long enough to be counted as hardcore, while most head to friendlier cities well within a year of hitting the streets.

HOWEVER, two groups -- one Catholic, the other Evangelical -- have been fighting back by as fast as possible expanding their efforts to help the homeless. The Catholic group has built a huge new soup kitchen. The Evangelical group has built a 60 unit apartment building where the homeless can actually get off the street and have a place to live. And that just starts the list of services those groups are now providing.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Since the Great Recession of 2008, the homeless population in my town has exploded. Years ago, there was counted to be around 200 'hardcore' homeless people in town -- people who had been homeless for a year or more. Today, the authorities have almost lost count of the number, but place it well over 2,000. To put that in context, the town 'elders', in their infinite wisdom have passed a number of municipal ordinances effectively criminalizing being homeless due to their having adopted a strategy of 'solving the homeless problem' by running the homeless out of town. So only a relative few stay in town long enough to be counted as hardcore, while most head to friendlier cities well within a year of hitting the streets.

HOWEVER, two groups -- one Catholic, the other Evangelical -- have been fighting back by as fast as possible expanding their efforts to help the homeless. The Catholic group has built a huge new soup kitchen. The Evangelical group has built a 60 unit apartment building where the homeless can actually get off the street and have a place to live. And that just starts the list of services those groups are now providing.

Great to hear! Thank you for sharing. :blush::blueheart:
 
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Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
I strongly suspect that a whole lot of the good religious folks do flies well under the radar of public notice, perhaps for two main reasons.

First, it is too trivial, too commonplace, to be 'newsworthy'. When a pastor or church member visits a sick person to console them, or when a church donates money to another church's soup kitchen, or when some other such commonplace thing is done, it is never reported far and wide. Never. Hence, I would wager none of us have a clue as to the scale on which such actions take place every day across the whole country.

Second, a whole lot of good deeds are assumed to have nothing to do with the doer's religiosity when, in fact, the doer themselves is indeed motivated in whole or part by their religion. Case in point. Years ago, I and a friend built decks for people. One of the decks we built was for a man who led an adult discussion group at his church. He would more or less daily check up on us to make sure we had such luxuries as lemonade, the right tools (he had a vast collection of tools he was willing to share), and so forth. In other words, he was very solicitous of our welfare. I thought nothing of it until one day he got to talking about how two or three years ago, he had 'soul-searched' himself and found himself wanting in his thoughtfulness (or lack of it) for other people's needs and concerns. He had then consulted his Bible and decided he would try to emulate Jesus a bit in becoming more mindful of other people. Yet, had he not mentioned all that to my friend and me, I would never have suspected that all his acts of kindness were originally inspired by his religion.
 
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