LGBT Youth Homelessness: What are You Going to Do about It?

What is the solution to LGBT youth homelessness? If you’re reading this, then it is likely that you (like me) wish for a clear and actionable perhaps simple instructive answer to that question. I imagine that you (like me) know that we do not live in clear and simple times. And there is no single solution to the social problems that contribute to homelessness among LGBT youth—including heterosexism/homophobia, cisgenderism/transbias (the ideology that denies/pathologizes one’s understanding of their gender and the interpersonal enactment of bias toward transgender and gender-expansive people), poverty, and racism. Reading those words and thinking about the underlying reasons anyone—including LGBT youth—experience homelessness in our country can lead some people to throw up their hands in resignation. Maybe you’re even thinking, What can I, little ‘ol me, do about all of that?

As a result of our own feelings of being overwhelmed, we typically respond in two ways. We create a false divide in our own minds, an “us” (stably housed people) and a “them” (people experiencing homelessness, in this case LGBT youth). We compromise our ability to be empathic. This compromise leads us to problematize the individual. If only they would … What they need is … Those poor children are just… Or What kind of person would kick their kid out? Those parents are… Right? Problematizing the individual, whether is it an LGBT young person experiencing homelessness or their parents/caregivers, shifts our focus away from the root causes of the problem—heterosexism/homophobia, cisgenderism/transbias, poverty, and racism—and onto an identifiable, visible villain.

Or, we shift our attention away from the underlying causes to the immediate problem that is visible, and for which there are a few practical solutions. We scramble to make sure youth who are experiencing homelessness have the support they need in order to survive. Do not be mistaken, that work must occur. But additional work must occur as well if we are to adequately address LGBT youth homelessness. To reference the “upstream/prevention parable,” we are pulling young people out of the river and saving their lives—critical work, yes—but we haven’t yet figured out how to stop them from falling into the river in the first place. We absolutely must be simultaneously assisting young people who experience homelessness while also focusing on strategic efforts upstream to address the root causes that lead to homelessness. We also need to expand our thinking to include long term solutions. The river doesn’t stop flowing when someone is taken out of it. How do we make sure they don’t “fall in” again?

So, back to the question: What can I, little ‘ol me, do about all of that? As a researcher and professor at the Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College and as someone who has worked with LGBT youth experiencing homelessness for 15 years, my answer is: everyone has a role to play in addressing LGBT youth homelessness. Every. One. Obviously, I don’t know you, dear reader, so I am unable to provide you with your specific role. But I know that you have one. And now, you do, too. Let’s figure out what it is.

Below is a review of efforts currently underway to effectively address LGBT youth homelessness, followed by suggestions for getting involved in your own community. Spoiler alert: they all involve coordination, collaboration, and developing systems. No single program, and no single person, holds the solution.

At the national level, the True Colors Fund (https://truecolorsfund.org) is an organization working to address LGBT youth homelessness through advocacy, education and training, and youth collaboration. Their 40 to None Network is a collective of individuals who are working to address LGBT youth homelessness—or whose work has the potential to impact the issue. Network members have access to best practices, research and fundraising resources, and legislative and policy updates, as well as the online training platform, True U. True U establishes a common understanding of LGBT youth homelessness and provides brief, engaging lessons on topics such as Understanding Oppression, Gender Pronouns, and Creating Inclusive Environments. The True Colors Fund also provides the True Inclusion Assessment and the True Inclusion Toolbox to aid providers seeking to create LGBT-inclusive environments.

Under the leadership of former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, the LGBT Youth Homelessness Prevention Initiative was launched in 2014. With technical assistance provided by the True Colors Fund and the American Institutes for Research, the cross-agency collaboration (including the Department of Education, Department of Labor, Health and Human Services, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and United States Interagency Council on Homelessness) sought to enhance community collaborations and identify strategies for preventing LGBTQ youth homelessness at the local level. An evaluation of the Initiative and the community plans that resulted from the Initiative are available at https://www.hudexchange.info.

A Way Home America (http://www.awayhomeamerica.org) is a national initiative uniting youth providers, advocates, researchers, government agencies, philanthropists, and young people behind the common goal of “preventing and ending homelessness among all youth and young adults by 2020 and ensuring that homelessness among youth and young adults is rare, and if it occurs, experiences of homelessness are brief and one-time.” Though not focused exclusively on homelessness among LGBT youth, the initiative centers LGBT and racial equity in their work. In partnership with private philanthropists and government agencies, A Way Home America has launched multiple 100-day challenges to end youth homelessness in communities across the country.

One barrier to effectively addressing LGBT youth homelessness specifically, and youth homelessness more broadly, has been the lack of data regarding the size and scope of the issue. These data, coupled with an up-to-date account of youth experiences, are key to driving effective policy and practice forward. Two collaborative projects are currently addressing this barrier: Voices of Youth Count (http://voicesofyouthcount.org and the REALYST Co-Lab (https://www.realyst.org). While neither of these collaboratives is focused solely on addressing homelessness among LGBT youth, both are intentionally inclusive of LGBT youth and interested in reducing the disparities faced by LGBT youth experiencing homelessness.

Young people themselves must also be a part of creating the solutions to address LGBT youth homelessness. In response to this gap, the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the True Colors Fund and have created the National Youth Forum on Homelessness. The Forum ensures that the national conversation on homelessness is informed by and filtered through the perspectives of young people who have experienced homelessness, and that strategies to end homelessness are generated by young people themselves. Forum members include a diverse group of young people from different regions of the country.

From Nashville, Tennessee, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Richmond, Virginia, communities are coming together, across sectors, to coordinate their efforts to address LGBT youth homelessness locally. They’ve developed public messages in an effort to raise awareness about LGBT youth homelessness, partnered with local transit systems to alleviate transportation barriers, set up outreach efforts to reach LGBT youth experiencing homelessness in public libraries, engaged their state McKinney-Vento Liaisons to educate their staff about LGBT youth homelessness, and held conversations with local faith partners in an effort to destigmatize LGBT youth identities. Some of these community-wide efforts are focused exclusively on LGBT youth, while others are focused on addressing youth homelessness more broadly. Even when addressing the entire population of youth experiencing homelessness in their communities, these efforts are intentional in their explicit inclusion of LGBT youth and responsive to their unique needs. Do you know if such an effort is underway in your community? The first thing you can do is find out. The second thing you can do is join in. Or, if your community is not currently involved in such an effort, you can start one. Don’t know whom to invite? You can Google to find the names of people and organizations to contact in your home community. Collaborations should seek to coordinate across sectors to prevent and address LGBT youth homelessness, as well as to confront the underlying causes specific to your community. Potential collaborators include: representatives from your local child welfare; juvenile justice; homelessness; education; health and mental health systems; places of worship; the local housing and transportation authorities; housing developers; elected officials; philanthropists; local business owners; people in the tech, communications, and marketing industries; and LGBT community organizations, to name a few.

And finally, if you believe that no young person deserves to experience homelessness, then part of your work is to help dismantle the oppressive ideologies of heterosexism/homophobia and cisgenderism/transbias that designate some citizens as less than while privileging others. Negative societal messages about LGBT people perpetuate systemic injustice and interpersonal discrimination. Negative societal messages about LGBT people are being consumed by LGBT youth, their families, peers, teachers, neighbors, and their religious leaders, among others. When we can’t count on our government to ensure the basic human rights of LGBT youth, it’s up to each of us to step up and step in. What does that look like? It looks like being a visible and vocal ally for LGBT youth in your community; in your workplace; in your faith-based practice; in your home; and everywhere you go. Does your child’s school have a policy that allows transgender youth to use the correct bathroom? It doesn’t matter if your child is not transgender—someone’s child is or will be! Does your workplace nondiscrimination policy include sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression? Is the youth shelter in your community trained adequately to work with LGBT youth? Do the posters in your doctor’s office reflect people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities/expressions? Are the forms they use inclusive of LGBT people? Are you aware if housing and employment protections for LGBT people exist in your state? It also means having conversations with people whose views differ from your own, people who problematize individuals experiencing homelessness, and perpetuate stereotypes about who they are and who they can become.

Sound like a lot of work? Nobody said it would be easy. But it is certainly possible.