Utah: Welfare Is So Hard to Get, Poor Feel They Must Join LDS Church For Aid; Saves State $Millions

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Thu Dec 16, 2021, 03:34 PM - Edit history (1)

- LDS Mormon Temple in Utah.
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- 'Utah Makes Welfare So Hard to Get, Some Feel They Must Join the LDS Church to Get Aid.' Utah’s safety net for the poor is so intertwined with the LDS Church that individual bishops often decide who receives assistance. Some deny help unless a person goes to services or gets baptized. ProPublica, by Eli Hager, Dec. 2, 2021. - Ed.

Near the start of the pandemic, in a gentrifying neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah, visitors from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints arrived at Danielle Bellamy’s doorstep. They were there to have her read out loud from the Book of Mormon, watch LDS videos and set a date to get baptized, all of which she says the church was requiring her to do in exchange for giving her food. Bellamy suffers from a severe autoinflammatory disease and, barely able to stand, is regularly hospitalized for days at a time. Her younger daughter, Jaidyn, had to drop out of high school to care for her, helping her get up, lie down, bathe and change out the wound vacuums attached to her body.

Desperate for help, Bellamy had tried applying for cash assistance from the state. But she’d been denied for not being low-income enough, an outcome that has become increasingly common ever since President Clinton signed a law, 25 years ago, that he said would end “welfare as we know it.” State employees then explicitly recommended to Bellamy that she ask for welfare from the church instead, she and her family members said in interviews. Bellamy’s family was on the verge of homelessness. The rent on their apartment continued to rise- a result of Utah being the fastest-growing state in the nation, a trend driven in part by young, upper-middle-class people from Calif. and elsewhere flocking to Salt Lake City’s snow-capped slopes to enjoy its outdoor activities, tech jobs and low taxes.



- LDS 'Welfare Square,' Bishop's Storehouse, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Although maintaining a safety net for the poor is the government’s job, welfare in Utah has become so entangled with the state’s dominant religion that the agency in charge of public assistance here counts a percentage of the welfare provided by the LDS Church toward the state’s own welfare spending, according to a memorandum of understanding between the church and the state obtained by ProPublica. What that means is that over the past decade, the Utah State Legislature has been able to get out of spending at least $75 million on fighting poverty that it otherwise would have had to spend under federal law, a review of budget documents shows.

The church’s extensive, highly regarded welfare program is centered at a place called Welfare Square, ensconced among warehouses on Salt Lake City’s west side. There, poor people- provided they obtain approval of their grocery list from a lay bishop can get orders of food for free from the Bishops’ Storehouse, and buy low-priced clothes and furniture from the church-owned Deseret Industries thrift store. (Bishops can also authorize temporary cash aid for rent, car payments and the like; recipients often have to volunteer for the church to obtain help.) Welfare Square was built in 1938 amid the Great Depression, an intentional repudiation by church leaders of government welfare as epitomized by President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. We “take care of our own,” they famously said.

But Bellamy, a Black single mother, is not one of the church’s own- and, unlike the government, a church is often allowed to discriminate based on religion...
https://www.propublica.org/article/utahs-social-safety-net-is-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-what-does-that-mean-if-youre-not-one
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- Socialism, Mormon-style. Utah has one of the nation’s lowest rates of income inequality in part because of the LDS Church's welfare system, but it also ranks dead last for economic equality for women. The Guardian, 7/2/19,
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/jul/02/salt-lake-city-socialism-mormon-style-utah



- Danielle Bellamy outside her home in Salt Lake City, Utah.

[TexasTowelie]

1. I saw the article and posted a brief excerpt in the Utah Group yesterday.

It's ridiculous that anyone should feel compelled to join a religious group to receive services off of federal programs such as SNAP.

[appalachiablue]

2. Didn't catch your post. Utah's antigov system, admired by cons:

- Trump visits 'Welfare Square,' in Salt Lake City, Utah. US Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), others, 2017.

https://www.rexburgstandardjournal.com/religion/president-trump-visits-welfare-square-in-salt-lake-city/article_5a11c4a0-1d2e-5d2e-8591-3f0d9be583b9.html




- HUD Secretary Ben Carson visits 'Welfare Square' operated by LDS Mormon church, Salt Lake City, UT, 2019.

[Igel]

3. What's "hard to get" mean?

Biden wants to streamline paperwork. That means it's easier to get.

Biden can't streamline eligibility. Meaning he can't make it easier to get.

Problem: "Easier to get" has at least two meanings.

LDS make it easier to get (laxer eligibility).

I think of it as the LDS adopting a Hamasian approach. "Hi, here's what you need to believe to get money and goods--and we'll be watching and checking to make sure." It encourages loyalty, and if your kids are a problem, well, get with the program.

Yeah, I basically just said that Hamas' zakat was used for political, not humanitarian, ends. Because it is. That's what zeal, الحماس, does to you.

[dalton99a]

4. "To expedite your case, please meet the bishop at Motel 6"

[BlueBlud]

5. The local business owners were suggested to blackball all those that protested Dick Cheney, FOR LIFE

I would have been one of those blackballed for life. And that was very church related. Leaving it up to a church, for survival, is unconstitutional.