Homeless

WASHINGTON — U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.) on Thursday introduced legislation supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender runaway and homeless youth.

NEW YORK — A $1 million government grant will help homeless gay youths in New York state who’ve had run-ins with the law get their lives on track.

SAN FRANCISCO — More than one-quarter of the homeless people counted in San Francisco this year identified themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, a proportion that surprised veteran advocates for the homeless who say that gays are overrepresented in the ranks of homeless youth and elderly.

Jokes are supposed to be funny. They always start with a set up and then build to a crescendo where the plot twists and the listener bursts out laughing. Last week a “joke” went viral, but no one was left laughing. The “joke” was an article titled, “Parents put 16-year-old daughter up for adoption after learning she is gay.” … The piece was written as humor…satire… but none of the 72,000 who shared it took it that way. They believed it to be real. Who could blame them?

NEW YORK — A major homeless drop-in center for LGBT youth in New York City has been badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy.

Imagine, if you can, 400,000 gay youth forced to leave their homes, with no family, no support, and living on the streets. They become the most vulnerable among us. They become the epitome of what is an easy target for the criminals who want only to exploit their bodies for sexual prostitution; and not just prostitution, but commercial sexual exploitation. Children who are forced out of the only home they have ever known by parents, who can’t tolerate the thought of their child being gay, find themselves alone and on the street….

LOS ANGELES – About 40 percent of homeless youth are LGBT, and nearly all homeless youth service providers in the U.S. now serve LGBT youth, according to a comprehensive report on LGBT youth homelessness released Thursday.

NEW YORK — The Ali Forney Center — a homeless shelter for LGBT youth in New York City — will receive $3.3 million from the city to renovate an East Village property, according to a statement released Monday.

A local CBS affiliate in Miami, Florida has offered an in-depth look into the crisis of LGBT youth homelessness and the children who are put out “like trash” by parents who refuse to accept them…

The Ali Forney Center, the nation’s largest organization working on behalf of homeless LGBT youth, on Monday announced that longtime New York activists Frank Selvaggi and Bill Shea had donated $100,000 to the center to kick off its “Homeless for the Holidays” campaign, aimed at raising $1 million to increase the number of beds for homeless LGBT youth in New York City.