Mildly Infuriating

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.

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).

They paint their own target.

Since I'm not American I keep forgetting about your for profit churches. The concept is just too foreign to me. When I think church I think of 300 year old cold stone building in the countryside.

Still there are homeless that would refuse, some from not believing or trusting you, some from not wanting to relocate even if it means that level of comfort, some from being deep into addiction thinking that they'll be forced to get clean. And some will take you up on it and just absolutely trash the place trying to steal anything not bolted down.

That said the vast majority would for sure jump on it and thrive. So if it was at all possible to make happen it would be a good idea.

Megachurches are the minority of churches though

I think you're forgetting that a lot of churches are small fellowships co-opting an office space or like the other commenter said, out in the middle of nowhere. This wasn't a post about mega churches, but it's a fair point.

Also there is a cheap quick fix, because there is adequate empty housing. Landlords just refuse to rent it. The people just need to confiscate unused housing after x (x being an appropriate number for the area) days not being a primary residence.

Not the government. The people. And if the resident leaves/dies, that housing goes to someone new. The landlord never gets it back. That's important; they need to be afraid, but have an easy out (just put somebody in there, lower rent, etc)

The second shittiest roommate I ever had was a loud evangelical.

I was at the time actively the closest thing she would ever meet to a particular famous dude who died on the thing she worshipped, who she claimed to care about.

When she started fucking with my shit while I was out, I just made a bunch of copies of the house key and handed them out, so I'd have people to watch my door for me. Started cooking big dinners. She couldn't actually say anything.

The trick is; don't Fucking ask. Point out that sleeping in the park sucks and will get you killed by police, but meetings in the park are genuinely pleasant (unless climate change is real). They might shoot you, but they won't be able to argue.

Assuming the distribution is the same for both

I think OP believes every town in the US has twice as many homeless people as churches, it doesnt need to be exactly 1 church and 2 homeless people.

But either way, that's probably not true. Since homeless people tend to be in larger cities.

But then again, lots of people become homless in the suburbs and then move to the city to get the social services. If churches in the suburbs housed a few people as they become homeless, it would probably help. It's better to keep people in their communities so they have a better chance of returning to housefullness.

But probably not that much, since homelessness rates are strongly correlated with housing prices, so expensive cities create more homelessness than cheap suburbs.

Not sure why you'd think OP is saying 1 church per town. Just that there are ~380k churches in the United States, and less than twice as many homeless people.

I agree, far too many people are left out in the cold at night when we have many public, climate-controlled buildings with working bathrooms and possibly even showers that are empty after a certain hour. If the homeless were able to regularly get a good night's sleep and a shower in, they might be more able to hold down jobs and become contributing members of society again.

Schools certainly would be great as a shelter after hours, most have gyms with showers, possibly laundry machines, and certainly ample space for someone to sleep with a sleeping bag. If we could just figure out a way to make sure everything stays clean for students to use the next day, no left-behind drugs, no vandalism, etc. that could be a wonderful solution.

My guess is that in most places the homeless population would easily fit within the gymnasium alone.

and that every church should house two homeless people

Not even directly house. Even helping support those 2 people would go a long way toward demonstrating that churches actually do some good.

It's people downvoting because "Religion = bad".

When in reality it should be "Religion = institutions and institutions can be either good or bad or mix of both."

Edit: Spelling

Knee jerk emotional voting. People don’t like seeing information that contradicts their deeply rooted beliefs, and downvoting is emotionally less costly than performing self-investigation.

Don’t get me wrong I would love if every problem in America could be patched by taxing some sussy non profits. But there’s no evidence for that.

At best it’s a comfy position that lets you “not my problem” your way through life, at worst it’s propganda to divert attention from the system of capital that is actually keeping the lower class unhoused and constantly struggling.

Not trying to be a smartass here, it’s genuinely just human nature to choose an emotionally efficient worldview. One-on-one conversations and counter propoganda are one solution to getting folks to see truth. It just takes energy.