Ukrainian refugees bought a home by pensioner host
www.bbc.com
Oksana and her two daughters fled Ukraine two years ago and now have their own home.

'Ms Penn-Barwell got a mortgage to purchase the property, which she now rents out to Oksana and acts as landlady"

Lol such generosity.

  • bunbun@lemmygrad.ml
    94·
    7 months ago

    “I guess it seemed obvious because there wasn’t anywhere else to rent and I thought if you can do it, you should do it - so I could, so I did.”

    Ms Penn-Barwell added: “I’m not a wildly wealthy woman, far from it, I have an NHS pension but you know, if you don’t need things, why not do something useful?”

    Are we just doing cynicism as a form of self-validation now, going for the trotskyist vibe? This was, in fact, a generous and kind thing to do. It is an enormous pressure, living in a foreign country not knowing if you’re gonna have a place to stay next month. Especially if you have children.

    • Red_Scare [he/him]@lemmygrad.mlOP
      162·
      7 months ago

      The article headline and top paragraph state she “bought a house for refugees”. In fact she elevated her economic position to a landleach by using their desperation.

      The granny had enough spare assets to acquire a spare property, now she can pay her mortgage by skimming off refugee labour. At the end of it she will have two houses and a family totally dependent on her “generosity”.

      • bunbun@lemmygrad.ml
        34·
        7 months ago

        A random grandma took out a mortgage for a family she didn’t know and housed for two years. And you don’t see this as kindness, but as evil doing of a hardened capitalist? If you hold humanity in such low regard, then who is the future for, the one we’re supposed to be achieving?

        • D61 [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
          61·
          7 months ago

          Why didn’t the state provide housing for the refugees?

          Kinda shitty that the only way to find a place for a family fleeing a war is to find some rando who isn’t a huge creep, that rando having enough assets to get approved for a mortgage, the rando becoming a landlord, and that family having to pay a mortgage in their landlord’s name… just to have a comfortable place to live.

    • Addfwyn@lemmygrad.ml
      21·
      7 months ago

      She bought a second property to profit off the family. She saw the opportunity to be seen as a saint while having this family pay for the mortage payment on her second home.

      She thinks she isn’t a “wildly wealthy woman” but if you can buy a second house you absolutely are. Doesn’t matter whether she took a mortgage on it or not, she had enough assets that the bank thought they were getting a good deal there. Given her age and the risk of the loan, probably pretty substantial assets. Just because her definition of “wildly wealthy” probably means “able to buy a house in pocket cash” doesn’t mean she isn’t wealthy.

      This isn’t a great kindness, unless the article is being extremely misleading with the terms they are using. Which to be fair, BBC, totally possible. Do you write thank you letters to your landlord for the great kindness they are doing by deigning to let you live there?

      Maybe she isn’t actually charging them anything and the article is being misleading about the term rent, but assuming we take it at face value, this isn’t a great kindness.