Homeless youth, often gay

[BruceChris]

Minnesota Public Radio came out with a feature article on homeless youth, in Minnesota, primarily in the major cities. Many of these are gay, who have been kicked out or forced out of the homes that they grew up in. Often, they can crash at the home of one friend or another, but often not. Many may be forced to trade sex with strangers, in order to get in out of the cold. And it does get COLD in Minnesota, in the winter.

And remember, this is occurring in Minnesota, a high tax state, with what should be a lot of social programs. - Audio link included.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/dis.../homelesskids/

Peace and Love, Bruce Chris

[WillySF]

Any thoughts on what we can do to alleviate this problem?

How can we "adopt" these teenagers? How can we get assistance? What about counseling and therapy?

One sees it right here in San Francisco. Where is the outrage within the LGBTQ community? Many of these kids are hustlers. It is a very sad situation.

[Zerbie]

Apparently this has been true for generations.

Arizona is moving along on this one: there was recently a two-part feature article on homeless LGBT youth in one of our "community" magazines - it was their most popular issue ever. There have been meetings and a LGBT youth house is in the works. Meanwhile, expert volunteers have been stepping forward to educate the community on fostering, etc. Arizona's gay community is stepping up to the plate in that way, brainstorming and laying ground plans for providing resources to young people who need them.

[Alecto]

It might or might not have been in Arizona, but I was reading awhile back that people did get together and organize, on a local level, to pretty much match up GLBT or GLBT-friendly folks with the youth in need. I'll do some googling and get back with more specifics (I don't remember where it was, much less how they handled the legal end or whether or not they did anything for counseling etc).

[bryanf]

I remember the first time I was coming to terms with being gay. I came out to my family back then at age 17 and I had 48 hours to get my stuff together and move out. Had it not been for an experience where I encountered the beautiful presence of God and became a person of faith, I would of been homeless. However because I came to faith, I ended up fooling myself and my family ended up thinking the same way too that me being gay would be resolved by God. In truth years later I have actually come to a point of being comfortable with being a person of faith and being gay. But yeah when I came out the first time before going back in the closet, I almost too became homeless.

Actually I know several people who have in these parts too. A few lucky, or well not so lucky, ones hitch a ride on a bus and hope to get to San Francisco. However many of their lives have become tragic in the migration. Afew have returned years later but never the same. So often after living on the streets much of the spirit that was inside of them seems so dead.

[Diane Vera]

I just now discovered this thread after having posted elsewhere about this issue, here.

It seems to me that there are two kinds of things that need to be done:

1) Providing shelter and other assistance for these kids

2) Confronting anti-gay churches about their role in creating the crisis.

(It seems to me that the latter might be right up Soulforce's alley, should Soulforce decide to take on such a project.)