The Church on alleged collaborations with the Swedish Support Agency: "It is not true"

"We get a hint from the church that an elderly couple really needs our help urgently"!

"Got a call a few days ago from the church warning that an older little uncle is in urgent need of our help."

This is how two of Stödkassen Blekinge's inquiries in Karlskrona are launched in recent years. In the first one posted in June 2017, the comments show that at least 44 people have chosen to swish a contribution to one of the responsible bank's private bank account. In the other, twice as many, 88 people, have chosen to contribute.

But that the church would at all refer people to the Support Fund is something that many employees in the church refute.

- I have asked around and everyone is very surprised about this. Nobody among us has mentioned the Support Fund for the needy, says Kristin Lindström, deacon in the Swedish Church's Karlskronafamling.

- I have never had contact with them, I have never had anything to do with them, and as far as I know, no one else who works here has done it either, says Daniella Kullenberg, deaconess assistant in the Lyckå ward.

- It's unfortunate that they say that someone is referring to us, because we would never do that. What we can help with, we help with that, ”says Carina Wallace, pastor of the Royal Church of the Kingdom.

The person in charge of the Support Fund is adamant that people from the church contacted her.

- There are different churches, I have so many people calling me, I do not name the memory.

After all, I have talked to the deacon who heard about the church staff and they say they never referred anyone to you?

- It doesn't have to be a deacon, we have many church members who go and have coffee with some friends, and say "hello I call from the church", so we don't reflect that much.

- It is the same thing, therefore, everyone who works at the children's reception, people who work on the social that sends people to us. The childcare center, the care center. We have e-mails where people write from a health center. We have people from the Swedish Migration Board who contact us. "This family lives under a protected identity and is hidden".

But can you send over some of them if you just delete the names they refer to?

- If we have any left. I don't know if we have them left.

The person responsible promises to return to the issue, but this has not happened.

In the roughly a hundred requests that are posted each year on the Swedish Support Agency's Facebook page, several apply to people who are said to have ended up between the authorities' chairs, and who are said to receive insufficient help from the municipal social services.

The manager at Stödkassen Blekinge also says that the social service "sends people" to the association. But there is nothing that any of the business managers SVT talked to know about, whether in Ronneby or in Karlskrona.

- I really have no idea about the activities of the Swedish Support Agency. We work with social services, they devote themselves to charity. But I do not know that we have at any time or in any matter been contacted by or contacted the Support Fund, says Margaretha Jansson, head of the adult social services department in Karlskrona.

Neither has the labor market administration in Karlskrona, which now handles supply support in the municipality, been in contact with Stödkassen Blekinge according to Maria Persson, head of administration.

According to Margaretha Jansson, there are examples of people with knowledge in the area who have contacted the Support Office to provide information or advise in connection with an inquiry.

- They were then met with answers that they experienced as dismissive. They got the feeling that their knowledge was not that interesting.