I didn't say it only helped Mormons.

From what I gather, the Mormon church has a very complex and well developed infrastructure for deciding who gets help, what kind of help they get, etc. This seems unlikely to be readily and easily replicable without the Mormon church. It has nothing to do with whether or not one believes in god. It has to do with social infrastructure.

It's a bit more than that. It's also a mindset that, yes, we really will give real money and effort to help people.

A government agency could eventually build the social infrastructure (though they might make a mess of it). But building the consensus that we're going to solve this problem, even if it costs us a lot is... difficult. As you said, probably not reproduceable elsewhere.

I'm a non-Mormon living in Utah. I don't praise the Mormon Church very often. But on this I think they have done well, to have the desire and willpower to address the issue.

Thanks.

Though, to my mind, the willpower and desire is part and parcel of what I am talking about when I say social infrastructure. That sense of community and social responsibility etc is something we tend to see closely tied to religious groups and tend to not see to that degree for, say, government run social programs.

Ah, I see. Then government almost certainly cannot create that social infrastructure. But if it already exists (Utah and Sweden, for example), then it makes it a lot easier for the government to address this kind of problem.

I wouldn't say it's well developed. It's set up to get people on their feet temporarily. That covers many cases. It's less helpful for cases where chronic issues require ongoing help. Source: former Mormon, used to cut the welfare checks under congregational leadership, saw the inside baseball, politics, sausage-making, etc.

From what I gather from reading stuff on the internet, it appears to be "well developed" relative to what is generally happening elsewhere. Given the state of things elsewhere, it absolutely doesn't surprise me to hear that's a low bar to meet and the perspective from inside seems less than impressive.

>former Mormon

*former Latter-day Saint

>used to cut the welfare checks under congregational leadership

You mean, send people to the storehouse as part of the Bishopric? It's pretty rare for people to be given money. Food from the storehouses yes, work through Church-owned companies and help via job placement services yes.

At least around here, maybe it's different in SLC.

I'm not sure where you're getting your information. I'm currently in the bishopric of a ward in South Salt Lake, and I think it's rare for a week to go by without writing checks for rent, prescriptions, or utilities. I signed two checks just yesterday.

My personal experience? Perhaps things are different in SLC but out here it's:

"Who can help bro/sis so and so" or in EQ "So and so is looking for part-time work if you know of any place" and being sent to the storehouse for food. A friend was told no financial assistance and that she should consider subletting one of the rooms in the house she rented, even though there were 3 bedrooms for her and 5 kids and then 'coincidentally' within a week after that she had family services in her house saying she had x days to get a functional refrigerator before her children would be taken (apparently that's a thing). People here will ask for help on the private FB group for the ward when they do occasionally need it.

I imagine you see more instances because you probably have a considerably larger ward. We don't even set up overflow most weeks and I'm fairly certain in 13 years I've had to share a pew less than 5 times for sacrament and even at tri-stake mid-singles firesides we have tons of empty pew space.

I was never in SLC. I was in the South and the Midwest.

With regards to referring to the Mormon church as Mormon: I will use the common reference standard as it will likely be returned to in a few years. The whole recent re-labeling is useful internally but not my business externally.[0] Not my rodeo, not my clowns.

[0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/08/17/us/m...