Would you give up your home for your religion? We've always had a place here.
We've always called it home.
The community has mostly been evicted.
Short Creek. Technically, two towns: Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona.
The community straddles the state line just south of Zion National Park, not
called Zion by chance. These are sacred lands to the FLDS or Fundamentalist
Latter Day Saints. The FLDS split from the mainstream
Mormon Church a century ago, and settled in Short Creek, isolated in the desert,
where they could practice polygamy and follow their fundamentalist faith,
undisturbed. Their lifestyle is specific and strict. Men marry multiple wives.
Everyone obeys the authority of the church, and the world is kept out. This is
the only way of life I've ever known. Because everyone around you was like you.
Most of them are related in one way or another. It was like a great big family here.
Evictions are like the ultimate spoiling of your goods.
They would rather give up a $500,000 house than sign a piece of paper that
symbolized that they were violating what they believed in. That piece of paper,
it's an agreement with a land trust that owns almost all land in Short Creek.
The FLDS Church used to control the trust, but now the trust is in the hands of
those who've left the church. In 1942, members of the FLDS donated their houses
and all their property to that land trust, called the United Effort Plan or the UEP.
It was land for their children, and their children's children, and their children's
children to grow up safe and secure in a place to live. If they didn't want to
live our way of life, everybody knew you could go, if you
wanted to, but you couldn't have land— it belonged to the Lord and to the church.
The UEP trust still owns most of the land in Short Creek. It controls the town,
it controls the property, controls the fields, it controls the cemeteries and
the parks. But the church no longer controls the trust. That's because of
Warren Jeffs. Warren Jeffs is the prophet and leader of the FLDS. He's in prison
for life for sexual abuse of minors, many young girls who were his child brides.
In 2005, when Warren Jeffs landed on the FBI's most wanted list and vanished
on the run, the state took over the land trust.
That was a direct attack on our faith. The FLDS became even more closed off and
distrustful of the outside world. Well, Uncle Warren's in prison on false charges.
Inside the church, information is kept limited. They're taught not to trust the
government or believe the news, so the faithful are in fierce denial about
Warren Jeffs being a convicted pedophile and still believe he is their prophet
who speaks the word of God. From prison, he continues to control the church.
Under Warren Jeffs' leadership, rules became stricter, and many left the faith, whether
by choice or excommunication. Those still in the church aren't allowed to interact
with former members, known to them as apostates. We don't talk to apostates. We
feel like they've made their choice. Go ahead, go live your life, don't bother us.
The ones that came back after they already left, and came back to grab land,
they should leave. Many of these so-called apostates stay in Short Creek,
living side-by-side but totally cut off from their neighbors still in the faith.
For me, I didn't believe in the exact same things as everyone around me. If I
didn't go to the same church that I was gonna be ostracized. I made the decision
to leave. I had no intention of ever moving back to this place.
Jeff Barlow moved back to Short Creek to work for the UEP. He oversees the
evictions. In order to stay in houses owned by the trust, occupants have to
sign that agreement with them — sort of like a lease. But that's a problem for
the faithful because the trust is now managed entirely by former members of
the church, and the FLDS won't interact with them or sit on the trust's board
alongside them. Religious homes won't communicate at all with the trust, pay
property taxes, or sign their agreement. It's not anything specific in the
agreement, just that it means dealing with apostates which is forbidden. So
FLDS families are being evicted by the trust.
Is there anybody still inside the house?
This is what they want us to sign. To sign this is like
saying, "I acknowledge you own our sacred land and therefore I no longer am part
of the FLDS." When taxes get to be five years delinquent, the trust loses that
property to the county. We're gonna have to take action to protect the property
and give them an exact list of the things that they need to do to stay in
the home. Then we got a 10-day pay-or-vacate notice. At that point we started
packing up.
I always come back to you. Always come back to me. For the FLDS, their narrative
is one of religious persecution. But from the outside, it's a bit like they're
opting into their plight, acting on seemingly arbitrary restrictions. But to
them, it's real, regardless of the right or wrongness of their ideology or the
crimes of their leader. It's what they've been taught all their lives. To them, not
only does going against the church mean being ostracized by their community, it's
literally a matter of being banished from heaven in the afterlife — that to
them is worse than eviction. Pretty much everyone in town is either in the
religion or used to be — except for Christine. Christine moved to Short Creek
last year. Though never FLDS, she once practiced polygamy herself with a man
she believed to be a prophet. The experience was extremely traumatizing
for her. This is the famous crick. So now she's motivated to be an advocate for
women in similar polygamist situations. She runs a charity called Voices for
Dignity. I just love it here. She's taken on the role of acting as a go-between
for the FLDS in the UEP. By doing this, she hopes to bring a stop to the
evictions. And there are people that are in desperate need of housing. They're not
just losing their home, they're losing their community, they're losing their,
their sacred places, they're losing their social support system, they're losing
everything they've ever known. An FLDS food processing plant was
evicted. The FLDS meetinghouse was evicted.
Then, the storehouse was evicted. Everything the storehouse had was
donated or consecrated, and the storehouse would distribute it to the needy.
This was the storehouse, surrounded by huge walls. The church built lots of
walls around town. These walls are being torn down by the trust for new tenants.
This is really emotional for everyone in town, both in and out of the religion.
People stopped to watch. Gelene was kicked out of the religion four years ago. She
built these walls with everyone in the church, so it's weird for her seeing the
walls finally come down. We'd go without food, we'd go without clothing, we'd go without
everything we could to help build those walls. To see it all just be knocked
down in minutes... It meant liberation, but it's hard, it's
emotional. Overnight I was cut off. My husband was
an apostate, and he had tainted me. Although she stayed in Short Creek, she
hasn't had any contact with her friends and family in the faith ever since. I was
afraid to even get out of the car 'cause I didn't know if they would accept me or even
talk to me here. Not everyone is sad about the walls falling. No, I left the
religion. These dear folks just don't get it, they think their holy prophet is a
perfect priest and man, but he's nothing but a pedophile. I am really glad the
walls are coming down. There's a deep and literal symbolism in these
walls coming down. Norma's home was also posted for eviction, but she came up with
a plan to keep her house, despite the fact that she won't sign the trust's
agreement. And I wrote up a letter of intent. Says, "I intend to live here at
this address, to pay the taxes yearly." It was not addressed to the reformed UEP
because I don't acknowledge that they have any right to do it. And then
Christine brings the letter to the UEP for her. This means Norma herself isn't
violating her faith. This might seem a bit roundabout, but it's a huge step in
bridging the chasm between those in and out of the church. We were able to
bypass this violation of their religion through this agreement. These evictions
were stopped. They have paid delinquent taxes and going forward they've also agreed to meet some
of the minimum requirements for occupancy. We would just ask the court to
dismiss without prejudice. Once we get that letter, we'll update our records to
show, and that the tax, they're paid and we can avoid any evictions altogether.
Helping people feel safe enough here that they dare come back. We've been able to stop the
eviction of four houses already with this new method. You know, OK, when the
next batch will come? We're supposed to be doing 20 every two weeks. What I'd
rather do is give you time to talk to him first. As long as we can find out that
a letter is coming, then he can delay it more. Does that mean they are gonna be
off the posting list? Yeah, if they're doing taxes, and the lenders tell me it won't take that long.
Can we get the letter today? You think you know who you are, and you're set and
stable in your life, and your religion, and where you're going, and then all of a
sudden one day, you have to relearn who you are, and I
started looking and searching into the Warren Jeffs files. And until that moment,
I had no idea. It's a hard road. Some people love the changes, some people love the
diversity, other people look back at the 60s and the 70s, and they long for those
times where the whole town all belonged to the same religion, and it was more
homogenous, but we live where we live, we live in the time we live, and that's
right now and right here. We're all family, we're all part of the same
community, we're gonna have to find a way to coexist.
I want my grandchildren to live here, and to love it, and to be safe. We love our
fences because it keeps our children in and other people out. It's still our
sacred land. If you're interested in more land rights issues in Utah, Bears Ears
National Monument was just opened to mining prospectors. Now anyone can stake
a claim on the land, so NBC tried to. Check out the video here.