After Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Keith Carson was unable to stay where he was living due to flooding. The openly gay HIV/AIDS activist moved around from living with relatives to apartments and motels. He now owns a single-family home in Barnegat, N.J., which he purchased in March 2013.
However, his current home is not safe either. Carson was diagnosed with lung cancer, which spread from an earlier diagnosis of anal cancer, and is unable to pay his mortgage.
“I’m really terrified that I’m going to lose my house and I’ll be out on the street,” Carson said. “With the current condition that I’m in, that’ll kill me.”
Carson’s cancer caused him to black out while driving, resulting in him having to go on disability in June 2014. The state of New Jersey has denied his pension, which he funded through working as a professor at Atlantic Cape Community College and as a human-services specialist for Ocean County’s Board of Social Services, on a technicality: After reviewing the case, the representatives for the mortgage company determined Carson’s disability was associated with lung cancer that disabled him as of Jan. 20, 2016. He was not considered disabled at the time he left employment on June 4, 2014, despite having cancer in other parts of his body.
In the meantime, Carson’s mortgage company denied him a mortgage modification and refused to accept future mortgage payments due to his low income. Carson currently has $33,485 in arrears.
Francis Cratil, Carson’s friend and former fraternity brother, spearheaded a GoFundMe campaign to help raise money for Carson’s mortgage payment.
“If I lose my right to health insurance, this could be me one day,” said Cratil, a cancer survivor. “Should I lose my right to health insurance and the cancer returns, I could be in danger of my wife and I losing our house.”
Cratil and his wife, Cathy Lee, own Le Virtù and Brigantessa, two Philadelphia restaurants. The businesses have coordinated charity efforts in the past but since Carson was more than $30,000 in arrears, it was beyond the restaurants’ capacity to raise. However, Cratil said he might try to host an event at Le Virtù and has been sharing the GoFundMe page on the restaurant’s Facebook and Twitter.
Cratil met Carson when they were students at Gettysburg College. While they lost touch with each other until they reconnected on Facebook in 2011, Cratil was still aware of Carson’s work with HIV/AIDS.
“This is work helping humanity, helping other people,” Cratil said. “[HIV/AIDS] was just not a thing that was always accepted. We’re old enough to have lived through a time when [President Ronald Reagan] wouldn’t even say ‘AIDS.’ I’m extraordinarily proud of Keith.”
Carson, who is HIV-positive, established safesepace, New Jersey’s first state-funded HIV education and prevention program for gay men, at South Jersey AIDS Alliance. Through that initiative, he helped conduct retreats, support groups and outreach and education programs. Additionally, he helped create the HIV/AIDS Ministry at St. Francis Church at Brant Beach on Long Beach Island, N.J., and was a member of the National Catholic AIDS Network, where he was on the steering committee for a national conference.
While Carson has kept spiritual faith through his cancer, he also maintains a sense of humor. This includes joking around with doctors by saying, “This is for when I die, right?” during his chemotherapy appointments and by giving a fake name and birthday at appointments.
“You have to have a sense of humor,” Carson said. “That’s the way I am. It’s good to be a little light-hearted. If you don’t have a sense of humor, you can become very bitter about the whole thing.”
Carson has also found strength in accepting his fate.
“I’m at the point now where I have a terminal diagnosis and I’ve accepted the fact that I’m dying and it’s something we all have to go through,” he said.
By presstime, Cratil’s GoFundMe for Carson had raised more than $8,000 of the $33,500 goal.
“I can’t help but be nervous because we still have a long way to go,” Cratil said. “I’m relatively sanguine. I think we’re going to get there but we need to broaden the reach, widen the net and get word out.”
Carson said he was moved by the support on the fundraising page but recognizes there is still a ways to go.
“I’m established,” Carson said. “I have a home here. I don’t want to die in a hospital. I want to die in the peace and comfort of my own home.”
To donate to Carson’s mortgage fund, visit https://www.gofundme.com/save-keiths-house-during-his-chemo.