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We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

bbc.co.uk

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Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#201

Post by h2zizzle »

alwa wrote: post #122
the_arun wrote: post #107

When you read this story - your heart warms & your eyes gets filled. It is crazy nice feeling. You feel like this world is such a better place. Yet, it hurts - to know there are so many homeless that our system needs corrections.

It also reminds me that systems can’t fix situations like this. The system of “care,” as the story alludes to the autistic person experiencing in their youth, often looks a lot more like warehousing the people on the margins of society, often in unpleasant (and almost always in institutional) conditions. Some kinds of humanity can only ever happen person-to-person, and it’s a great treasure for everyone involved to e…

"Incentivizing" doesn't really fix it either, as people take avantage of the incentives. You do have to make it possible for the people who do care to be able to, though.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#202

Post by wewewedxfgdf »

In England the advice is that the best thing you can do for homeless people is refer them to the correct social services, which has the resources and skills to deal with people who are often mentally damaged or unwell in some way.

The case of Aaron Barley triggered this after a lovely and caring family took in a homeless boy into their own home leading to a terrible situation in which he murdered two of the family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4elLA4FpnHQ

There's no way I'd let random people into my home - you absolutely do not know what might happen, what their history is, their mental state, their criminal background. Be kind in other ways.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#203

Post by jstummbillig »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #202

In England the advice is that the best thing you can do for homeless people is refer them to the correct social services, which has the resources and skills to deal with people who are often mentally damaged or unwell in some way. The case of Aaron Barley triggered this after a lovely and caring family took in a homeless boy into their own home leading to a terrible situation in which he murdered two of the family. h…

I think the more earnest approach would be to understand the risk first. Blanket avoiding something because the chance for a bad outcome is not 0 is fairly lame.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#204

Post by saikia81 »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #202

In England the advice is that the best thing you can do for homeless people is refer them to the correct social services, which has the resources and skills to deal with people who are often mentally damaged or unwell in some way. The case of Aaron Barley triggered this after a lovely and caring family took in a homeless boy into their own home leading to a terrible situation in which he murdered two of the family. h…

the best thing that you can do for yourself maybe, but not for them...

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#206

Post by Normal_gaussian »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #202

In England the advice is that the best thing you can do for homeless people is refer them to the correct social services, which has the resources and skills to deal with people who are often mentally damaged or unwell in some way. The case of Aaron Barley triggered this after a lovely and caring family took in a homeless boy into their own home leading to a terrible situation in which he murdered two of the family. h…

The institutional advice would struggle to directly recommend any other action as it can only be seen to create an unconstrained liability - if not legal, then social. That does not mean they wouldn't be amenable to a system of placing people who were vetted and managed if they were sufficiently convinced it would resolve the issue (at institutional scale).

Its worth noting that the homeless person in this situation was in fact known to those who provided the home - and not as casually as the first para suggests.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#207

Post by voidnap »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #202

In England the advice is that the best thing you can do for homeless people is refer them to the correct social services, which has the resources and skills to deal with people who are often mentally damaged or unwell in some way. The case of Aaron Barley triggered this after a lovely and caring family took in a homeless boy into their own home leading to a terrible situation in which he murdered two of the family. h…

From the article

> Rob studied the man's face and vaguely remembered him as Ronnie Lockwood, someone he would occasionally see at Sunday School as a boy and who he was told to be kind to as he was a "bit different".

> Ronnie was then almost 30 and had been without a home from the age of 15, living in and around Cardiff and moving from job to job - Rob would sometimes see him at a youth club he ran.

> The pair planned to let him stay until the day after Christmas, but when the day came, they couldn't bring themselves to cast Ronnie out and sought advice from the authorities.

You aren't entirely wrong, but this wasn't a random person and they did contact a homeless centre for advice.

Given that Ronnie had apparently already gone through some sort of system to end up at a "school for subnormal boys", it seems pretty clear that Ronnie lived a much better life through this family's actions and generosity.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#208

Post by Gerard0 »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #202

In England the advice is that the best thing you can do for homeless people is refer them to the correct social services, which has the resources and skills to deal with people who are often mentally damaged or unwell in some way. The case of Aaron Barley triggered this after a lovely and caring family took in a homeless boy into their own home leading to a terrible situation in which he murdered two of the family. h…

And Michele and Rob Reiner were murdered by their own son and my uncle while going shopping. You don't have to do anything, but this kind of comment puts a huge stigma on homeless people and others.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#209

Post by olelele »

Gerard0 wrote: post #208
wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #202

In England the advice is that the best thing you can do for homeless people is refer them to the correct social services, which has the resources and skills to deal with people who are often mentally damaged or unwell in some way. The case of Aaron Barley triggered this after a lovely and caring family took in a homeless boy into their own home leading to a terrible situation in which he murdered two of the family. h…

And Michele and Rob Reiner were murdered by their own son and my uncle while going shopping. You don't have to do anything, but this kind of comment puts a huge stigma on homeless people and others.

This sounds like your uncle is part in the Reiner murders.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#210

Post by weakfish »

alwa wrote: post #122
the_arun wrote: post #107

When you read this story - your heart warms & your eyes gets filled. It is crazy nice feeling. You feel like this world is such a better place. Yet, it hurts - to know there are so many homeless that our system needs corrections.

It also reminds me that systems can’t fix situations like this. The system of “care,” as the story alludes to the autistic person experiencing in their youth, often looks a lot more like warehousing the people on the margins of society, often in unpleasant (and almost always in institutional) conditions. Some kinds of humanity can only ever happen person-to-person, and it’s a great treasure for everyone involved to e…

I think that the _current_ systems are incapable of care, but that doesn’t mean systems can’t be in general.

I often think that they’re held back in large part by people who say “we can’t” rather than building a solution

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