"45 years working...now nothing"..newspaper article

[Frugalityisthenewblack]

Raleigh homeless woman once worked at IBM in New York :: WRAL.com

I'm curious how much pension she would get from IBM. Now she is homeless living in hotels or her vehicle. I feel for her. It is sad. It is too bad she didn't downsize earlier, her former house is big for just her and her cockateils (assuming she is single). But I suppose people go into denial with a belief things will get better and postpone drastic action until the lose everything.

 

[MichaelB]

The article doesn't say she worked all that time with IBM. She has a "modest pension" and SS but is still homeless. Something else going on here not mentioned in the paper.

 

[travelover]

Many of the homeless are mentally ill. Laying some kind of blame game on them is kind of pointless.

 

[Chuckanut]

Something else going on here not mentioned in the paper.

Often these articles give us the current picture but do not show us the movie of how things got to this place. It could be a person has mental problems, or is the victim of an very poor streak of luck, or was somehow swindled or cheated. Or, the person may have made a series of bad decisions that cause him to spiral downwards.

The other day I heard of a person whose career was described as being a 'waiter'. No, not somebody who served meals in a restaurant, but, somebody who racked up a huge amount of debt living the high-life, and was 'waiting' for mom and day to die so he could get his inheritence and continue this lifestyle.

We have no idea.

 

[Alan]

When we visited our daughter at Thanksgiving and again at Christmas last year we saw a woman several times that we would have loved to have known her story.

While staying with our daughter, most days we get up earlier than the rest and take a 45 min walk to a coffee shop we like and eat breakfast. Each time there was a lady with a small dog who would come in and browse around. (leave the dog tied up at a table outside). She never bought anything, but often would drink help-yourself coffee samplers from the flasks of coffee provided. She also had her cell-phone charging on 2 occaisions at a table where we we sitting (she came by one time and un-plugged it). When not in the cafe, we would see her sitting in her car (a Corolla) with her little dog stretched out on the back ledge, and the car would be parked in different places each day.

The folks at the cafe said they figured she was not "all there" in the head, but she didn't disturb the customers so they left her to it.

 

[teejayevans]

Raleigh homeless woman once worked at IBM in New York :: WRAL.com

I'm curious how much pension she would get from IBM. Now she is homeless living in hotels or her vehicle. I feel for her. It is sad. It is too bad she didn't downsize earlier, her former house is big for just her and her cockateils (assuming she is single). But I suppose people go into denial with a belief things will get better and postpone drastic action until the lose everything.

If you got laid off with a the old pension (IBM converted to cash balance plans in 1999) before you got your 30 years in, then your pension is pittance, I would guess hers is a few hundred a month.
TJ

 

[modhatter]

From the pictures of the house she lived in that was foreclosed, it didn't appear that she was considering living below her means. Not that I am not unsympathetic. I am a world class sympathy machine (usually very liberal in my thinking), but there is more to this storyline that is being untold.

 

[W2R]

Another possibility could be a gambling problem. I agree, there seems to be more here than we are being told.

Still, I feel sorry for her and I hope I never find myself in that situation. Sounds like she really loves those birds.

 

[Live And Learn]

This story is my worst nightmare and shakes me in my boots. I agree that there is probably alot more to the story, but my mind goes to a place that says "if it happened to her it can happen to you". You'll see from my other posts that I overplan this ladies story is exactly why. (PS: I'd probably live in my car if I had to give up my birds too !)

 

[jclarksnakes]

The real story in this case is probably the brother. I would bet that he has a problem that is limiting this womans options. She certainly seems like she should be employable. I would think that she could easily get a job waiting tables or cleaning motel rooms. We are a group that is very much into early retirement (doh) and it may seem awful to us that a 64 year old woman would HAVE to work but there are many women in their 60s waiting tables and doing the many other jobs in the service industries.