Attempt at long story short. Which will fail as I don't want to drip feed. Have NC as some details are outing.
Tradesman we’ve known for a number of years - at one stage he did a project for us where we saw him in our home almost every day for 6 months - came over a few days ago to discuss some new work with us and turns out has fallen on very hard times. Very depressed, has lost a lot of weight and says he has thought about ending it. Currently homeless. In the last couple of days we’ve given him £100 for food and petrol and paid the arrears on his storage as otherwise his stuff including his tools was going to be disposed of (storage company corroborated this to me). We felt, given what he told us, that if he lost his tools he’d be finished altogether. We agreed that we’d do this as an advance on the work we had been discussing.
We also offered that he could stay in our annexe for a few weeks while he got back on his feet and in return he’d do the rest of the work on our property - but he’ll do that in the evenings and at weekends and will be out earning revenue on work days, so he can get a deposit together for a flat etc.
He’s a good guy, very likeable, had a very hard start in life but seemed to us to have turned it around until he recently broke up with his gf and is now homeless as a result. He is really very good at what he does.
However today we’ve spoken to some other people he has worked for, friends of ours who we trust, and have discovered that he has been drinking, gambling, almost certainly taking drugs, that the job he did for them was the biggest he’d ever done, with him project managing other tradesmen but he spaffed most of the money, about £50k over a year, didn’t pay his workmen, one of whom was an inlaw to whom he now owes about £1000, he has been taken to court by at least one other quite prominent tradesmen he didn’t pay, when still with the gf was hiding in the bathroom at home so he could gamble online without his gf knowing. To cap it all friend asked me if I knew he’d been to prison. She’d done a Google search and about four items in is a newspaper article about him being a sentenced to more than 4 years for a serious violent crime. He got out just over 7 years ago. She says the reason he is homeless and has nowhere to go is because he has screwed everyone, let everyone down, owes money here there and everywhere. She said it's such a shame because he's really talented at what he does. She had at one stage offered to let him stay at their property, and even the guy who is suing him had at one stage offered to let him stay with him, they were good mates befriend it all went pear shaped. So she could understand why we had also made such an offer but she said Amaryllis lots of people have offered to help him yet he's still in this predicament now.
I really mean this - he is a good guy and we still want to help him. We do think he needs help. I feel really sorry for him. He has said quite a few times over the last day or two that he is so glad we haven’t judged him. I was really disappointed to see the article about his offences but at the end of the day he did his time and he hasn’t committed any further crimes since then. However that newspaper article, which has his very recognisable picture, will probably be online forever now.
Obviously we are not now going to let him stay in our annexe. I’ve asked him to come here tomorrow so I can tell him this face to face. I don’t know how he’ll take it. I think it’s more likely that he will cry than he will be angry and threaten us.
I also want to tell him that we are still happy for him to leave his stuff here, it can stay in an outhouse. The outhouse needs some repairs, he knows this, it's one of the jobs we discussed, and he doesn’t want his stuff to go in there until it’s waterproof and sound so my attitude is ok do the work to make it so, you owe us that for paying off the storage arrears. We are also happy to help him with looking overall at his situation, what money he owes, how to get him out of this current situation by helping him market his work, and just generally keeping an eye on him, offering a listening ear.
We won’t give him any more money upfront. I'm concerned the money we've given him so far has maybe been squandered already. I can call the storage place tomorrow morning myself to check, that will be interesting. He has plenty of skills and there is plenty he could do for us to earn money as he goes along.
My AIBU is - are we being unreasonable to continue to help him? would it be reasonable to say “you know what? you are not our responsibility, there’s a reason why you are telling us that your gf has thrown you out, you haven’t seen your Mum for 2 years, that your siblings won’t help you, that you have no friends, and despite your obvious skills which are very transferable and useful, no money. You’ve told us yourself that you are a drinker and a gambler, and we strongly suspect now that drugs are also involved and we know people like you lie to get your way. You won’t change.”
He’s not a relative or friend, just a tradesman we are fond of. But he has a lot of good qualities and if we don’t help him now then who will, it could be the last straw.
YABU - don’t get further involved. Cut your losses now.
YANBU - continue to help him. Everyone deserves a chance particularly if they have truly finally hit rockbottom
Sorry it's so long. Thanks for reading. Look forward to the responses.