Kenny Needs Your Help

Kenny “The Kid” is facing the most difficult challenge of his life. After years of battling extreme PTSD and mental instability, Ken is now homeless and has been in and out of hospitals for the past year. I have done everything I can to support him—helping with rent, buying his car, paying for utilities, and assisting with his hospital stays—but the challenges have become overwhelming and I'm afraid of what might happen if I can't continue supporting him.

Recently, his car was impounded, leaving him without transportation and making it even harder for him to access the care and resources he needs. Right now, I am doing everything I can to get his car out of impound but there's so much more to do. Any new donations will go directly toward supporting Ken’s basic living expenses, such as food, clothes, and shelter. These essentials will give him the stability he desperately needs to focus on his mental health and recovery.

Since we released the show, I’ve had thousands of interactions with people who've been touched by Ken’s story. Now, I am humbly reaching out to this impassioned podcast community and beyond, asking for your support. Every donation, no matter the size, will help Ken continue on his journey of recovery and healing from the traumas that haunt him daily. Thank you so much and take care of each other.

gofundme.com/crookcounty

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a Tenderfoot TV podcast for girls. Hey,
happy holidays, everybody. I have some really sad news to report.
My father, Kenny, is currently homeless and he's out on
the streets. He has been for a while. He was
kicked out of his apartment a couple months ago, and

(00:32):
he's been in and out of hospitals and shelters dealing
with some very serious PTSD, I guess, and has been
having mental breakdowns and this hallucinating and having like flashbacks,
and he's just an absolute wreck. And I've been doing
everything I possibly can for the past year to help

(00:52):
this guy get back on track, paying for his rent,
I bought him a car, I bought him a new
phone because he lost his phone, and I've been paying
his utilities. And it's just been a constant battle, and
it's been very, very overwhelming for me and my family
to be basically be the only people that are carrying

(01:14):
this burden for him. And I am terrified that if
I just say no more, Dad, no more, I've had enough.
I don't know, I don't know, something terrible will happen.
And just so you know what I'm talking about, I'd
like to play a couple voice memos that he sent
me over the past week.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
All those voices you hear back. There are nurses, a
million nurses up here. I still need help, man. I
still get horrible dreams. I still get violence. I still
can't tell reality from what's not real. I get visual
hallucinations and audible hallucinations still. And they're all from fighting,

(02:03):
and they're all from fighting and shooting and killing. I
could talk to him as they're dead because they got
a big bullet in their fucking throat, and I could
talk to him and we have a conversation and we
apologize for killing each other or for trying to kill

(02:24):
each other. It sucks, man. You don't know how bad
it sucks. You don't know how bad it is to
take somebody with half his head blown off and talk
to him and tell him you're sorry for that, and

(02:45):
he smiles that she says it's okay, ken, I understand
it was war. But I can't do that, man. I
don't know how the guts. I just don't like dealing
with the dead, but the dead deal with me. And

(03:08):
it's all because of the night. It's all because of
horrible dreams. It's all because of the violence at night,
I'm gonna stop goodbye.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, and so here here's another one that's more about
his homeless situation and what he's gonna do after he
gets out of the hospital.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
I'm gonna be homeless again in the next couple of days.
I have nowhere to go. DSS doesn't even know what
to do with me. I gotta have my car, at
least I can live in that. I'm going to leave
this hospital with nothing. I'll have shoes, pants, and a sweatshirt,

(04:02):
and over the sweatshirt, I'll have a flannel and that's it.
And where am I going to go from there? I
have no idea. Probably some shelter if I could find one.
I just, hey, an dealt a bad hand. I'm a
fucking loser. You guys would delt good hands. Your winners,

(04:27):
take advantage of it, learn by my fucking mistakes, and
then your life will be good. But I am I'm just.
I have no luck, I have no nothing, I am nothing.
I can't do this anymore.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
So, Yeah, it's bleak. I feel like I'm completely out
of options with him. The only thing I can think
of doing it is is this. I'm embarrassed and I'm humbled,
but I'm I'm asking for support. I set up a
golf on me account to help you get him the

(05:11):
care and help that he needs. You can go to
GoFundMe dot com slash cook County and donate if you
want to, or share this with people who you might
think could help or would be interested. But I'm just
desperate at this point. I don't know what to do.
I don't know. I just hope that at some point

(05:31):
this guy can get the care he needs and have
a productive life again.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Thank you.