Even if you don’t believe in fate and karma, you can’t deny that the universe sometimes has an odd way of giving people exactly what they deserve. Try asking for help after you’ve denied it to someone else in the past. Oh, how the tables have turned!

Redditor u/Evening-Still2174 shared the ups and downs her family went through over the past few years. She explained to the AITA community how she, her husband, and her three kids became homeless in 2020. The woman’s mother-in-law refused to lend them a helping hand despite her earlier promises—something that really came to haunt her later on. Scroll down for the full story.

Bored Panda has reached out to u/Evening-Still2174 via Reddit, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from her.

A woman shared how her mother-in-law abandoned her relatives when they needed her help the most

Image credits: Pressmaster (not the actual photo)

Things started going downhill at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020

The woman, her husband, and their kids were forced out of their home. Their relatives were far from charitable

Image credits: Pressmaster (not the actual photo)

However, things soon changed drastically

Image credits: Evening-Still2174

The mother-in-law quickly realized that she got a taste of her own medicine

Image credits: Chayantorn (not the actual photo)

The author of the post, u/Evening-Still2174, proved that everything is possible, as long as you set your mind to it. Despite the fact that she and her family had to live out of a van and then a homeless shelter, they managed to bounce back in a spectacular fashion.

Not only did they build their own house from scratch (something yours truly dreams of doing someday), but they also created their own business. Now, they’re financially stable and incredibly happy. What more could you want?

Now, in 2023, the script has fully flipped. While the OP and her family are enjoying their hard-earned success, her mother-in-law is having a very hard time surviving. She’s suffered financially, she’s lost her retirement, and she might get evicted. In short, times are very tough for her.

Fearing losing her home, she turned to her son and daughter-in-law for assistance. However, the OP laughed in her MIL’s face. “I will admit that my first reaction was to outright laugh at her and her audacity. She looked immediately offended and uncomfortable, especially after I stated there wasn’t a chance of that happening,” she writes.

The woman still wasn’t sure if how she reacted to her mother-in-law’s request was right, so she turned to the internet for advice

However, some of the woman’s friends thought that she might have approached things wrong. This is what prompted her to share the post on the AITA subreddit in the first place. Most readers were on the woman’s side. They pointed out that she did nothing wrong by rejecting her mother-in-law, after how she treated them. They noted that it was a mean reaction, but something that was merited.

It’s one thing to refuse to help your family who became homeless; it’s far worse to promise them help and then go back on your word. This type of behavior meant the MIL was in no position to get help when she was the one who needed it. Unfortunately, just because someone is related to you by blood doesn’t automatically make them a good person. Not everyone’s a good parent or grandparent. Not everyone is willing to make (even minor) sacrifices for their family.

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Child homelessness is a far bigger problem than many people realize

Image credits: AnnaStills (not the actual photo)

According to the Eviction Lab, which tracks the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in 9 states and 32 cities, landlords have filed for nearly 1.8 million evictions from the middle of March 2020 till January 7, 2023. The most evictions were filed in Pennsylvania (206k), Virginia (180.7k), and Indiana (150k). There’s been a general uptick in the number of evictions after the moratoriums at the start of the pandemic were lifted.

Campaign for Children notes that, according to a 2021 study by the Childcare Services Association, 1 in 18 kids under the age of 6 experience homelessness every year in the United States. That’s 1.3 million infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.

Meanwhile, SAMHSA notes that child homelessness is often under-estimated. Based on the findings of a report done in 2013, the “typical family experiencing homelessness” in the US “consists of an African-American mother under the age of 27 with two small children; 51% of children who experience homelessness are under the age of six.”

Most readers were on the woman’s side. Here’s what they thought about the family drama

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