Under Jeb Bush's governorship, so-called "faith-based" organizations in Florida thought they'd died and gone to heaven. Bush doled out government jobs to a variety of incompetent organizations -- competence always seemed to take a back seat to "faith-based."
Unsurprisingly, lots of them didn't work out too well.
This story is about one so-called faith-based outfit in Central Florida called Florida Faith Inc. It is supposed to be a nonprofit engaged in assisting people who are threatened with foreclosure on their homes.
They assist people all right. They assist them by relieving them of their cash which is promptly put into the coffers of the folks running Florida Faith Inc. One woman said she was promised help to fend off foreclosure, and was even hired by Florida Faith Inc., but she was never paid for her work and she lost the fee she gave Florida Faith Inc. to save her home, which "was sold on the steps of the Marion County Courthouse in April."
The owner of Florida Faith Inc. is Mary Redford. She, along with her husband, Bernie, claim to be "foreclosure mitigators." While they profess that Florida Faith is a nonprofit organization, they are not registered with the IRS. The Redfords have also said they have ties to United Way, but the United Way says not so. Ms. Redford told a housing authority director that she was a HUD certified housing counselor, but that turned out to be false. She has also falsely claimed to be associated with a local mortgage firm.
Ms. Redford claims that some of her clients are happy with her services.
Ms. Redford also claims to be a Christian and says she has "a calling from God to do this." Florida Faith is, she says, a Christian organization.
It may be a Christian organization - a Christian Florida Faith fraud.
Just one more in a long line of Christian Florida faith frauds!
4 comments:
It is amazing how many people simply accept that Christians are never dishonest. I suspect they deserve to be cheated if they are so gullible. There are good and bad Christians, as there are good and bad, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, agnostics etc. the vast majority of thieves, murderers, con men, etc in any country with a Christian majority will find that the majority of the bad guys are Christians. I bet most of the bad guys in a Muslim nation are Muslims. That should be easy to figure. I can say I am anything that does not make it true. If you judge people by labels, you are bound to be wrong most of the time.
Bob Poris
Interesting. Your blog never really exposed any evidence, other than what you may have read in the Ocala newspaper. Most of that article is hear say. According to the IRS, an organization can operate as a nonprofit if they have submitted info to the IRS and are under consideration, which Florida Faith has. As with any service of this type, one must ask for references, do their homework, call the Better Business Bureau, etc. Anyone can throw accusations around, especially if they are a disgruntled former employee or volunteer.
Anonymous two...
What you say is at least partly true.
However, how do you know that "Most of that article is hear say"?
My problem was not with the IRS status of the organization...
Do you have anything specific with regard to this outfit?
Jacob
Most breaking news stories are hearsay. The gist of the story, which I read, indicates that the people in charge did not do as they were created to do and funds have been used for other purposes. Not a,ll Christian groups are good. The jails are full of Christians and thsoe of all other religions. Calling oneself a Christian does not give one immunity for bad behavior.
Bob Poris
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