Salvation Army is a residential real estate powerhouse

[tpsbmam]

(snips)

The charity, known for its image of sacrifice, owns houses in the U.S. with a total value of about $4 billion as of 2008. The homes are provided to officers rent-free in lieu of higher pay, it says.

By day, Henry Graciani oversees a 54-bed treatment center for alcoholics and drug addicts who come to him broke and hopeless. After work, he makes a quick drive to the $1.3-million Santa Monica home he shares with his wife and three children.

Graciani is not a high-paid executive returning to a beach retreat. He and his wife, Dina, are career Salvation Army officers who bring home $25,000 per year -- combined. They are among dozens of the charity's officers in Southern California who are paid modest salaries but given rent-free housing -- some in high-priced communities such as Rancho Palos Verdes, Seal Beach and Santa Monica.

In Los Angeles and Orange counties alone, the charity owns 87 homes and condominiums worth about $52 million. Nationwide, it valued its real estate holdings at about $4 billion in 2008 -- one-third of its total assets.

---------------

It is led by officers who dress in uniform and carry ranks ranging from cadet -- an officer in training -- to a single general: Shaw Clifton, the group's London-based worldwide leader. Officers are allowed to marry, so long as their spouses agree to become officers as well. The Salvation Army has been boycotted by gay rights groups because it considers homosexuality to be immoral.

More at: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cover-salvation14-2010mar14,0,970540.story


***************************************************

Oh, it's way more than considering it immoral -- they actively discriminate, including barring GLBT from employment.

[DesertFlower]

1. i never give money to them. nt

[leftstreet]

2. Meh. You forgot some important 'snips'

Salvation Army officers are ordained Christian ministers who provide faith-based public service throughout the world. In the U.S., officers transfer about once every four years; with each new assignment comes a different furnished house. When they retire, officers are given one-time "housing allowances" to use as down payments on homes.

...

If the charity sold the property it has acquired through the years, the money would have to be used to pay higher wages to its officers to rent their own places, Harfoot said.




Looks like another Turn the Working Classes On Each Other article to me

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. Basically they keep homes that are donated to house their people

Since the properties belong to a charity they are property tax free (like churches).

[grasswire]

4. no different from parsonage or housing allowance for ministers

....is it?

[elfin]

5. Probably an effect of Joan Kroc's mega-million donation for "structures"

While she may have thought the buildings would be for homeless and main service buildings etc., the SA has interpreted the largesse for its own not so charitable activities.

Shortly after her bequest, SA announced they no longer had to employ homosexuals, and that is when I stopped giving, even into the seemingly benign red buckets.

[DeSwiss]

6. AND THEY PAY NO TAXES!!!!! NONE!!!!!

Personally, I'm getting petty damned sick and tired of these freeloading assholes skating over our laws and then trying to change them to their advantage.

- I say fuck 'em all! -- Tax the Bastards!!!!!