A fellow parent at my children’s school was telling me about her landlord, an older Italian woman, when she lived in Boston’s North End about twenty years ago.

“So she invited me in for lemonade one day and we had a nice chat. And then she said, ‘You know, I realize you’re just getting started in your career, and so I’m sorry about this but I’m afraid I’m going to have to raise the rent.’ So I thought for a minute and remembered the elderly couple below me and my roommate. They were on a fixed income and this would be really tough on them. I asked my landlord about this. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ve been worried about them, but I don’t know what else I can do.’ This man who lived below me was a fixture in our community; everyone knew him. He would even save my parking place by sitting in a chair out front, and nobody ever bothered him. He’d been very kind, you know? So I said to my landlord, ‘Why don’t you just add the difference in their rent to our new rent. We can cover it. We’ll just drink less beer.’”