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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

#271

Post by KaiserPro »

dyauspitr wrote: post #179
KaiserPro wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, thats one way to look at it. But reading between the lines, having someone with a gambling habit isn't the best live in "maid" especially if they work full time as a bin man. I would just suggest that looking to believe the worst in people will not make you stronger or more effective than others, it'll just make you lonely.

Yeah I try to see the best in people. But the internet is anonymous and my first thoughts revolved around why they would do this for so long.

I feel ya.

The internet can be corrosive, and its difficult to not let it tarnish. But, dear hacker news friend, I believe in you.

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

#272

Post by tehlike »

m463 wrote: post #256
neilv wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be one of the things that some great professors do. I've heard of that convention from many colleges/universities. At any university, look for the professors who act like benevolent citizens of the best of university ideals. They don't all do it in the same way, but they're some of the best. I like to think of the university as a microcosm, and incubator, for how you'd like larger society to be.

You can do the same for work colleagues. This has happened to me throughout my career when time/money/circumstance kept me away from family/home during holidays. It was greatly appreciated, and fun!

This is what one of our neighbors do for us.

We are immigrants to United States, so our parents/sister is somewhere else.

They have always had us over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They are the nicest people, and I'm grateful for it.

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

#273

Post by rurban »

cogman10 wrote: post #13

Beautiful story but with a sad undertone. A large percentage of the homeless have autism [1]. And that really sucks. If these people don't have support, their lives can turn miserable fast. And unfortunately it's just way too easy for these people to end up in abusive situations. It's a lot of work to care for people with autism (moderate to severe). There is no standard for what they need, their capabilities can be…

It's much simplier than autism. Most homeless just get divorced and get into alcohol.

I've worked for homeless shelters. But in my country we do have proper care for homeless and autitisc people automatically. No need for private families to care for them. Some still do though.

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

#274

Post by ninalanyon »

KPGv2 wrote: post #258
fsckboy wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, the reason was to save tax money no, it wasn't, it was SCOTUS decision O'Connor v. Donaldson

I think in 2025, it is naïve to think the Supreme Court is apolitical in its rulings. =

But it was considerably more so in the past. What has happened now is that what the anti-federalists warned about is at last visible to everyone.

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

#275

Post by cafard »

fcatalan wrote: post #197

Not as hugely generous as this story, but during his whole college professor career since the 70s, my father always took care that none of his students spent any major holidays alone and away from home, so we always ended up having 2 or 3 of them around for Christmas, the New Year, Easter... They were from everywhere around the country and the world, and it was so very enriching for me and my siblings. I had a huge p…

The Colorado School of Mines had a "host family" program for foreign students. My father was a geologist, and we lived about five miles from the School of Mines, so we/they acted as host family for students from Italy, Nigeria, China, and no doubt countries I've forgotten. This included invitations to holiday meals, drives into the mountains, etc.

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

#276

Post by weakfish »

kulahan wrote: post #254
weakfish wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It’s extremely easy to say that things could and should be better, but it’s about as useful as saying that things “can’t” be done. The problem isn’t that nobody wants things to get better, it’s that we disagree on how to get there. This has literally always been the case. Of course things could be better. Life could be perfect. Lacking this solution you’re hand-waving, it’s useless drivel.

I disagree that it’s as useless as saying they can’t be done, because acknowledging the possibility opens the door intellectually to think about solutions.

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

#277

Post by fleroviumna »

toss1 wrote: post #169
fleroviumna wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Seriously, even on Christmas, Mr. Scrooge? Just because the main purpose of the forum is technical things of interest and intellectual curiosity, doesn't mean we can't be human and show empathy and caring.

[dead]

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

#278

Post by pier25 »

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…

45 years ago?

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

#279

Post by decafninja »

My wife’s uncle took in a man into his home, gave him a room to live in, and a job as a cook at his restaurant. This man would otherwise have been homeless on the streets.

The man doesn’t seem to be fully mentally well, but apparently he does his job diligently, has no inclination towards being violent, doesn’t do drugs, and keeps his problems mostly to himself.

That said, he has an extreme gambling addiction (he blows all his paychecks at casinos) and having seen his room once, it looked and smelled like a biohazard disaster.

He seems like a poor fellow that had some bad luck and now lives to just gamble the rest of his life away.

I give my uncle in law huge respect for taking this guy in, and also my aunt in law for also putting up with him living in their home. I don’t think my wife or I could have done the same.

The two of them are workaholics though and their home is just a space for them to sleep between work shifts at their restaurant. Which is why I don’t think they care too much about this man’s room’s condition.

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

#280

Post by seec »

kulahan wrote: post #253
johanneskanybal wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an easy cop-out and disagree as an European with stronger social nets. But yes this is still a heart warming story.

This story takes places in Europe, so it sounds like those social safety nets aren’t really doing shit here, as OP implied.

The so called safety net don't do jack shit. They are a way to give power to mean, power hungry bitches that can feel good about themselve for "taking care" and scolding other people that receive much less than they do for their bullshit job.

The funny thing is that if the wealth was actually shared fairly instead of politicaly, most of the recipient would fare a better life and we could do away with insane bureaucratic waste.

Another way would be to have less governement taxes and regulations that would allow for jobs to pay better and remove much of the need of the so-called safety nets. Of course, this way you would take power away from the mean girl bitches running those things so that can't happen.

From my experience, I can tell you that none of the people running those things have actually worked a single day in their life (as in, usefull work, that people would actually agree to pay for) but they can feel good about themselve because they are "helping".

It's hard to describe how corrupted the system is, church corruption seems a bit tame in comparison.

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