[Document title]

Adrian Miller, Kylee Aoyama, and Cody Powell

English 1010
5/5/15

With homelessness being an ever increasing issue in the United States, many
organizations, and programs are being created to help eliminate homelessness. With a fluctuating
economy, and unstable working conditions, more people are forced out on the streets on a daily
basis. Government programs have been put in place to help those who are homeless, while other
organizations are trying to stop homelessness before it starts. Many of the organizations that are
creating programs to help end homelessness are created and run by the government, churches, or
humanitarian organizations. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has many different
facilities that are used to give aid and help to those who need it. Some of these facilities include:
LDS Family Services, LDS Deseret Industries, and various Humanitarian type services. One of
these facilities is the Bishops Storehouse.
The bishop's storehouse system is a network of Church-owned and -operated commodity
resource centers that function much like retail stores, with the major difference that goods cannot
be purchased but are given to needy individuals whom local LDS bishops judge to be worthy and
deserving of Church assistance. Recipients are invited to work or render service in various ways
in exchange for goods to avoid allowing the goods given to be a form of dole. (Quinn) As this
article states, the church builds and operates these Storehouses all over the world. They have
facilities in all regions of the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Asia, Africa
and Pacific, Central and South America, Europe, and the Caribbean. Each of these locations is
run by the church to help any of the members of the church, and anyone else in the area that is in

need of help. The main focus of these facilities is to provide families in need with the basic food
and supplies needed to survive and live. They provide the basics like: fruits and vegetables,
canned goods, flour, sugar, pasta, milk, eggs, bread, and meats. They also provide things like
toothbrushes/paste, deodorant, diapers, toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, and soaps. Many
of these items are produced by the church themselves, and are then shipped all around the world.
Other items are bought from smaller companies that are working with the church to help in this
type of aid. Some items can be donated by companies that are looking for ways to help in
humanitarian aid. Also, the items available in each location can vary, depending on the
demographic of the area, and what is deemed as necessary to the people of the area. Some of the
items available in the eastern island countries may not be the same as the items available here in
Utah.

The way that these facilities are run is unlike most humanitarian aid centers. There are
Service Missionaries assigned to each storehouse, and they help run the restocking of shelves,
and help organized the footwork. Those who need aid or help, are often asked if they will spend
time in the Storehouse helping to restock shelves, do inventory counts, or other various jobs. In
essence, the Storehouse uses its benefactors to benefit those who need it. All of the work done is
on a volunteer basis.

Members can receive aid by going to their local bishop or branch leader, and asking for
aid. The bishop then will counsel with the Relief Society President, and the recipients about what
their needs are. They would then fill out a food order, and could take it to the local Storehouse,
and receive the needed items. The process by which the LDS church uses is not to necessarily
help those who are already homeless, but to help families and individuals from becoming
homeless.

Knowing all of this; we were still surprised by just how much the storehouse and other
church services do for other people. The first thing we noticed on our tour was that the
storehouse was full of people within ten minutes of opening. Our tour guide was a service
missionary named Elder Givans and throughout the entirety of our experience the one thing he
wanted us to remember was, We dont judge. Everyone needs help now and again and their
purpose is to get people back on their feet. We learned that the frequency for people to come in
varies greatly on the circumstances. There are people who come in only needing help for one
paycheck, people whove lost their job and need help until re-employment, and even people who
just cant make ends meet without living on the food and other items provided by The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Though the Bishops Storehouse focuses on providing food for members that are
struggling, this is not the only purpose they serve. We asked our tour guide about the specific
homeless functions of the storehouse and this is what we found out:

Q: How do your efforts affect individual homeless persons?

Our efforts are specifically designed to be at the discretion of the bishops. If a

homeless person walks in needing food, sometimes the director will allow us to give them some
food. For the most part though, if a homeless person wants help the easiest thing for them to do
is go to their local bishop and get an order placed.

Q: What do you do with produce about to expire?

We never have produce expire, it is always gone before that time. However, if a can has
a dent or a bag has a tear we box them up and donate them to the food shelters.

While it may seem that the bishop storehouse only helps those who come to it, this is not
always the case. Upstairs, away from the store, is a room full of ham radios. The purpose of this
room is to contact stake centers and people all around the world. When there is a natural disaster
the missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints, are one of the first respondents
on the scene. This is because through use of radio rooms around the world it is an organization
that is always in contact with others to help coordinate relief efforts. Along with that, the church
is often the one of, if not the, first organizations to send food, water, clothes, and other basic

necessities to affected areas. All of this food comes from Bishops Storehouses and other church
reserves around the world. As an example of this, if you go back and look up news clips form
things like the earthquakes in Haiti, the tsunami in Japan, or even as far back as hurricane
Katrina you will almost definitely see Latter-Day Saint missionaries on hand digging through
rubble for survivors and distributing food.
The general conclusion we came to is that the Bishops Storehouse helps ease the
problem of homelessness by taking care of it at the root, being willing to help those in poor
situations, and giving the common people an opportunity to help.

Homelessness is an issue that needs to be taken care of before it becomes an issue. This
is essentially what the Bishops Storehouse does. Although the workers and volunteers at the
Bishops Storehouse come into very little contact with those who are actually homeless, the
Bishops Storehouse still does much to help those in poor financial situations. The Bishops
Storehouse deals primarily with food and a few select necessities. Often those who come in for
food will leave with carts full of food. Ordinarily at the grocery store a cartful of food will cost
hundreds of dollars. This money that could have been spent on food, can now be saved for other
things like housing fees or utilities.
Without the assistance of the Bishops Storehouse many families would be faced with the
decision of keep their electricity on or eating. The money saved through getting the food at the

Bishops Storehouse keeps people and families from becoming homeless and helps alleviate their
burdens so they can stay off the streets.
Similarly there are many individuals who could have used the assistance of the Bishops
Storehouse to keep them off the streets. This is where the next issue of homelessness comes
about, as well as another solution to homelessness. Many individuals are too proud or too
ashamed to seek out the help that they sometimes desperately need. The recipients of the goods
from the storehouse need only one thing to gain access to the food: an order form. The way to
procure an order form is to talk to a bishop of the area that the individual lives in. Now this
requires asking for help, which many individuals refuse to do. The Bishops Storehouse isnt
necessarily a place designed to help homeless individuals. While they are fully capable of doing
so, and dont refuse service to those that are homeless; it is the homeless individuals
responsibility to claim the help being offered to them.
Finally, the Bishops Storehouse, like many other organizations that set out to help the
needy give an opportunity for individuals to help the less fortunate. They do this in two ways:
First, the members of the church help fund the Bishops Storehouse through what they call fast
offerings. This is a collection that goes out to members once a month asking for anything extra
they can give. This is where the funding for programs such as the Bishops Storehouse comes
from. The second way is available to everyone; this is where an individual will come and serve

at the storehouse. Any individual is welcome to come and serve at the Bishops Storehouse and
in fact encouraged to do so. Through both methods the storehouse gives everyone an opportunity
to help put a stop to homelessness.

https://apps.lds.org/welfareoperations/overview.jsf?operation=bishops.storehouses

http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Bishop%27s_Storehouse

http://www.bishopstorehouse.com/bishop-storehouse-locations/

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/new-bishops-central-storehouse-serve