How Can We Help LGBT Homeless Youth?

First by understanding the scope of the issue

Often it starts with a family conflict: Your parents reject you, or you get kicked out, or you make the decision to leave. How could you stay when you are cast aside for who you are? Then comes the next obstacle, one that is just as insurmountable, if not more so: Life without a home.

According to the Williams Institute, 40 percent of homeless youth throughout the United States identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. On top of this disproportionately high percentage, the experience of homelessness for LGBT youth is exceptionally challenging.

“LGBT youth reported higher levels of victimization both prior to and after becoming homeless,” says Melissa Welch-Lazoritz, the project director for this year’s Street Outreach Program Data Collection Project. Victimization includes being beaten up, robbed, threatened with a weapon, sexually assaulted, and raped. While 60 percent of straight/gender conforming participants reported incidences of abuse, the number for LGBT participants was 75 percent.

The report also found that “LGBT youth were significantly more likely to report trading sex for food, money, shelter, drugs, or protection than their heterosexual peers.” For LGBT participants, half admitted to using sex this way, whereas for heterosexual participants, it was just over a quarter.

Because of their experiences, Welch-Lazoritz says LGBT youth were “more likely to exhibit high levels of depressive symptoms.” And over 75 percent of the entire sample of homeless youth — both LGBT and straight — reported to be experiencing PTSD.

These statistics speak for themselves. They are horrifying, not only for LGBT youth, but for the entire population of homeless young people throughout the country. So if we are aware of these issues, what are we doing to address them?

In New York City, it’s largely economic, claims New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio. “Even after the great recession, the cost of housing kept skyrocketing in this city,” he’s said. He called those prices the “buildings blocks” of the crisis.

De Blasio acknowledges, however, the inefficacy of his administration. The approach to management has been stagnant, while the reality of the situation has evolved. The economic crisis has contributed to the number of low-income workers with meager wages. Meanwhile, the administration has not adapted to make housing more affordable for this this ever-growing faction of our society.

In De Blasio’s defense, in addition to the unsuitable economic situation, the Bloomberg administration deserves a rightful share of the blame.

While studies have shown that housing the homeless first is the most effective and the most humane way to get people off the streets (Occam’s razor, anyone?), mayor Bloomberg adopted policies that he thought would make the homeless more self-reliant. This process entailed offering short-term help with rent, but no priority access to housing and other programs.

The results backfired. They contributed to the reality of today, which is that rates of homelessness are as high as they have been since the Great Depression. In another highly criticized city program, the Bloomberg administration funded a bunch of one-way tickets for homeless families to leave New York City. It “saves the taxpayers of New York City an enormous amount of money,” he prophesied.

The National Coalition for the Homeless has led the way in seeking actual solutions to the issue. And there have been efforts to combat the high rates of LGBT youth homelessness specifically.

NEST, for instance, is a strategic plan developed by the Montrose Center in Houston with the objective of getting 5,000 youths who have been kicked out of their homes off the streets by 2020. The strategy is focused around creating a framework in which the needs of LGBT youth are addressed and resources are accessible. They prioritize housing first, and follow up by connecting youth with employment opportunities.

The process, though, is not so straightforward. The Houston Press reported that when kids in Houston are offered shelter, they often decline. The explanation provided by Deb Murphy, one of NEST’s youth specialist, is that these kids “don’t want to go back to an environment full of rules.”

An alternative explanation, one that does not buy into the myth that homelessness is for most a choice, could be that they don’t want to go back to the environment that some shelters are offering. It’s no secret that shelters are not safe havens.

Welch-Lazoritz insists that of the 11 homeless shelters she worked with across the nation, all of them were “LGBT friendly, designated safe spaces, and have trained their shelter and outreach staff to be LGBT ‘allies.’” She adds, “Some health care facilities and clinics, as well as other outreach programs or shelters, do have specific programs catering to the needs of LGBT youth.”

One area in which these shelters could improve, Melissa said, involves catering to the needs of transgender youth. Many shelters are segregated by gender. Although some serve their youth based on how they identify, not all are this way.

Some organizations, like the True Colors Fund, have worked within government to become involved in the process of policy making. Last year True Colors collaborated with two senators to bring the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act (RHYTPA) to the Senate. If the legislation had passed, it would have reauthorized the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA). But last year it fell four votes short of the 60 “YES” votes that it needed. This was largely due to the objections of conservative religious groups backing certain Senators.

According to True Colors, the main goal of the reauthorization was to “strengthen the support systems for family reunification and intervention.” The legislation would have combated what experts like Welch-Lazoritz argue is the primary factor leading to homelessness for this population: family rejection. The Senate was able to eventually pass another bill to improve services for victims of sex trafficking, but the revision left out an amendment that would have increased funding specifically for homeless youth services.

Acceptance of the LGBT community has increased throughout the United States in recent years. Welch-Lazoritz insists that this reverberation has extended into homeless communities as well. Organizations like the True Colors Fund and the Montrose Center are making legitimate strives to promote awareness, get homeless LGBT youth off the streets, and target the source of the issue. Although it’s disconcerting every time governmental organizations hesitate over bills that seem so straightforward, we’ve come a long way in just the last decade, and it’s promising that we have advocates who are addressing issues that have been previously ignored.

Yoni Blumberg is a senior at the University of Delaware and an Awl network intern this summer.

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