A veteran of Fort Worth, Texas was evicted from his long-time home on Friday and watched as his possessions were tossed across the yard.
80-year-old Billie McGruder has been living at his former Texas residence for over six decades. The man’s parents bought the home in the 1930’s according to WFAA. The only thing he could do is watch from across the street at his neighbor’s house as photographs of loved ones, clothes, furniture, old record players and more piled up on his former lawn.
“Your neighbors see you get put outdoors in the middle of the morning,” said McGruder. “It’s mind-boggling.”
Anthony Drake Jr. and his wife, the 80-year-old’s neighbors, have been helping Mr. McGruder by keeping some of the veteran’s most valued possessions at their home and lending him emotional support.
“As long as he don’t have a home, he has one here,” said Drake Jr filled with tears. “This is the only grandfather I know,” said Drake. “Yeah, it’s hard.”
The neighbor told the news station that McGruder has endured slight memory loss over the past years. “He understands but he doesn’t understand,” Drake stated.
Letters of delinquent taxes were sent to McGruder, but the man had no idea of what was happening. Unfortunately, his home was sold in January of 2017 after it was put on the market for auction.
“He had an opportunity to file a legal challenge to the writ,” Constable Campbell of the Tarrant County Precinct 8 said unsympathetically. He added that the eviction was completely legal and it had been postponed for over a month to obtain aid from a service worker.
The news outlet contacted the new owner Yamal Mulid who said, “If I knew this was going to happen or the old man is in the house, I would never have bought the house.”
Mulid expressed that he would be willing to re-sale the house to McGruder for $38,000 the price the new owner paid at the auction or rent it for a reduced price. However, the elderly man’s only income is from Social Security.
“I’ll stay in one of these motels or something for the night and wake up tomorrow and see what happens,” McGruder said to the news station.