This article talks about how many old church buildings are falling into disrepair, creating a burden for aging and dwindling church members. There's an organization called the "Partnership for Sacred Places" that is trying to get government funding to help with the repairs.
A few things come to mind when I read the article quote you gave:
"Many of our churches are 150 years old or older, and many others were built in the 1950s, when no one gave a thought to handicap accessibility," she said.
Most mainline denominations have similar funds, partly because local congregations can't pay for work they might have been able to afford in the past.
"A lot of these churches have shrunk from 500 members to 100 members, or from 800 members to 200 members," said Robert Jaeger, executive director of the Partnership for Sacred Places. "They look at the trend lines and they see the decline in membership and wonder, 'Gosh, in 10 or 15 years are we going to be gone?'"
Replace the word "church" with "public school" and the argument would be just as valid... and, IMO, give more of a justification for public funds, since the public status of the institutions in question would be completely certain.
The partnership's main theme comes from research it conducted showing that roughly 80 percent of the people who use church facilities for things like after-school programs or Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are not members of the individual congregations.
This seems to imply that churches' only sources of revenue are its members. Often, when a church runs these sorts of programs, they receive funding that they wouldn't otherwise get. For instance, I know that locally, United Way funds a number of charitable programs run through churches, and many denominations have their own charitable funds to pay for these sorts of programs run by individual parishes.
Also, often, after-school or other "extra-curricular" programs will have user fees attached to them. For instance, when I took my marriage preparation course, we had to pay a fee to the organization that ran it.
I agree, although it becomes a judgment call as to what's considered a "universally recognized historical landmark." As much as I loathe the slippery slope argument, this might be the place for it.
Well, one bump on the slippery slope that immediately comes to mind is some sort of historical designation for buildings, which many places have.
I think that if the government sets up some sort of fund to help subsidize the cost of maintaining heritage/historical buildings that are privately owned, fine - churches should be able to line up for the money and make their case just like anyone else.
However, I think that one thing that should be factored in is the organization's ability to pay... and in the case of churches, I'd probably extend "organization" beyond the individual parish. I can't help thinking back to a few cases that occurred in Toronto recently where Catholic parishes (mainly in cases like you describe: old church buildings with dwindling membership) were forced to close due to financial trouble... but from what I recall, the biggest nail in their coffin was the diocese itself, which refused to waive any of the diocesian fees that the churches owed. My feeling is that if those who are supposed to be stewards of a church building don't care enough to put any of their own money in to save it, then I don't think that the government should feel an obligation to make up the shortfall. I don't want to be in a situation where we end up subsidizing the operations of churches and denominations who purposely undercut their captial maintenance budgets and divert the funds that they could've spent repairing their buildings.
