December 19, 2021
By Mary Claire Patton
Joel Osteen, (click here) the pastor at Lakewood Church in Houston, has come under fire in recent days after Houston Chronicle reported that the megachurch received $4.4 million in PPP loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA).
Federal Paycheck Protection Program Loan data provided by the Small Business Administration (SBA) indicates that the loan given to Lakewood Church is the third-largest for any Houston-area business or nonprofit.
The data shows that Lakewood Church applied for the loan on July 21 and that 368 jobs would be affected by the loan.
At least one of the criteria of eligibility for a PPP loan is that an entity must have “500 or fewer employees whose principal place of residence is in the United States or are a business that operates in a certain industry and meet the applicable SBA employee-based size standards for that industry,” according to the Federal Register....