We’re living in a time when kindness is becoming increasingly rare and all too many people seem to be gleeful about cruelty. And social trends like this are contagious — even the most soft-hearted among us are susceptible to a watered-down version of the toxicity that has become the order of the day.
One man online is a perfect example of how simple and easy it is to push back against this kind of needless ugliness. Especially given our current times, it’s a valuable lesson for all of us.
The man and his girlfriend moved to a new city and found squatters living in their new home.
It’s precisely the kind of nightmare we hear about all the time nowadays amid our unending housing crisis, especially in expensive coastal cities. The man, named Connor, recently relocated to Portland, Oregon, from Seattle, Washington, two cities currently embroiled in this nationwide crisis with the homeless populations to show for it.
Homelessness statistics are notoriously difficult to compile with any reliability, but the most recent estimates show that Portland’s homelessness rate rose 29% between 2022 and 2023, and rents in the city have climbed by 40% since 2021.
The situation Connor and his wife encountered is emblematic of this problem. “Last Saturday we packed a U-Haul with everything we own and drove from Seattle to Portland,” he wrote in a post on X, “and when we walked into our new home (we’re renting), it was immediately clear that squatters were living here.”
Most of us, even the most bleeding-hearted among us, would likely immediately call the police. If you’ve lived in a large city with a homelessness problem, you know what that would likely mean — those people would instantly lose every bit of what little they have and possibly face criminal charges.
Connor and his wife decided to take another far kinder approach.
The man and his wife simply gathered the squatters’ belongings and helped them on their way.
In his X thread, Connor wrote that he and his girlfriend found obvious evidence that the squatters had been living in their place for quite some time — they even had food in the refrigerator and toiletries in the bathroom.
“So as we spent the evening unloading our truck,” he wrote, “we had this awareness that these folks would likely be coming back to the place they’ve been sleeping only to find us there.” Nervous as they were, they decided to simply be kind.
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They gathered up the people’s belongings, put all their food in a cooler with ice so it would stay fresh, and waited for them to show up. They did, around 11:00 that night, looking sheepish and nervous. “We called out that it’s OK and motioned them over,” Connor wrote.
The squatters were shocked that the man and his girlfriend were kind to them.
Connor wrote that rather than the stereotypes we’ve all been fed about the homeless, the squatters were “so kind,” and also incredibly grateful that he and his girlfriend were being what he called “nothing special — simply decent about the situation.” They even helped Connor and his girlfriend secure their apartment so no future squatters could enter.
It’s easy to understand why they were so bowled over by Connor’s kindness — aside from a dip during the height of the pandemic in 2020, violence against homeless people has been on the rise since 2019, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. The Supreme Court decision earlier this year essentially criminalizing homelessness is expected to worsen these problems, according to advocates.
The incident made Connor think of “the folks who come back to find their belongings destroyed” when caught squatting or camping outdoors. These incidents seem to be common, and I witnessed one firsthand years ago.
When I lived in Chicago during the reign of supposedly progressive mayor Rahm Emanuel, a homeless encampment near my apartment was cleared in advance of a Mumford & Sons concert being held nearby. How did they do it?
By bulldozing all of their belongings into dumpsters after allegedly luring the encampment’s residents away from the site with a promise of a free meal nearby. It’s worth noting that Chicago’s homeless population had exploded in the years before this, in part because of Emanuel’s decision to close half of Chicago’s mental health facilities.
Nobody can deny that homelessness is a problem, but that kind of diabolical cruelty is as unnecessary and inhumane as it is counterproductive. Hats off to people like Connor who are willing to do the easiest, simplest thing instead — simply be kind.
It’s a good lesson for all of us to learn because, as he put it in his final tweet, “all I can say is, you and me are one bad unforeseen circumstance away from being in their shoes.”
Fifty-nine percent of us are, according to one study. If God forbid, it happens to us, kindness and respect may be the thing that keeps us going another day.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
