Hi all. Writing this to vent. First, some background: my father is an electrician by trade (a damn good one too). He worked in mines on industrial and mining equipment for much of his life. About 1997, he wanted to get out of the mine and bought a small business with some savings. It went quite well until about 2010. The business relied heavily on purchases from tourists in the area, and after 2008 tourism declined and many businesses in the area went under, including my parents'. Getting to my point: my parents' were forced to declare bankruptcy back in 2010 and despite being retirement age, Social Security just isn't enough. My mom and dad have hopped from job to job ever since. Both are in their 70s and have some health complications. Thankfully, my mother has some healthcare coverage from her state job, but she can no longer work. My dad had been at this job for a few years now and had a small but workable retirement plan in place. There is a new administrator at his company, and out of the blue she fired him today. Claimed some nonsense excuse about him “violating company timecard policy”. My dad is honest to a fault. I doubt he was deliberately doing something underhanded. But since it is “with cause”, he gets no severance and his retirement benefits are partially void. Now, they will not be able to afford to live in the area (PNW) and I can't afford to support them. I am barely getting by with my little family as-is. I am so disgusted that after a life of hard work, especially on my dad's part, my parents are just SOL. I am pissed and frustrated and disgusted. I hate to admit it, but I am even a little embarrassed, which I know is not something I should be feeling but there it is. I don't know what else to say and I feel like crap that I can't financially support them. They can sleep on my couch in our rental, but what kind of life is that for an aging retired couple? Even pooling resources, homes and rentals here are too expensive to get something big enough for all of us. We will keep looking, but they might have to move to the cheapest place they can find and just… exist I guess.
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post, just wanted to get it off my chest.