One evening, David Pennay took a bad step and fell down the stairs at home. The next day, he felt a stab of excruciating pain, his legs went numb and he fell to the floor.
One evening, David Pennay took a bad step and fell down the stairs at home. The next day, he felt a stab of excruciating pain, his legs went numb and he fell to the floor.
Doctors told him a blood clot from the fall put pressure on his spinal cord and damaged vertebrae. “I don’t know if I’ll ever walk again,” said David, who also has epilepsy.
Prior to his accident, David worked as a meat cutter in a processing plant. His wife Nancy was working on an associates’ degree. After the accident, she had to give up her education. David’s epileptic disorder means he can’t be left alone with the children.
Unable to work, unable to pay the rent, David was evicted along with his wife and their children – son, Nathan, then age 4, and twin girls, Kayla and Kaitlyn, age 2. A friend found a place for them in a condemned bar.
“We were living in the pool room,” said David. “We had to cook on little burners. My wife washed dishes in the rest room sink…The bar was dark and dingy.”
That was February of 2015. This past spring, the plight of the Pennay family came to the attention of Lori Bowen, case manager of Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Scranton, Carbondale Office. Lori immediately opened a Homeless Assistance Program (HAP) Intensive Case Management file to help meet this family’s many needs, the foremost being housing. The family would soon be evicted from the bar where they took refuge.
Said Ms. Bowen, “We got very blessed with the timing. A handicapped accessible apartment was available in Jessup and this family was accepted.
“When I first met them, the family felt hopelessness. They didn’t feel anyone could help them,” Lori explained.
“Lori, our case manager, really fought tooth and nail to find a place for us that was handicap accessible – these things are almost impossible to get,” David added. “We wouldn’t have a home without Catholic Social Services or Lori Bowen. My children wouldn’t have it, I wouldn’t have it, my wife wouldn’t have it.”
Published in the September 28, 2017 edition of The Catholic Light, the newspaper of the Diocese of Scranton.
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