Church sued again over how it uses tithing contributions from members

[Teancum]

7 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Maybe this can help.

HEY @Teancum AND @Analytics: Please tell us a little about your thoughts regarding how the church should engage in more charitable works.

- To which charitable organizations should we donate?

If the church would like to hire me as part of a team that would build out an organization to plan and vet such things I would be happy to make recommendations.  But at this point your question is irrelevant to the discussion.

 

7 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

 

- To which existing relief teams should we partner, (or increase partnership)?

Same as above.

 

7 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

- Every charity/relief org has financials.  They can be looked at in terms of % of each donated dollar taken by admin costs/salaries/operations/etc, and % of each donated dollar that actually reaches the target.  Do you have thoughts about, say, the church giving a billion dollars to a charitable organization that only spends perhaps 10% of it's income on it's target groups?

I think it would be foolish for the church to give a billion $ to an charity that only uses 10% of that income on their stated charitable purpose. Why you even ask this is odd to me.

7 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Speaking as a member of the peanut gallery, without hearing good answers from you both on such matters, whenever you suggest the church give 5%, you might as well be saying "Throw money at it".  Without some clear understanding about how you give a crap, I can't discern any substantial difference between the phrase, and what you are saying.

 

Total BS.  We are talking in principle and practice here. Neither of us are suggesting that starting tomorrow and ending the next day that the church needs to suddenly give $5 billion to some charity for relieving human suffering.  Your attempt at being witty and cute is specious and silly.

[Teancum]

8 hours ago, smac97 said:

As soon as you point me to where you are presenting your 5% proposal with "regard for or consideration of the actual efficacy of such disbursements, or the competency and integrity of the recipients of such funds," I will consider your request.  Until then, I will continue to point out your proposal's unreasoned and facile features.

Still being dishonest I see.

8 hours ago, smac97 said:

That you are now quitting the discussion rather than substantiate your claim is, to me, an indication that you cannot substantiate your claim.

Well if you need to build your ego feel free to declare victory. It is more the topic becomes tedious and even boring and I am not going to change your mind nor you mine. We have had numerous debates on this. Neither of us have changed though you are getting more creative with your arguments as well as accusing me of things I never said, which as noted, is dishonest.  I may jump back in to it.  Who knows.  But not today and not tomorrow.

[california boy]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

None.  But we're not talking about "a dollar," are we?  We are talking about billions of them.  Every year.

Figuring out how to responsibly and effectively distribute such vast sums in the nonprofit/humanitarian sector is a very difficult endeavor.  There are "mega-wealthy" billionaires who are eager to give away portions of their vast holdings, but are finding substantial difficulties in doing so.  The Church faces similar challenges.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

You have been going on for pages about how difficult and irresponsible it is to give away money.  Sorry it is not that difficult.  But FIRST you have to have the will to give it to worthy causes. 

I imagine the Church hires a great deal of people to manage EPA and make their money grow.  How about setting up a parallel group that specifically works on how best to use the money?  The Church already has programs that it could infuse with capital.  Is the Pepetral Education fun still working?  Does it have enough money to maximize the program?  If it is safe enough for the members to contribute to, how about the Church also participating?  What other perpetual funds could the Church establish and fund? Giving stipend to seniors who go on a mission.  Easing the financial burden of all missionaries.  

If the Church had the will to do humanitarian projects with it's money, then I am sure they could find the talent to run that arm of their finances.  To claim that the Church doesn't have the talent or ability to do humanitarian aid on the basis that to do so is just throwing money away really insults the ability of Church leaders to find the right people to responsible enough to do the job 

[Analytics]

8 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Maybe this can help.

HEY @Teancum AND @Analytics: Please tell us a little about your thoughts regarding how the church should engage in more charitable works.

- To which charitable organizations should we donate?

I don’t know.

8 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

- To which existing relief teams should we partner, (or increase partnership)?

I don’t know.

8 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

 Every charity/relief org has financials.  They can be looked at in terms of % of each donated dollar taken by admin costs/salaries/operations/etc, and % of each donated dollar that actually reaches the target.  Do you have thoughts about, say, the church giving a billion dollars to a charitable organization that only spends perhaps 10% of it's income on it's target groups?

Yes. Neither the Church nor anybody else should give any money to organizations that don’t effectively use the vast majority of income received for the good purposes they purportedly stand for.

8 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Speaking as a member of the peanut gallery, without hearing good answers from you both on such matters, whenever you suggest the church give 5%, you might as well be saying "Throw money at it".  Without some clear understanding about how you give a crap, I can't discern any substantial difference between the phrase, and what you are saying.

I have significant professional expertise in making complicated long-term projections and helping insurance companies efficiently use capital by finding the right balance between saving enough to ensure solvency and  distributing surplus to owners. That is what I spend the majority of my professional life working on. 

But I don’t have expertise in how to effectively deploy capital to solve the world’s problems. I acknowledge it’s extremely complicated though. 

I don’t need to know what the Church should do with excess money to know that it has more than enough money to do what it already does into perpetuity. And I can confidently say that even when projecting extreme growth of membership in Africa without any corresponding growth in tithing revenue.

[Teancum]

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

One of the nice thing about thread discussions such as this is that the reader can go back and review our conversation, what you have said, what I have said.  I think I have established that, regarding your 5% proposal, which AFAICS you have never qualified or conditioned the 5% proposal on any consideration of the actual efficacy of such disbursements, or the competency and integrity of the recipients of such funds.

"Just Throw Money At It!" is all you've got.  It's a facile and unreasonable position to take

No it not.  It is a straw man. And a lie you continue to repeat.

[bluebell]

15 minutes ago, california boy said:

 

You have been going on for pages about how difficult and irresponsible it is to give away money.  Sorry it is not that difficult.  But FIRST you have to have the will to give it to worthy causes. 

I imagine the Church hires a great deal of people to manage EPA and make their money grow.  How about setting up a parallel group that specifically works on how best to use the money?  The Church already has programs that it could infuse with capital.  Is the Pepetral Education fun still working?  Does it have enough money to maximize the program?  If it is safe enough for the members to contribute to, how about the Church also participating?  What other perpetual funds could the Church establish and fund? Giving stipend to seniors who go on a mission.  Easing the financial burden of all missionaries.  

If the Church had the will to do humanitarian projects with it's money, then I am sure they could find the talent to run that arm of their finances.  To claim that the Church doesn't have the talent or ability to do humanitarian aid on the basis that to do so is just throwing money away really insults the ability of Church leaders to find the right people to responsible enough to do the job 

I agree but I think that the church has managed to do that to a large extent.  It managed to spend a billion dollars last year in humanitarian aid and did so in a few different ways.  It's just that that money didn't come from the EPA and that's the issue really.  

I think that smac has gotten hyper focused on that one aspect of charitable giving (doing it the right way) but not as a way to justify the church not spending money on humanitarian issues.  I think he's more trying to argue against the general argument (i'm not sure if anyone is making it as I haven't been following that back and forth between those posters) that spending money on charity is always better than saving it.

[Teancum]

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

See above. 

• "Do 5% per year for humanitarian aid."
• "rather than say putting 5% of EPA funds..."
• "How about 5% of ist assets per year?"
• "then about 5% of the principal should be used to fund its mission on an annual basis"
• "a general rule of thumb is that on an annual basis, endowments should spend 5% of their principal on their philanthropic mission"
• "distribute 5% of the fair market value of their endowment each year for charitable purposes..."
• "a plan to give away about 5% of the balance of their rainy day fund a year."
• "set the goal of giving away 5% of the principle in their endowment on an annual basis..."
• "The law currently says 5%."
• "there is a rule that says they must donate 5% of their principle to charity every year..."
• "If EPA doesn't want to donate 5% of its principal to charity..."

You and Roger have, AFAICS, never qualified or conditioned your 5% proposal.  

Quite frankly SMAC you are appearing rather dense.  Just because I did not specifically say HOW to deploy the 5%, to whom, when to do it and so on, does not mean I advocate any organization or think the money should just be thrown as something.  For you to stick these words in my mouth is specious and disingenuous at best and a bald face lie that you put in my mouth and then expect me to defend it. 

Thump your chest if you want as having won this debate. I don't really care. I have no desire to keep up with your plethora of word salad posts. Your technique is really to throw out so many words and rabbit hole argument that is it difficult to keep up with and respond to your points. And then you build a straw man and demand it be defended. 

[Teancum]

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

I hope someday you can view the Church through a less hostile and jaundiced lens

I hope someday you will stop beating your puppies.  My view of the Church is not hostile nor jaundice.  That you feel a need to label it as such speaks more about you and your thin skin and persecution complex says more about you than it does me.

 

[Analytics]

9 hours ago, smac97 said:

9 hours ago, smac97 said:

 

  They are proposing that the Church base its humanitarian expenditures not on "the actual efficacy of such disbursements, or the competency and integrity of the recipients of such funds," but on a fixed percentage of its reserves on an annual basis.

Do you see any actual or potential tension between these two items?  What if the Church is encountering the sorts of practical and logistical limitations on humanitarian giving that other "mega-wealthy" donors are facing?  What if there is more money available for humanitarian efforts than there are competent and effective programs and organizations to which this money can be responsibly distributed?

Teancum has nothing but vague allusions to "set{ting} up a group of smart people" and "find{ing} the talent needed to accomplish such things in a proper and helpful way."  Do you have anything more substantive and meaningful to contribute?  Or is more armchair quarterbacking and faultfinding all you've got?

Thanks,

-Smac

Okay.  So the Church should use its wealth with regard and consideration for the actual efficacy of such disbursements, or the competency and integrity of the recipients of such funds.  It looks like we are in agreement on that.

But then . . . the Church is already doing this, and yet Roger and Teancum are proposing an alternative metric, namely, that the Church should spend 5% of its reserve funds.

That is a lie. As I have already explained, The 5% is an additional metric that addresses a different question. The right balance between saving and spending is one issue. Spending effectively is another issue.

Best practices say churches should:

1- Save enough

2- Not save too much

3- Spend what they spend in a wise and effective manner.

Your insistence that I’m saying something I’m not, even after clarifying my position again and again and again makes me doubt your sincerity when you said you were interested in understanding where I’m coming from.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Analytics

[Teancum]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

They are proposing that the Church base its humanitarian expenditures not on "the actual efficacy of such disbursements, or the competency and integrity of the recipients of such funds," but on a fixed percentage of its reserves on an annual basis

Just for the readers, this is a lie SMAC continues to make in spite of my refutation of it.

[Teancum]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

Teancum has nothing but vague allusions to "set{ting} up a group of smart people" and "find{ing} the talent needed to accomplish such things in a proper and helpful way."  Do you have anything more substantive and meaningful to contribute?  Or is more armchair quarterbacking and faultfinding all you've got?

You really are something. Another specious distortion. 

Yea I think the church is smart enough and has resources enough to build a team of competent and educated individuals to build out the process.  You on the other hand feel the church leadership and management is to stupid to accomplish this apparently.

[Teancum]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

All we are seeing is a bunch of armchair quarterbacks, anonymously and conveniently ensconced at their laptops, tossing out absurdly simplistic things like we've seen in this thread (5%!  Many billions!  Every year!  Just move . . . the thing!  And . . . that other thing!), with no regard for the massive logistical challenges involved except for vague and airy declarations about "set{ting} up a group of smart people" and "find{ing} the talent needed to accomplish such things in a proper and helpful way."

Ah the old anonymous poster canard. Poor pitiful SMAC.  Is your testimony this fragile that you need to go to the mat and win every battle? It is starting to look that way.  But I told you who I am the last time you shed tears over me being an anonymous poster. 

[Teancum]

6 hours ago, Calm said:

It is not one or the other thing though.  One can have a target of spending 5% while finding ways to do so responsibly.

Bingo!  And just because I was not laying out a treatise on how the church can accomplish this along with a 5 and 10 year business plan, I am accused of things I never one argued for or even would.  And that with pitbull tenacity.

[Teancum]

6 hours ago, bluebell said:

So likely 100% of those kinds of donations are used according to purpose probably.

For those who no longer donate to the church because of the whistleblower report, has it been difficult to find other places to donate to that claim 100% of it goes to helping?  I've never tried to look into that but I assume that there are other organizations than just the church that do something similar.  I've looked into some of the well known ones but wasn't impressed with their percentages.  I'd love to know of other organizations that I could also donate to that does as good as the church does on that front.

Most organizations have some degree of overhead. But there are those that have a larger part of the donation go towards their stated purpose than others and it does take time to research this in some cases. Other organizations disclose this on their websites.  I recommend Givewell which I have brought up here.  See: https://www.givewell.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_oKWn-nJggMVEcd3Ch2vnQ28EAAYASAAEgJE7_D_BwE

I also give to a local food pantry where almost every cent goes to give food to those that need it. I am on the board of our local Habitat for Humanity organization as well as an NFP called Mercy Flight that is a helicopter rescue ambulance.  I also give money to both and know their financial situation due to my roll on the boards. As a 2x cancer survivor I am on the planning board for an annual run and bike ride fund raiser. I help plan it and I ride the bike ride and raise funds for the center. Those are just a few examples.

[Teancum]

6 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I will add for @smac97that this raving critic made generous fast offering donations to my local ward for two years after leaving the church. Right up until the Washington post report. While I have no doubt that fast offerings are used to good effect, the church certainly doesn’t need my money to maintain the program. I took my money elsewhere and the report was also the biggest factor in the timing of my decision to remove my name from the roles (though there were other contributing factors as well). 
 

I don’t think that informed consent is too high a bar to expect from any organization especially one that names itself as God’s own church. 

For many years after I no longer believed or attended I still gave a generous amount to our ward fast offering fund.  As a former bishop I understood how wonderful this program is (as I have said many times before) and I was happy to support it.  I also gave to the church humanitarian fund.  But with the disclaimer on the donation slip, and  my greater awareness as to how wealthy the church is I could not in good conscience continue to send it $$. And my contributions were not small.

[MiserereNobis]

3 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Catholics rock at charity and doing right by the poor and needy.  My ward has been doing regular service at various Catholic soup kitchens and food banks for decades. 

That said, remember, the challenge is to come up with a specific detailed option that the church can pour their billions per year into.   And with financials like this, if we did so with Caritas, it would no longer be a Catholic organization, but an LDS organization run by the Catholics.  

 

(Note - It's possible these dollars are $k.  I couldn't see anything to indicate one way or the other.  Even if they are, the LDS church's donations would at least double the size of the organization, if Analytics' and others' estimates are accurate.)

That is the financial statement for Caritas Internationalis. CI is the umbrella organization for a confederation of 162 Caritas groups based on location. Each group has its own financial statements. As you can now imagine, the money being used for humanitarian purposes is on magnitudes of scale higher than this statement. Someone could donate fully to Caritas Angola, for example, and this wouldn't appear on the Caritas Internationalis financial statement.

One thing Caritas Internationalis has going for it is scale and organization. If someone wanted to donate, say $2 billion, then the organization could move that money to wherever the donor wanted. Each Caritas has oversight from the umbrella organization and follows mandated rules, such as Safeguarding and Management Standards and others.

It's important to note that these rules and standards are rooted in Catholicism, but also follow good practices and procedures:

Quote

It’s a duty and a responsibility for Caritas organisations and agents to offer the best service which the poorest deserve and the best that we can provide.
In the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI said, “Individuals who care for those in need must first be professionally competent: they should be properly trained in what to do and how to do it, and committed to continuing care.”

Pope Benedict also called for a ‘formation of the heart’: “We are dealing with human beings, and human beings always need something more than technically proper care. They need humanity.”

That’s the primarily objective pursued by the Caritas Internationalis Management Standards, a common instrument for all our Member Organisations. They’re based on existing good practices and accepted global principles within the humanitarian and international development community, and safeguard our professional competence and efficacy in serving our neighbours.

And in the end, it's about God, the Church, and love:

Quote

Pope Francis says, “a Church without charity does not exist”. Caritas shares the mission of the Church. It’s an ordered service to the community.

Inspired by Gospel values and the Catholic Social Teaching, Caritas responds to disasters, promotes integral human development and advocates on the causes of poverty and conflict.

Pope Francis says that Caritas is “an essential part of the Church” and that it “institutionalizes love in the Church”. He said Caritas has two dimensions: action and a divine dimension “situated in the heart of the Church”.

He says, “Caritas is the caress of the Church to its people, the caress of the Mother Church to her children, her tenderness and closeness.”

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by MiserereNobis

[Teancum]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

You and Teancum and Roger and such are not addressing this point in any meaningful way.

SMAC keeps adding names to his naughty list to now include @pogiwho is a believer.  Pogi's offense?  Commenting in general and not giving XMAC a detailed business plan on how the church can increase what it gives to humanitarian relief in a responsible and ethical way. So now Pogi is somehow bad in SMAC's eyes and thus he is tossed in the bin with us other rotten critical apostates.  Just because he does not buy into SMAC's demands and straw man argument. Perhaps SMAC should start a thread on this specific topic and we can tell him just how the church might responsibly accomplish such a goal.

[Analytics]

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

 

• "We’re talking close to $1 billion in that welfare/humanitarian area on an annual basis."

This is meaningless. I don’t know what his figure represents (e.g. is it mainly fast offerings and the value of time members donate to causes? Was this spent only after sending a billion of tithing to Ensign Peak?) As soon as the church releases substantive reports on its financials, I’ll respond to this in a substantive way.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

• "The budget for humanitarian work 'has gone up dramatically.'"

That is wonderful. 

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

• "{H}manitarian expenditures have doubled in the past five years."

That is wonderful. However, to get to an appropriate balance between savings and expenditures, they need to double their expenditures about three more times.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

• "And we believe they are going to increase fast."

That is great news.

7 hours ago, smac97 said:

This came out nearly four years ago, and to my recollection, Teancum and Roger have never substantively addressed this.  Nor have you. 

As a personal anecdote, a couple of years ago I found myself on a humanitarian trip in Africa with an Utah-based charity. We were talking with a village of religious refugees who had fled northern Mali. Another tribe let them settle on some of their land, but they desperately needed some wells. A couple strong metal hand pumps can be installed for about $25,000, including the engineering to be  sure they were installed in the right place in the right way. The non-profit I was with and its volunteers were tapped out and couldn’t provide these pumps.

I ran into a Mormon mission President there, who had previously been on the board of the non-profit I was with. I ended up creating a video of him explaining to the camera what this village was going through and how they needed some money for these wells.

The mission president sent my video to the church and asked them to install a couple of wells. After going through even more due diligence, the church decided this would be a worthwhile way to spend $25,000, and installed the wells.

But when they did that, they told us that  after this expenditure, their budget for the year for this type of project was completely exhausted and that any more supplications for money would be denied.

On the one hand, I am extremely grateful that the church provided this village with the wells. But on the other hand, I got the clear impression that their giving was constrained by their budget and not by the challenges of effectively giving large amounts of money.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Analytics

[Calm]

 

On 11/16/2023 at 5:40 PM, Teancum said:

Just for the readers, this is a lie SMAC continues to make in spite of my refutation of it.

I don’t think Smac would intentionally lie, if only because it is so easy to determine how accurate his description is by reading posts here. I do agree it is a misrepresentation, I just don’t think it is intentional because that imo would be foolish and I don’t see Smac that way.  I do see him as possibly being so fixated on an idea he hasn’t adjusted his thinking when given new info.  I have done that myself so I know it is even possible for very smart people to do this.  

I admit to not understanding why he continues to believe this is an accurate description of your and others’ stances especially when you have clarified as just because a condition is not stated doesn’t mean we should assume the absence of that condition (as in just because I don’t mention my hair color in a personal description, one should hardly assume I am bald).  Just because it wasn’t originally expressly stated that the Church should take the time and make the effort to find truly beneficial projects that are not just keeping the status quo or even making the problem worse for the Church’s charitable work doesn’t mean the critics on the Church’s behaviour in this thread think this condition does not need to apply in this case.

Imo, they are clear they are all assuming from what they have said that the Church is highly capable in finding worthwhile projects that won’t backfire (evidence being current projects) and therefore spending even 5% prudently would feasible for the Church to achieve. 
 

Smac appears to see that as much more difficult than Teancum, etc. do, but even if he is right about the difficulty level their opinion that it isn’t as difficult to do does not translate to mean they think being prudent about charity shouldn’t be done and to present it as if it does is a misrepresentation, imo.  Perhaps Smac thinks that taking the level of care they are suggesting amounts to throwing money at it..if so, if he wants to debate that, that they are wrong in their assessment he should do so rather than rewrite what they are saying based on his assumptions rather than their own.

Now perhaps this rewriting is not Smac’s intent, but it is how I interpret his repetition of the claim they are saying the Church should throw money at it.  They are not.  If he is not doing that, if he is not substituting his meaning for theirs and then paraphrasing what it would mean if he said it and then assuming that is what they actually mean, he needs to be better at explaining his criticism, imo.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Calm

[SeekingUnderstanding]

11 hours ago, Calm said:

I don’t think Smac would intentionally lie,

It’s just an abusive straw man. Made particularly annoying by the insistence  that his straw man is really what his opponents believe despite denials. It’s a demonstration of bad faith. 

Edited November 17, 2023 by SeekingUnderstanding

[blackstrap]

Maybe the Church should pick  a cause and fund it world wide, say providing good water anywhere needed. No one could complain about that , right ?

Oh wait!  

 

 

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by blackstrap

[JustAnAustralian]

5 hours ago, blackstrap said:

say providing good water anywhere needed.

Lucky we didn't have youtube back in 2002 when we started https://philanthropies.churchofjesuschrist.org/humanitarian-services/funds/clean-water

[Tacenda]

I've been thinking for a while now on a project in Riverton/Bluffdale area in Utah that the church has been building. My daughter is a manager for the church and is on that site currently. Eventually the church is going to build the same concept homes in West Point, Utah. Just hope the land wasn't donated by a struggling family's parents.

The thing that bugs me to no end is this, thinking of It's a Wonderful Life, the homes being built and town homes are to be rented not owned. Think Pottersville vs. Bailey Brother's Building and Loan. Pottersville as a people that are forever paying rent vs. owning their own homes. Now compare that with the church, it's astoundingly, glaringly...sad.

https://www.deseret.com/2016/2/7/20581962/riverton-sees-550-acre-lds-church-property-plan-as-a-once-in-a-lifetime-development This article came out about it before it became a reality. 

https://kutv.com/news/utahs-growing-pains/build-to-rent-communities-popping-up-across-wasatch-front-real-estate-lease-home-ownership This is the reality and the soon to come in West Point area according to my daughter. 

[bluebell]

9 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I've been thinking for a while now on a project in Riverton/Bluffdale area in Utah that the church has been building. My daughter is a manager for the church and is on that site currently. Eventually the church is going to build the same concept homes in West Point, Utah. Just hope the land wasn't donated by a struggling family's parents.

The thing that bugs me to no end is this, thinking of It's a Wonderful Life, the homes being built and town homes are to be rented not owned. Think Pottersville vs. Bailey Brother's Building and Loan. Pottersville as a people that are forever paying rent vs. owning their own homes. Now compare that with the church, it's astoundingly, glaringly...sad.

https://www.deseret.com/2016/2/7/20581962/riverton-sees-550-acre-lds-church-property-plan-as-a-once-in-a-lifetime-development This article came out about it before it became a reality. 

https://kutv.com/news/utahs-growing-pains/build-to-rent-communities-popping-up-across-wasatch-front-real-estate-lease-home-ownership This is the reality and the soon to come in West Point area according to my daughter. 

These types of homes are being built because so many people can't afford to buy right now and renting is the only option.  It really does suck that real estate is so expensive right now. Still, people need somewhere to live.  In your view, how would not building rental homes help people buy instead?

[Tacenda]

1 minute ago, bluebell said:

These types of homes are being built because so many people can't afford to buy right now and renting is the only option.  It really does suck that real estate is so expensive right now. Still, people need somewhere to live.  In your view, how would not building rental homes help people buy instead?

Bailey Brothers did it maybe the church can too.

Lower prices?

Apartments? But I see way too many of them around our town, as you have most likely. 

Edited November 17, 2023 by Tacenda