Pastor Joel Osteen has a 16,800-seat megachurch in Houston, and he can’t seem to explain why he didn’t offer it sooner as a shelter for Hurricane Harvey victims.
He talked about it on an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, where he first claimed that the doors of Lakewood Church have always been open, just to contradict himself minutes later by admitting that the church hadn’t initially encouraged victims to seek shelter there.
“If people were here, they’d realize there were safety issues,” Osteen said. “We were just taking precautions, but the main thing is the city didn’t ask us to become a shelter then.” Contrary to Osteen’s actions, many of Houston’s churches, mosques, schools, and community centers opened immediately to offer temporary shelter to victims.
Lakewood Church remained closed, posting on Sunday that the building was “inaccesible” and encouraged people to look for shelter somewhere else. The church received a ton of negative feedback right away and responded by stating that they would offer help to the victims “once the cities and county shelters reach capacity.”
On the interview with “Today”, Osteen was asked if he would’ve done things differently once he noticed all the backlash, and he claimed that he would: “Yeah, I’m sure we would have done something differently,” Osteen said. But he added, “The fact is I don’t know that we would have opened any sooner, because, again, there were safety issues.”
He then continued to pass the blame on local officials, saying that his church would’ve offered shelter if they had asked: “It’s easy to say, ‘Wow, there’s that building. They’re not using it.’ But we don’t have volunteers,” Osteen said. “We don’t have staff that could get here. We’re all about helping the city whenever we could ― if they would have asked us to become a shelter early on, we would have prepared for it.”
In the middle of all the backlash, Osteen released a statement saying the church had “never closed our doors” and would serve as a “distribution center”. He then brushed off any further criticisms by saying the church “would house people once shelters reach capacity”.
On Tuesday, Osteen went further by explicitly saying: “Lakewood’s doors are open and we are receiving anyone who needs shelter.”
Houston residents have stepped up to plate and those in need, like Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, a Texas furniture store owner who opened his doors to victims or the bakers over at El Bolillo, who got stranded and kept baking over night to provide bread to flood victims. Relief efforts continue, as the aftermath of hurricane Harvey shatters Houston.
