Willie Boyd, an Air Force veteran, is a kind-hearted man who relies on his fixed disability pension. He lives alone in a small apartment in the Midwest and is generally happy to be able to pay his monthly rent of $600.
After suffering a stroke that left him unable to move around like before, he trusted a former building manager to withdraw money from his ATM so the rent would be paid on time.
Boyd assumed everything was fine, but then received an alarming notice from his new property manager that he owed $2,240 in unpaid rent and fees.
It turns out that the woman who trusted Boyd to help her only paid half the rent; Another $300 went straight into his pocket. This went on for a while as the new management allowed some leniency towards cash-strapped tenants, but this situation persisted for a few months. Facing expulsion, Boyd was even more distressed that he had been cheated on by a woman he thought would help him.
The veteran’s son-in-law contacted KFOR, the local TV station, and the story caught the eye, but once posted on social media, things started to look up for Mr Boyd.
A member of Veterans Corner, an Oklahoma-based charity based in Newcastle, saw the report and immediately got to work.
The first step was to contact the apartment manager to get a promise to postpone the eviction. The next step was to activate the network and provide Boyd with the money to maintain his apartment. The KFOR press team was there to cover this development.
