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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Since its founding in 2000, Fabulous Independent Educated Radicals for Community Empowerment! (FIERCE!) has worked strenuously to create and amplify a voice for LGBTQ youth of color in New York City. FIERCE! emerged in response to acute experiences of profiling, violence and exclusion that LGBTQ youth of color continue to face.
Even in the areas of New York that pride themselves on diversity, preserving the open use of public space by LGBTQ youth of color continues to be a struggle. To address the economic, social and political realities affecting their community, FIERCE! continues to stage a variety of campaigns aimed at preserving safe space, creating political awareness and building an empowered community.
FIERCE! is developing a plan to create a LGBTQ youth community center on Pier 40. This center will acknowledge not just the unique needs of the LGBTQ youth of color, but also incredible importance of this community to building and maintaining an open, diverse and tolerant waterfront and Greenwich Village.
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There are over 80,000 children in the foster care system in California. Some find loving adoptive homes, but for many more the future is uncertain, especially for LGBT kids.
Local agency Family Builders by Adoption, which has been committed to placing kids with families since 1976, hopes to change that.
This month, Family Builders unveiled a new ad campaign aimed at foster parents who may be willing to adopt LGBT kids. The ads feature a mother holding a picture of her gay son with his prom date and the slogan "My Pride and Joy. Be a foster parent to an LGBTQ kid. Everyone deserves a proud parent."
The ads address the urgent need to find families for the LGBT kids in the foster system. The kids awaiting foster families mostly live in group homes, which Family Builders Executive Director Jill Jacobs said "is the last place most gay kids should be."
"Group homes and congregate care are based on gender identification, and when you have fluid gender identity or you're questioning your gender identity, it's the last place you should be. And it's the place LGBT kids end up in the most," Jacobs said.
Currently, Family Builders is working with fewer than five foster homes, and Jacobs said they receive calls every day from organizations trying to place children.
"We are really looking to the community to step up and help us make sure LGBT youth are with safe and affirming and loving families," Jacobs said.
"We love single parents, we love couples, families who have raised kids, families who've not been parents and want to be," Jacobs said. "I often hear from people who are in their 40s and 50s that 'I'm too old,' but they're the perfect age to raise an older child. Other than criminal record clearance, we don't have a lot of obstacles and barriers."
For more information on how to become a foster parent, call Family Builders at (510) 272-0204, or visit http://www.familybuilders.org.
An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 homeless LGBT youth are on the streets in New York on any given night. And the National Alliance to End Homelessness maintains these youth remain more vulnerable to violence. They suffer higher rates of mental illness and are more likely to engage in sex work. The Washington-based advocacy coalition further estimates sexual violence rates are more than seven percent higher among homeless LGBT youth than their straight peers and are more likely to attempt suicide.
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"We are … GLBTQ," a documentary produced by two state agencies about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth involved in child welfare, will be screened during the 2007 Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
The video has been entered in the juried, locally produced, short film category and will be screened Oct. 14.
Co-produced by Washington state's Department of Social and Health Services Children's Administration and Department of Information Services, the 28-minute film focuses on the lives of gay, lesbian and transgender youths in the state child welfare system.
It is being used by DSHS to train foster parents and kinship caregivers.
According to a national report by Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, these youths come into contact with Child Protective Services more frequently than their peers because often they are targeted for family violence because of their sexual orientation or gender identities.
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