A Place to Call Home

by Yusef Najafi
Metro Weekly
Washinton, DC's GLBT News Magazine

Two weeks before opening the District's first transitional home for homeless GLBT youth, Brian Watson is working on only four hours of sleep, consumed by all the work yet to be done on the house, as well as by how much information to share.

''At first I was hesitant,'' admitted Watson, the director of programs at Transgender Health Empowerment (THE) and president of the D.C. Coalition of Black LGBT Men and Women, of officially announcing the opening date of the Wanda Alston House at THE's pageant fundraiser, May 18, the night before speaking with Metro Weekly. ''But now it's really coming together.''

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Gay Iraqi group will close two of five safe houses

Two months after launching an intensive fundraising campaign to try to keep the group afloat, Friends of Iraqi LGBT must close two of its five safe houses in Iraq due to a lack of funds, according to the organization’s founder and coordinator Ali Hili.

And if at least $2,000 is not raised over the next two weeks, Hili told RAW STORY Thursday, a third safe house will have to be closed -- sending dozens of vulnerable LGBT Iraqis back onto the streets, where they face the possibly of beatings, imprisonment and even execution at the hands of the Shia militias that roam the war-torn nation’s streets.