Nothing to laugh about / myLot

Rockingham, Australia

August 9, 2025 1:43am CST

I’m borrowing an idea from George (@Deepizzaguy) and putting up a couple of good news posts. The homeless often get a bad wrap but they’re not all derelicts and deadbeats. Life seems to conspire against some at some point and, once you’re in a situation, it can be very difficult to get yourself out of it. Brendon, a Perth resident – well, he’s not actually a ‘resident’ if he’s homeless but moving on… Brendon has a partner and two teenage sons. In 2023, Brendon’s landlord fell ill with cancer and needed to move back into the house they were renting. They had three months to find another place to live but were unable to find anything. Then, in a freak accident, a tree fell on his car. As Brendon is a roof tiler he needed the car to get to his work places. With no car, he was dismissed from his job. So, in one year, he had lost his house, car and job. The stress caused his partner to have a seizure, the first for a long time. The family have been couch-surfing, sleeping rough or staying in short-term hotels since. I can’t imagine trying to survive with a partner and two teenagers – and no car. When he told his story on a breakfast radio show, a woman who was about to advertise her car for sale, gave it to Brendon. Hopefully, it will be a turning point for the better. We should never judge, certainly not until we have the full story.

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7 responses

Jim Bauer

@porwest (105434)

• United States

9 Aug

Sometimes, I will admit, there can be certain things that really can mess up a lot, that are beyond our control. At the same time, I also find them to be opportunities to remind people that nothing is a given and we shouldn't pretend that it is. There are countless things out there that constantly tell us, don't expect your job to be there tomorrow and to be prepared for whatever happens. Thus, do we have an emergency fund? No? Perhaps we should work on that. In Perth is there public transportation? Could he have used that to find work elsewhere and get to a job and looked at the routes and planned out a solution? Losing a car is bad, sure. But there are other ways to get somewhere, and again, an emergency fund could have allowed him to get another one. Did he have insurance? If not, why not? Granted, he may have only had liability. I try very hard to sob with the sob stories, but when I hear about them and start to examine their real underlying situation, what I find more often than not is that circumstances didn't create their situation. What they didn't do or didn't pay attention to did. I think it's important to examine these stories as well in much the way I do. If we only sob with them, we can't take anything away from them as lessons. Any one of us can be in Brenden's boat UNLESS we heed the underlying lessons offered in a story like his. A story like Brenden's is precisely what we mean when we say, "Don't get caught with your pants down." That doesn't mean I don't have any compassion for a guy like him. But nothing will help him until and unless he fixes the problems that allowed himself to wind up where he did.

1 person likes this

Judy Evans

@JudyEv (360474)

• Rockingham, Australia

10 Aug

Public transport in Perth is very limited particularly to some areas. It's hardly his fault that he got evicted and he would have trouble stopping a tree falling on his car. Sure you've taken good care with your own life but it's not always easy for others. I don't consider it a sob story.

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