It’s no surprise that Log Cabin Republicans praise the vice presidential pick while gay Democrats denounce her. But what is her actual record on LGBT issues?
Gay leaders praise Obama’s speech as an ‘emotional moment’ and say LGBT issues were included throughout the Democratic National Convention.
LGBT activists hail the choice of Biden for Obama’s running mate.
The lesbian activist and her longtime partner were the first couple to be married this summer in California.
advertisement
advertisement
|
By Erline Andrews
Friday, December 21, 2007
A new survey has sparked hope among New York City activists that the long-standing and critical problem of homeless gay teens will get a much-needed boost of attention and funding.
The survey, conducted by the Empire State Coalition of Youth and Family Services and funded by the City Council, found gay teens make up around a third of the number of homeless people younger than 25, a figure way larger than their proportion of the general youth population.
The survey, the first of its kind in New York, found there were 3,800 youth overall without a permanent place to stay. Of that number, 1,064 identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual; 190 identified as transgender.
The City Council will begin hearings next month on the survey’s findings.
“We’ve been struggling for three years to get churches to respond and people to donate and to care about this,” said Peggy Borgstede, who runs the Interfaith Task Force for LGBT Homeless Youth. The organization sets up church shelters for gay teens.
“These kids are by and large ignored and really treated like they’re at the bottom of the barrel,” Borgstede said. “I don’t even think many gay people are aware of the severity of this problem.”
Councilman Lewis Fidler (D-Brooklyn), chair of council’s Youth Services Committee, said the survey’s findings weren’t surprising, but they would serve a very important function.
“I’ve been campaigning about this for a couple of years,” he said, “but now we have further justification to increase spending to increase shelter beds for LGBT youth.”
Empire State executive director Margo Hirsch said the reorganization and expansion of social services are of course necessary, but she points to a wider and probably more intractable issue.
“There is a cultural change that we need to make in this country,” Hirsh said, “to the extent that people understand what happens when you have a homophobic society, when you have homophobic religion, when you have a family that doesn’t accept gay youth. Look at what happens to this young person, and therefore look at what happens to the city. Look at the talent we’ve lost.”
The survey also found that while 28 percent identified themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, an additional 5 percent said they were transgender.
Advocates say for social planning purposes it’s best to examine the situation of transgender youth separately, as they face particular, and more trying, challenges.
“Our most vulnerable, most at risk, is our trans youth that are on the streets,” said Theresa Nolan, a division director at Green Chimneys, another agency that provides housing for gay young people. “I think because our society is so gender rigid, people are more uncomfortable with the idea of transgender youth. So they’re more likely to be harassed, abused, discriminated against, and assaulted on the street. They have a harder time getting work; they have a harder time accessing health care; they’re more at risk for substance abuse and mental health issues.”
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force co-conducted a study, released late last year, called “LGBT Youth: An Epidemic of Homelessness.” It estimated that, nationally, the proportion of gay homeless teens was between 20 and 40 percent. In response to Empire State’s assessment, the Task Force issued a challenge to public authorities and LGBT Americans.
“These findings confirm a tremendous need for LGBT-affirming programs,” Task Force executive director Matt Foreman said in a press release, “whether it be shelters, transitional housing or services. Where are these young people going to go? How are we as a community taking responsibility for their safety and well-being?”
At a rate much higher than heterosexuals, gay teens are either directly thrown out of their homes or are forced to leave through physical and verbal abuse or neglect. In mainstream shelters gay teens often face further ostracism and condemnation of their orientation. But the number of gay-specific teen shelters is inadequate. Borgstede estimated there are about 75 beds, in aggregate, in the various shelters dedicated to gay teens in New York City. According to the survey, there are about 1,064 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens.
“Right now the amount of shelter for kids is grossly inadequate,” said Carl Siciliano, executive director of the Ali Forney Center, which runs shelters for LGBT teens in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Siciliano was referring to the number of beds available for teens gay or straight. He put the figure at around 400. “I think it’s inhumane that homeless kids don’t have access to shelter.”
He criticized not only the quantity but also the quality of the shelter currently provided.
“The federal regulations for youth shelter say that youth are supposed to be sheltered in small, home-like environments with no more than 20 beds per site,” Siciliano said, “and what I really want to see from the city is a commitment to creating shelter that is in compliance with federal regulations. I think that gay kids suffer the most when they have to stay in these big warehouse shelters.”
The survey involved interviews with more than 1,000 young people last July. (The final figures were extrapolated by researchers at Columbia University and The New School.)
Among its other findings:
• An “overwhelming majority” of homeless youth are minorities
• At the time of the survey, 1,600 of them had spent the night on the street, sleeping in abandoned buildings, public transportation depots or vehicles
• 150 of them stayed with a prostitution client
|
