brianj - You completely MISSED the point of my post that was AND STILL IS, you can help the poor AND be WISE about it!!!!!!!!!!!brianj wrote: ↑April 2nd, 2017, 9:18 pmI'm not entirely familiar with the situation in Draper, but what I have seen from sea to shining sea is an attitude of "help the poor, just help them somewhere else." Even going beyond the sea, the state of Hawaii offers homeless people a free one-way ticket anywhere in the US to get them somewhere else.MR. T wrote: ↑April 1st, 2017, 11:50 pm Can someone please tell me how I am a bad person if I donate my money and time to the homeless shelter in SLC but I want to stay far away from the drugs, crime and filth that I see every time I visit the road home shelter? Is there some scripture that says you must take care of the poor and you must do it in your backyard? You must be located no more than 2 miles from a homeless shelter to help them? The church commandeered a city street and built a large mall as a buffer zone to DISTANCE the filth. Go down to Rio Grand St. and see for yourself - it is seriously bad!!!! I also think its sad that Draper doesn't want a homeless shelter BUT the sad part is that NO OTHER CITY WANTS ONE EITHER but Draper is somehow going to have an earthquake because they are rich and bla bla bla...
Earthquake LOL
One thing that I am very familiar with is the tent cities in the Seattle area. The tent cities are very tightly run, requiring residents to put in a certain number of service hours to keeping the place clean and safe each week. Any drunkenness or drug use is grounds for immediate expulsion. Residents are expected to actively look for a job or pursue job training. The tent cities do not contribute to crime, and are almost entirely populated by good people who are down on their luck. Many of us face a job loss followed by a long struggle to find another job, and a lot of us don't have a tight knit Mormon family with 200 relatives in the immediate are who are able and willing to help.
All of the homeless people I have known are people who are going through bad times. A study from 1994 found that 14% of Americans - one in seven - experiences homelessness at some point in their lives. But a 2015 study found that about 21 million Americans, less than 7%, have a substance abuse problem. Most of these are people you would never suspect of having a substance abuse problem.
Substance abuse is common among the chronically homeless, but not as common as alleged across the entire homeless population. And the allegation that "the church commandeered a city street and built a large mall as a buffer zone to distance the filth" is patently false. They engaged in a questionable deal to acquire one block of a city street in order to push anti-Mormons farther from the temple and a major pedestrian traffic area. I am not able to believe that our church is run by people so filled with pride that they would look at homeless people, even chronically homeless drug users, as filth or inferior. To hold the belief Mr. T expressed requires the belief that every general authority who speaks about humility is a hypocrite.
FACT: As you walk out the door of the Salt Lake Temple there is a sign that clearly reads “PLEASE DO NOT GIVE MONEY TO THE BEGGARS, INSTEAD DIRECT THEM TO ONE OF THE MANY PROGRAMS SETUP TO HELP THEM”. I have personally seen this sign on multiple occasions. In other words brianj, HELP KEEP THE BEGGARS AWAY FROM THE TEMPLE GROUNDS BY GIVING THEM NO REASON TO BE THERE.
FACT: The church did build a mall as a buffer zone and NOT to make money. Taken from an article in the sltrib : “Keith B.McMullin said City Creek exists to combat urban blight, not to fill church coffers” or in other words brianj - BUFFER ZONE
FACT: The church purchased and took possession and control of a public street for the expressed purpose of security and so the church could CONTROL what happens on that street. In any other context this would meet the definition, if not the spirit of “commandeer”. Please look it up brianj and educate yourself! Personally I think it was a WISE thing to do!
To hold the belief brianj expressed requires the belief that God should bring the spiritually poor into the celestial kingdom to be taught and not keep them in spirit prison or God must be a hypocrite!