Hi! My name is Keith Binder, and I'm asking for your help! HELP ME GET BACK TO OMAHA! I’m going to share a long update, and I really need you to stick with me on it. There is a TL;DR at the bottom. Yes, it is a desperate plea for help, but if this goes right, it should, hopefully, be the last. Tomorrow (2/6/26), I will officially have $0 in the bank. Rent is due, utilities are due soon as well, and food and gas are needed. I have an appointment to update my CDL tomorrow, which I won’t be able to pay for at the time (this will make sense in a minute).
I’ve been in a relationship since the middle of 2019, and I wasn’t a very good partner for at least the first few years. In early 2021, I got a CDL to attempt to change my fortunes after the horrors of the service industry during the main pandemic year of 2020. I took a job with Werner Enterprises that wasn’t just way too insane for me, but also was not going to work with my relationship. I went back to bartending. I spent 2022 working for a climbing gym, a job that didn’t work out for some VERY sketchy reasons, and I was glad to be rid of it afterward. That year, my partner and I moved in together, and things seemed to be getting better. My partner had an amazing job that was going to give me health insurance at the beginning of 2023. Great, since I knew I had been in declining health for over a year. If you know me at all, you know what happened next. Cancer Diagnosis, a year of treatment, and several surgeries. What you may not know is how much all of this weighed heavily on the mental health of my partner. My partner felt alone as they were not from Omaha and didn’t have a support network. I felt uncared for as I was asked to continue to do as much as possible around the house, even the day after each surgery. I was not able to follow the rest orders from doctors, but I was still okay, I made it work as well as I could. I was not able to work for the majority of that year, but I was still trying to keep up with housework, but it was never enough, no matter how clean the place was. My partner decided that they were not going to re-sign the lease in November of 2023, and they would be moving back to Tennessee, and I had nothing to say about it. I chose to agree because I didn’t have the ability to find a new place, having not worked for almost a year, and because I felt I owed it to my partner to try something difficult for us to grow. It seemed like an opportunity to develop the relationship and work on my photography career, while my partner’s excellent job and health insurance kept us safe and healthy. So, in November, less than ONE MONTH after my final surgery for Cancer, I maxed out my credit cards to hire movers, rent the largest U-Haul, pay the security deposit, and pay for people to unload our moving truck when we got to TN. I HAD the credit to do the move for us, and was secure in the fact that debts would get paid through the work we both were going to do once I had fully recovered.
In January of 2024, less than three months after the move, my partner was let go from their job. This was devastating. My partner’s mental health spiraled, refusing to look for another job. I began applying for jobs…all that I was qualified for/could physically do. I was selling beloved, highly collectible comics and t-shirts from my many years of collecting and being a music fan. We limped along until June, and we lost the rental house and had to move into the basement of my partner’s deceased grandparents’ house. I took a job training AI large language models for $15 an hour to work from home and continue trying to work on finding something better. Nothing better came up after 2 years of looking and at least 800 applications. All the while, I was in charge of rent, food, utilities, my partner’s mental health and allergy medications, dog food, entertainment, car payments, gas, and whatever else my partner needed. All on $15 an hour. And this is Tennessee, where I don’t qualify for SNAP or Medicaid. So I gave up going to cancer monitoring, which I needed every three months. Because my partner was having a mental health crisis and wouldn’t seek help or work, I was stuck. My debts and bills weren’t getting paid. Last year, the AI job started to dwindle, so I started selling records, the last things I wanted to sell. But I sacrificed. Selling records and begging for help from my friends kept us afloat through 2025, but my car payment went to collections because I couldn’t keep up with it, and all my credit cards went to legal, and they are threatening to sue me. If you are super poor, you can’t afford to declare bankruptcy, you can’t afford the legal fees and lawyer needed.
So, during December and the beginning of January, my partner starts acting very strange, stops eating, and stops really communicating. I asked several times if they needed me to take them somewhere for help, a hospital or mental health center, even though there is no money, I was just worried. Then, a couple of weeks ago, they came into the room and told me they were leaving me and going to a shelter. This made no sense. They said they were getting a ride from their best friend, who lives in South Carolina. So I reached out, and she hadn’t heard anything from my partner. So, my partner’s cousin, who lives upstairs, ended up driving. However, when he came back, I asked how it went, and he told me the shelter wasn’t open, and my partner told them to drop them off at a Cracker Barrel because a friend who works there would let them stay at their place, so that is where he dropped them off and they walked off into the darkness, NOT INTO THE CRACKER BARREL! It was a very cold night here. I freaked out, because I know they don’t know anyone who works at a Cracker Barrel and has cut off everyone in their family and friends and self-isolated while having 2 years of a mental health crisis. Come to find out that they were taken to a hospital by the police and almost died from exposure and organ failure from using too many over-the-counter allergy meds. I’m happy to report that my partner is safe and getting healthy with their other aunt, who took them back after being cut off for three years. The unfortunate part is that this aunt absolutely hates me now and thinks everything about this is my fault. I am so banned from where my partner is that I am not even allowed to drop off the mail.
So I am single now. And with that, I have a possible opportunity to go back to truck driving. This could save me financially and get me back to Omaha without having to ask my friends for thousands of dollars to get me back home. But I may need a $900 CDL refresher course in March, and I need to be able to pay rent, utilities, and grocery bills until I can get into a trucking company. So I really need help right now, more than ever. I need around $300 just to update my CDL with my proper address and get my Department of Transportation Required Physical Exam and Drug Testing. I need $550 for rent, due next week. I also need to eat. I also need dental work, but that may have to wait. So, please donate or buy my records. I need help to get back home. I’ve lost almost everything, and I just want to get back to a safe place with my people and my support network.
TL;DR = My partner left me alone and penniless in Northeast Tennessee with nothing. I need your help to pay my rent, update my CDL credentials, and possibly pay for a $900 refresher CDL course. This will be what makes it possible for me to move home to Omaha as soon as I can.