[SwellJoe]

As I understand it, some people did. He was living with his parents at one point, and had family support to at least some degree. Mental illness is tough sometimes...it's not always possible to protect an adult with mental illness from themselves (and it's not always safe to welcome an adult with mental illness into one's home or allow them to remain if their mental illness proves dangerous).

There's a lot of discussion we, as citizens in the US, should have about safety nets for people with mental illness, and I think it's clear Terry wasn't getting the help he needed. There are homeless folks in every major city in America who are similarly dealing with mental illness, we just don't hear about them because they aren't brilliant programmers working on such an odd project that it almost demands attention from fellow nerds.

We have no idea what hardships Terry's family dealt with. He was certainly brilliant, but not always kind or calm. I've found him fascinating for years (in a sort of "there but for the grace of god go I" sort of way, as severe mental illness runs in my family), but he could be incredibly hostile and unpredictable (in addition to the overt racism that ran throughout his work and words). He was banned from HN numerous times (someone linked an HN profile of his but he's had several) for his hostility and racism. I'm not saying this to speak ill of the dead here...it just seems awful to blame his surviving family when we know so little about what went on that led to him being homeless. I don't know that they'd ever see it, but it's still kinda shitty to blame someone's family for not doing enough, especially when we don't know anything about them or what they did for Terry.

[cbHXBY1D]

In some of his videos his parents yell at him for racism and anti-semitism. IIRC they kicked him out at some point.