A woman found a teenager sleeping in her yard, and her response has since gone viral on social media.
In a series of TikTok videos, user Elly Pimentel shared how she helped an unhoused teenage boy who kept sleeping in her yard. Athough she initially hesitated before sharing anything about the teen online, Pimentel posted bits of their exchange on TikTok in the hopes that her community might offer some guidance.
The clips, which were posted in September, have since sparked an outpouring of advice, support, and shared experiences from viewers everywhere.
“A teenager has been living in my yard. He can’t stay, but I don’t really want to evict him either,” she wrote over a TikTok video, which has been viewed more than 869k times. In the video, Pimentel explained that she had been noticing an unhoused 16-year-old boy curled up on a patch of cinder blocks near her house multiple times, but she “didn’t ask him to leave.”
“My Ring doorbell has alerted me to his presence in the past, and he is always respectful,” Pimentel wrote. “He genuinely looks like he’s just gotten out of class at the nearby high school.”