Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Gimme Shelter!
A report on LGBT youth homelessness released yesterday by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Coalition for the Homeless is, put simply, a shit show. It finds that 20 to 40 percent of homeless youth in the U.S. are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. (About 4 percent of youth are GLBT.) Discrimination makes the youth more likely to be turned out and it also makes it harder for them to access shelters. Less than 1 percent of the $105-million budget for the federal Runaway, Homeless and Missing Children Protection Act goes to organizations that work exclusively with GLBT populations. Even San Francisco, a destination for many homeless queer youth, has just 25 public housing units set aside for them. I'm morbidly curious to see if Congress will turn a blind eye to the study, or if legislators will set their homophobia aside long enough to deal with the massive problem it documents.
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2 comments:
I would love to think that congress would actually do something positive but I am almost certain that they won’t. In fact I would not be surprised if the AmTaliban argue that this report proves what a destructive ‘lifestyle’ being LGBT is. Not that the government does much for the homeless in any case but the rampant homophobia in this country makes being LGBT and homeless much worse with LGBT youth being at the bottom of the heap.
*sigh*
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