Live Week: Kenyette’s Story
Hello again KCB Blog readers..
We hope you’ve had a meaningful Christmas season and a strong start to the new year! We’re back at it here, and it’s “LIVE” week.. so we’re honored to kick things off with a story introducing you to a special person we were able to assist just last month.
We’d like you to meet Kenyette Boyd.. a Bellflower neighbor who’s spent the last eight years as a Mental Health Behavior Tech, listening to people through their struggles and offering compassion that comes from her own deep places of pain and loss.
Kenyette grew up in Downtown LA.. Historic Central off 23rd street.. raised mostly by her grandma, who worked at Cedars-Sinai for years and gave her the best, most stable childhood she could, all things considered. Her mom had her young, so grandma stepped in as the main provider. “By the time my mom got her stuff together and finished college, I was comfortable with grandma.” They were more like sisters at first, but after grandma had passed, Kenyette gave her mom the chance to step in.. and over the course of ten years, they did just that. They built a real bond that meant the world to her.. But then two years ago, mom passed too. “She was literally talking to me the day she left,” Kenyette said quietly. “I never expected it to happen so fast.”
That loss, and her son losing his father to mental health struggles when he was 12.. that’s what pushed Kenyette into the work she does now. She spent the better part of eight years jumping agencies until she found ones that matched her values.. always listening, always trying to be the ear someone needed. “Working with mental health has showed me a lot of compassion and empathy.. being thankful for others’ situations despite the things I’m going through. God said to put Him first and others next and self last.. I never used to understand it, but I do now.”
As far as housing.. she had been stable for a long time.. she had her own place and was determined to make it work on her own terms. But then the job loss came out of nowhere.. and the ends weren’t meeting anymore. She tried Instacart, odd jobs and gigs she could find.. really anything to scrape by. By the grace of God her landlord was understanding when rent starting coming up short and did give her some leeway, but the three-day pay-or-quit notice still eventually landed. And that’s when depression started creeping in. The stress of not knowing if she could make it built up day after day. “I was so used to maintaining and not asking for help,” she said. “My grandma was my provider.. then my mom. I felt alone in that moment.”
She ended up calling a crisis prevention line one day.. and through that call, she got a list of resources. She reluctantly began calling down every single one. And when she got to KCB.. one of our front desk volunteers (Jessica) took the first call. She listened to her story and passed her along to the housing team to see if she qualified for rental assistance. That’s about the time that Valerie reached out to her and began a conversation that would ultimately lead to a huge change for her situation. “Valerie was very nice to me.. compassionate,” Kenyette remembered. The wait was a couple months, but Valerie kept her updated and finally hand-delivered the check. Rental assistance covered enough back rent to stop the eviction.. and that gave her the breathing room she needed to find a new job. “It didn’t catch me all the way up,” she said, “but it did enough for me to get another job. I’m working there right now.”
Having that stable place again has changed the everyday things.. better sleep, less constant drama that could trigger her underlying heart condition. “Knowing there’s a roof over your head.. I don’t wanna go back to Downtown LA.. waking up to gunshots and dead bodies. For my sanity and peace.”
Now she’s focusing on the small things that bring her back to herself.. getting back to the gym, meditating with the coping skills she teaches her patients, cooking when the budget allows (pasta, enchiladas, lamb chops with veggies if she can get all the ingredients). Her circle’s small.. “more like a dot”.. but she’s learned to be grateful for what’s real. “I appreciate the small things.”
Faith has always been her anchor. “Always been a strong believer.. walk by faith not by sight.. keep God first no matter what.” Her favorite line that carries her is: “He might not come when you want Him, but He’s always on time.” And her advice for anyone staring at an eviction notice and feeling like it’s over is to keep going. In her words.. “Keep the faith.. because you just never know. There’s people willing to help, but you gotta go look for it. If it wasn’t for me calling down that list, I wouldn’t have known about KCB.. and I live three minutes away.”
Live Week is about stories like Kenyette’s.. where programs like this rental assistance program give people the breathing room they need when life hits hard and everything feels like it’s slipping away. If we could help every single person who needed it and had unlimited funding to do so.. we absolutely would. But we don’t, so we do what we can with what we have. And stories like hers remind us why it really matters. Here’s someone leaning on God, walking by faith.. not by sight, yet life still strikes hard.. and because of this program, she got the help she needed. And even more than that, she got space. Space to breathe. Space to heal. Peace to keep showing up for others even when her own world had been shaken. That right there is what we keep fighting for.. for one neighbor, for one story, for one hand-delivered rental assistance that turns things around for people.
Kenyette.. keep the faith. We’re thankful for you and the way you show up for people every day.. and it’s such an honor to know you.
We pray that peace that surpasses all understanding would fill you as you read this and trust Him.
Thanks for reading.
Until next time..