LGBT journalists, editors and bloggers met in San Francisco March 12 for concentrated presentations on LGBT youth homelessness, suicide, family acceptance, immigration reform, and legal progress on same-sex marriage. This was the second LGBT blogger and journalist summit sponsored by the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr., Fund, and the program was held at their San Francisco headquarters.
More than two dozen LGBT editors, journalists and bloggers heard about and discussed the issues with experts from the around the country, including Carl Siciliano, executive director of the Ali Forney Center for homeless LGBT youth in New York City. He shared his experiences with homeless youth who identify as LGBT and his frustration with those who are not responding to the urgency of the issue, in both the government and the LGBT community.
Each year, tens of thousands of youth are cast out of their homes, without the most basic of resources, into a brutal street life. According to Siciliano, Ali Forney Center opened in 2002 with just six beds, and right away they were turning away hundreds of youth, most with horrific stories. Youth were not just being kicked out by their families; some were living in intolerable situations at home and had to flee. There were stories of beatings and of parents forcing youth into "ex-gay" treatments.
"The risk [ of death by suicide or other causes ] is eight and half percent higher for youth thrown out by families into an environment of risk," he said. "But I do not see it in our awareness, this incredible risk to a large group of gay people."
According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, New York currently has more than 45,000 homeless youth, making it the twelfth-worst state. Siciliano said only 57 beds in the city are designated for LGBT youth. No other center in the city makes specific provisions for LGBT youth, he said, adding that across the U.S., only about 200 beds are targeted for LGBT youth; but more than 200,000 youth need such facilities.
Siciliano spoke to the group just as New York's government proposed widespread funding cuts to homeless youth shelters.
New York State has funded programs through the Runaway Homeless Youth Act ( RHYA ) since 1978. LGBT youth make up 40 percent of the homeless youth population, and would be disproportionately impacted by proposed cuts in New York cuts. Homeless LGBT youth are at significant risk of suicide, with 62 percent admitting having attempted suicide, and of HIV infection, with approximately 20 percent of NYC's homeless LGBT youth currently infected with HIV, according to the Ali Forney Center.
"Balancing a budget by throwing poor children out of shelters to fend for themselves in the streets is unspeakably wrong," said Siciliano. "It shows a reckless indifference to their safety and welfare."
LGBT youth as a population
The mission of the Ali Forney Center is to provide homeless LGBT youth, up to age 24, with services and to help them escape the streets and become independent. It is named for Ali Forney/Luscious, a homeless queer teen who lived as both genders alternately, and worked on HIV prevention on the streets in the 1990s. He was murdered in the streets in 1997. Many youth die on the streets by both murder and suicide, and many murder cases were never solved, Siciliano said.
Before the 1960s, the New York government took little or no responsibility and gay youth were classified as "status offenders," Siciliano said. In the 1970s, a federal act created transitional housing programs, providing a more enlightened model for how homeless gay youth should be housed, ideally in facilities of 20 beds or less. But resources were never made available. In the mid 1990s, Times Square got cleaned up and "the kids were the dirt that got cleaned," Siciliano said. They had to go to other neighborhoods to survive, often using prostitution and drug dealing to do so.
Siciliano also spoke against homeless shelters that are run by anti-gay religious groups, including the Catholic Church. "It speaks to our impotence as a community that a percent of our youth are being protected by organizations that tell them that gays are evil," Siciliano said. "It is as if the NAACP allowed an anti-Black message in homes where minority kids were housed." He said that more funding has been directed to faith-based organizations under the current administration than under former President George W. Bush. "We need reporting on gay youth groups accessing federal money," Siciliano said.
Siciliano also takes issue with the response of LGBT leadership on this issue. He said lack of marriage wasn't going to kill anyone, but that youth on the streets are at high risk. "It is a major disconnect that 10,000 gay people are being attacked, deprived of support, and it is not treated as a core issue by the gay community," he told the group. "If a crisis falls in the forest and nobody hears it, is it a crisis? Homophobia is destroying the core environments in which kids are supposed to be protected.
"As a movement, we are calling for coming out, coming out, and when kids come out and get kicked into the street [ they have no help ] . We need a new paradigm. Our implication is that, you come out and we'll be sure you're protected, your ability to have a family will be treated as equal. But that's not what is happening. When kids come out they are unable to survive in the kind of environment they come out into. We have to be demanding that our fair share goes to our kids. We need grants to develop a model for the foster care system."
One man's story
One young man, formally homeless and, after help from the Ali Forney Center, is now studying law, spoke to the bloggers and journalists.
Ksen Pallegedara's mother beat him and told him to go through an ex-gay program or she would kill him. When a young person goes to school and has clearly been beaten, it is a Department of Education rule that child protective services be called. The counselor on his case told him that his mother beat him "out of love," Pallegedara said, and the counselor did not help him.
"I think that that's when I became an atheist," said Pallegedara. "I said, 'Fuck you, I'm going to live'. Because my mom had said if I came home without that ex-gay certificate, I would not survive."
He said that kids in these circumstances often do some "couch surfing," going from friend to friend as long as they can. When they finally turn to shelters, they have no expectation of help.
"No space in [ New York's ] Village is a kid-safe space," Pallegedara said. "Wherever you go you are chicken," he said, meaning exploited for sex by older men. It was at this point Pallegedara went to the Ali Forney Center, expecting a bed at most. "But what I got was Carl and other people who actually cared. You come in expecting to be hurt, but here the first question was 'What do you need?' Without their confidence in me, I'd not be in school now," he said. Kids distrust, expecting to find nothing but dirty old men. At the Ali Forney Center, Pallegedara said he finally felt safe.
On April 12, the Ali Forney Center marked what would have been the 36th birthday of its namesake, Ali Forney.
See www.aliforneycenter.org . The Chicago Coalition For Homeless, www.chicagohomeless.org, has no specific mention of LGBT youth issues. Please see www.ucanchicago.org/host-home/ for details on Chicago's LGBTQ Host Home Program.
See upcoming editions of Windy City Times for additional reports from the Haas Foundation summit.
