Punta Gorda caregiver gets boost from Season of Sharing after decades helping others

When Craig Kenny was growing up in a small town in Michigan, he sought escape from the tensions in his house by keeping company with senior neighbors on his block.

Sometimes he’d walk their dogs for them, but most of the time the 9- and 10-year-old Craig would sit on their stoops or living room couches, asking questions about their lives.

“If you listen to your elders and people older than you, they have quite amazing stories,” he recalled of those days.

While he could tell it meant a lot to them to have someone care about their lives, Craig felt a genuine interest in their tales about both World Wars, the Great Depression, and the terrible working conditions in Michigan’s old factories.

“I would listen to them and learn a little bit of history and of their trials and tribulations,” he remembered.

Only many years later would Craig connect his nurturing listening skills to a calling. And after a lifetime of helping older residents, one day he found that he needed some help himself.

'I've never been one to ask for help'

After high school, Craig left Michigan for Florida, following a sister and brother-in-law to Leesburg.

For years he moved around the country and worked jobs in construction, factories and the trades.

In his thirties and living in Arizona, he turned to caregiving as a way to make more money.

Craig immediately fell into his former practices of listening to older residents – this time his patients.

“I liked talking to people,” he said. Craig often found out things about residents that none of his colleagues had known. “I met the first female aviator in the history of Arizona.”

As a caregiver in facilities, he would ask residents questions about themselves while cleaning their rooms and picking up the garbage. Every time, his patients would light up at the attention.

In 2004, by then almost 40, he moved back to Florida to be closer to family, including his mother, who lived in Venice after his father died. He got his Certified Nursing Assistant license and when one of his sisters was diagnosed with cancer, he helped care for both her and his mother until his sister passed away. Then his mom died in 2012.

Through all those years, Craig’s work was his life. He loved to get to know his patients, to help fix some of their day-to-day problems or just to lend an ear. For much of that time, he held jobs in large nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

But well into the pandemic, the long hours on his feet began to take a toll. He suffered from arthritis, diabetes and neuropathy.

“I’m in constant pain,” he said.

Encouraged by a friend, he decided to take a job in home health instead. Though the hours were unpredictable, it potentially offered better pay and a chance to slow down and take care of himself.

“The health care field is a low-ball situation,” he said. “A lot of facilities don’t want to pay you for your worth. They don’t seem to realize that we are taking care of elderly people who might be your brother, your mother, your sister. In the health field, we struggle every day.”

About two years ago, he started working for one main client.

But then earlier this year, the client passed away and Craig was left without work.

This summer, as he searched for another job, he found himself falling behind. At one point, he cashed in his small retirement savings to cover the rent.

Heading into the fall, he was hired once more at a nursing facility not too far from his Punta Gorda apartment. But the start date was several weeks away and he was out of cash to pay his rent. For five years he had lived in this same apartment and had never been late.

“I’ve never been one to ask for help.”

Season of Sharing provides relief

Craig turned to United Way of Charlotte County, which tapped Season of Sharing for almost $1,100 on his behalf to cover September’s rent and water.

Season of Sharing is a fund administered by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County to assist individuals and families in an emergency with rent, mortgage, transportation, utility and childcare expenses in Sarasota, Manatee, DeSoto and Charlotte counties.

“It’s a relief for me, it really is,” he said. “I was scared.”

For Jen Wolfe, program manager at United Way of Charlotte County, Craig’s situation is a common one in the area – given the large number of healthcare workers serving the region’s older population, the industry’s relatively low level of pay, and the high costs of living.

“This is one that we see quite often,” she said.

Those working in home health are particularly vulnerable as they can’t always anticipate when their client is going to pass away, she added. While United Way offers budget courses to help low-income workers build up savings to prepare for an unexpected loss of employment, Wolfe says she recognizes the challenges for many households to do so when they are living paycheck to paycheck.

“They usually do wind up with a little gap like that,” she said, a tough spot in covering the bills when between jobs.

Craig, now 60, has since started his new position and is back on his feet, though he still owes a little more than $100 in a late fee for the past rent. With 10 patients to care for a day, he doesn’t always have the same amount of time to talk with residents as he did in home health or smaller facilities. But he still treats them with the same interest, respect and dignity.

As for his personal situation, he worries about the costs of living – housing especially – and if his rent will continue to climb in the next few years, or what he’ll do if he has another setback.

“I’m still afraid,” he said.

Long term, he wonders if he’ll ever be able to stop working, or ever afford the care he now gives if he needs it himself in his old age. A lot of housing programs he has seen out there, he said, are for single moms or veterans – neither category he fits – and rarely for single men like him.

“I’m 60. I should not be in this position. I should be looking toward retirement age,” he said. “But I might not have anything to retire with.”

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Read the story as it originally appeared on the Herald-Tribune on Nov. 10, 2024.