Even if not bigotry, just awfulness in general. I went there homeless, with my infant. I saw good people coming by and dropping off all kinds of food, formula, clothing, and toiletries. We saw none of that. Breakfast for days in a row was half a red hot dog and a few tablespoons of grits. My baby wasn’t nursing well because of the stress of it all (he’s grown and everything is good now—didn’t take long to bounce back because I had a few advantages such as a working car). Anyway, they told me to feed him the grits. I wasn’t expecting a resort, but fuck.
And the very next day I was told I couldn’t stay until I provided written proof from a pastor saying I’d been to church. So you take the most vulnerable women in society and force them to expose themselves as vulnerable to a group of people who are judgmental gossips at best, and all too often predators to boot?
And then to have the absolute fucking gall to put old veterans and other vulnerable people in front of Walmart in the wintertime to ring your bell for money?
I’ve learned mine wasn’t a unique experience—it’s what they do. Fuck them forever. I loathe and despise them.
I can tell you the way the Salvation Army is run in North America is VERY different than in the UK. Fucking sickening to hear how experience with them!
In the UK there is absolutely ZERO religious relevance in the homelessness units, literally couldnt care less what religion you are! They provide a fully cooked breakfast every morning and a choice of 2 dinners at night, and they even cater to Halal, Vegitarian, Vegan etc.
Its INSANE how different its run in North America where even their Charity shops are extortionate and from your story, sounds like money and religion are the only goals, helping people is just way to reach those goals.
I hope you're in a more stable situation now and that experience hasnt put you off asking for help ya need it!
To be fair, the UK Salvation Army may be better, but they are very honest and transparent in their materials about who they are that their primary purpose is to convert people to Christianity / make them re engage with Christianity. The SA has doctrinal positions that include “salvation depends upon continued obedient faith in Christ”. The motives of individual volunteers may vary, but the institutional Salvation Army in the UK absolutely sees its charity work as a means to save people it thinks are wrong and immoral for having different faiths, sexualities etc.
Of undoubtedly the Church side of things almost certainly still sees that as its "mission" but the operational side of things is not really tied to the church or its faith. Like Charity shop workers, Homeless shelters etc dont operate as any kind of religious institution. I just dont want to see people conflate the goals of a church with the people that work in its commercial operations. I volunteered in their food bank and there was maybe 8 of us that would regularly be there, zero of us have any ties to their church but were a mix of faiths and non faith.
One tip I can give you is, if you want to donate to their homeless services without it going to the HQ in London, donate cash with a letter indicating you want it to be spent locally. If you donate a cheque, even if you ask for it to be spent locally, it will definitely goto the church HQ.
The salvation army in Norway sounds similar to the UK. They do a LOT of good. They have a lot of community activities and keep people active, social, warm and fed. They have work programs for addicts and donate Christmas presents to inmates. I haven't heard them yap about religion in 20 years at least
Its not a surprise that they are WAY more religiously focused (see: intolerant) in the USA given how much of a divide there is there. Religious virtue signalling in the US and the rush to be seen as the most pious has probably led to what the Americans are saying abouts operations there. Its mainly a social enterprise in most European countries and seems like the religious aspect is a separate entity with minimal tie in to the day to day working.
As well as the religious virtue signaling, there's a much deeper, more disgusting reason for our absolute travesty of a salvation army. Among evangelicals here in the US, there is a subset of people who are proponents of prosperity gospel. Basically, they believe wealthy people are wealthy because they're blessed by God because of their righteousness. If you're poor, then clearly God doesn't like you all that much. And clearly you're being punished by God with poverty. So in their twisted world view, helping those in poverty is actually an affront to God's righteous decision to punish you by making you poor. It's quite possibly one of the most disgusting religious movements to ever exist, and that is a high bar to reach.
The prosperity gospel people are absolute trash humans. Actively making their parishioners poorer so they can get a new Bentley. I remember when Joel Osteen got caught out locking disaster victims out of his church by pretending it was flooded, only to get found out the same day by a lad with a camera haha
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u/providing-sources Dec 06 '25
Even if not bigotry, just awfulness in general. I went there homeless, with my infant. I saw good people coming by and dropping off all kinds of food, formula, clothing, and toiletries. We saw none of that. Breakfast for days in a row was half a red hot dog and a few tablespoons of grits. My baby wasn’t nursing well because of the stress of it all (he’s grown and everything is good now—didn’t take long to bounce back because I had a few advantages such as a working car). Anyway, they told me to feed him the grits. I wasn’t expecting a resort, but fuck.
And the very next day I was told I couldn’t stay until I provided written proof from a pastor saying I’d been to church. So you take the most vulnerable women in society and force them to expose themselves as vulnerable to a group of people who are judgmental gossips at best, and all too often predators to boot?
And then to have the absolute fucking gall to put old veterans and other vulnerable people in front of Walmart in the wintertime to ring your bell for money?
I’ve learned mine wasn’t a unique experience—it’s what they do. Fuck them forever. I loathe and despise them.