Homeless gay teens & Greensboro

by Matt | August 28th, 2006 |

Cara Michelle at Chosen Fast has posted about the grand opening of Joseph’s House, a new facility to help homeless teenagers in the Greensboro area get a footing for their life, offering them a home and a sense of family and belonging.

I hope that the new facility has policies and practices in place in order to deal with homeless teenagers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Being gay is hard enough as a teenager, especially if the teens are still in high school. Add in being homeless and you’ve got a very special need to be addressed.

Although some of these statistics, I admit, are a bit dated I still think they are useful (as I can imagine they haven’t changed too much in recent years). You have to consider that, according to a 1989 US Department of Health and Human Services report, that 26% of LGBT youth are forced to leave their homes because their parents do not approve of their sexual orientation. Parents forcing kids to leave home is bound to cause teen homelessness.

Secondly, according to a 1986 study by the Seattle Commission on Children and Youth, LGBT teens were estimated to account for 40% of youth homelessness. According to a 1991 study by The National Network of Runaway and Youth Services, LGBT teens accounted for anywhere between 20%-40% of homeless youth.

According to a 1987 article of the 79th issue of Pediatrics, 27% of “self-described homosexual or bisexual male adolescents” had reported being forced to move away from their families (aka “run away”) because of major conflict with family members. Almost half of those studied in that report had run away from home at least once. (As I side-note, I ran from my home once before myself; I’m glad I didn’t stay away from my family for long, but it did happen so I do understand completely how some LGBT teens are, in a way, forced to leave their families and, in the worst case scenarios, never return)

Like I said… the statistics are a bit dated and I probably should have tried to find more recent numbers, but I seriously doubt if much has changed. Even if a lot has changed, I know the number of homeless youth who are LGBT is still pretty high, given that LGBT people only make up anywhere from 3%-6% of the American population.

As a center designed especially for homeless youth, I hope that Joseph’s House will pay close attention to those youth who are LGBT and also to those youth who have other, special circumstances which might have caused or might seriously affect their homelessness or life in the future.

Statistics source

Posted in LGBT, Uncategorized |
Tags: Greensboro, LGBT Youth