Gay Homeless Youth

It is a sad world we live in when there are so many homeless youth, no matter if they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or even straight. This is even worse when about 42% of them were kicked out of their homes by parents or guardians on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. I realize that not very many LGBT youth have the advantage of having a supportive and open minded family as I and many of my friends do, but it is still very sad.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Coalition for the Homeless published a report documenting the number of LGBT youth that are homeless. According to the report there are between 570,000 and 1.6 million homeless youth, meaning that there are up to 672,000 LGBT youth without a home. The report calls this an epidemic, and it surely is because it has only grown drastically over the past few years because of the ever increasing attacks on LGBTs from politically conservative and religious groups, causing more and more parents to turn on their children as they come out and force them out of their homes.

One gay youth from Colorado admits to going on gay websites to look for a place to spend the night, offering himself as a means of payment for the room.

You can read the official press release, an interesting take on it from Matt Hill, and a news report from Newsday

~ by Ryan on December 16, 2006.