Homeless man gets his Thanksgiving wish: To celebrate the day with a family

Homeless man gets his Thanksgiving wish: To celebrate the day with a family
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This Thanksgiving, all Neal Shytles wanted was to have dinner with family — any family.

The 54-year-old has lived in a Norfolk, Virginia, homeless shelter for two years, and said the holidays are his loneliest time. "It hurts every day of the year but on Thanksgiving and Christmas, it's 10 times worse being by yourself," he told ABC News. After talking with some friends from the shelter, he decided to put up a personal ad on Facebook, titled "Wanted: A family to share Thanksgiving with." He posted it to the pages of news sites in the area, and was interviewed by one of the stations.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.