So, what happens to the homeless LGBT teens in the system when they hit adulthood?
Depending on the site you look at for statistics, there are anywhere from 1.6 to 2.8 million teens in the US and a disproportionate number of them are LGBT. While there are some great efforts at hand like the True Colors Residence or the Ali Forney Center, they are faced with far too many teens and not nearly enough resources to go around.
Via American Progress: (linked above)
The federal government can and should do more to respond to this problem. Of the approximately $4.2 billion the government spends annually on homeless assistance programs, less than 5 percent of this funding, $195 million, is allocated for homeless children and youth. Even less actually goes to serve unaccompanied homeless youth.
Further, each year the federal government spends $44 billion on rental assistance, public housing, and affordable housing programs, yet less than 1 percent of these funds, only $44 million, is allocated for homeless youth housing assistance.
There are currently no federal programs specifically designed to meet the needs of gay and transgender homeless youth, and there are no federal protections, and few state laws, in place to keep these youth from being discriminated against while accessing federally funded homeless services.What’s worse, federal grant awards for homeless youth services are being awarded to providers without mandating that they not discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity, leaving vulnerable youth open to harassment from staff and other residents.
Nor are these grantees required to abide by basic standards of gay and transgender health care. In short, the lack of inclusive policies and targeted resources for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in federal grants prevents this population from having equal access to federally funded services.
While centers like True Colors Residence and AFC will assist youths up until they are 24, what happens to those in other programs who have hit the age limit? What happens when their assistance is cut off simply because they hit the wrong birthday? Meet Juan Gallaher, a transgender man who just lost his apartment and other assistance for no other reason than that he’d turned 21:
It was 8:30 p.m., and Mr. Gallaher was getting his first meal of the day. But he has gone so long and so often without food that hunger is now a faint feeling, he said, though he knows he needs to eat.
Three weeks earlier, he had turned 21. While that is a happy milestone for most young people, for Mr. Gallaher — a ward of the state since 2006 — it meant he was no longer eligible for services from the Illinois child welfare system. As a result, he lost his apartment and his subsidies.
“I’ve learned in my life that nothing is stable,” Mr. Gallaher said. So he focuses on the fundamentals: getting a free dinner and finding a place to sleep — maybe under a bridge, in an abandoned house or crowded with other homeless youths on the floor of a friend’s small apartment.
With a state unemployment rate of 10.1 percent, combined with a lack of affordable housing and shelter beds, an increase in homeless young people in Chicago is putting stress on an overburdened social-support system that is facing deep cuts in budgets and programs.
Advocates estimate that Chicago has up to 3,000 homeless youths in need of shelter on any given night. But there are just 209 youth shelter beds available citywide — only 5 percent of the approximately 4,000 in the city’s shelters. And with local youth shelters and drop-in centers turning away more young people than ever, providers said, young homeless people are left to navigate for themselves in a system created to meet the needs of adults.
Homeless youths are in need of nurturing, they are easy targets for crime and abuse, and some are prone to commit crimes. This makes the task of helping them costly and complex. Beyond basic housing, there is a need for services that can help them obtain an education and job skills that could help lead them toward society’s mainstream.
Mr. Gallaher also is a transgender person, and a former ward of the state — both of which, studies show, make him far more likely to experience homelessness.Experts say that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people make up a disproportionate number of the homeless youth; they represent as much as 40 percent of the national homeless population.
Many youths with gender-identity issues have been kicked out of their homes or have run away. In Chicago, most flock to Boystown, the magnet for young gay men and lesbians along Halsted Street on the North Side, looking for ad hoc family structures born of the street — street moms, street dads, nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters. Some even call themselves twins.
Good thing we’re so amazingly focused on gay marriage. I’m sure that’s just what Gallaher needs to fix his life right now.
Go read the rest of the article. It’ll really make you examine the current priorities in this country.
(thumb via the linked article)
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