Mar 16, 2007  |  By: KATHERINE VOLIN  | COMMENTS     

‘I’m really afraid that I might get kicked out.’ [This is] not something that gets reported.”

In fact, Lane suspects the numbers of gay homeless youth may be even higher than reported by the Task Force report.

“I think the numbers may go unreported for couch surfing,” Lane says. “I would think that it’s probably a little higher in that regard.”

SMYAL LACKS THE financial resources to provide homeless services beyond referrals and providing some cultural competency training.

“Even in those [shelters that have received training], it’s clear to us there’s a lot more needed,” Lane says. “It’s not just a one-day kind of session. There need to be multiple sessions with the staff around their ability to effectively help and be sensitive to the needs of the youth.”

Dilo Cintron, who is gay, can attest to the ongoing needs for training shelter staff.

“In one of the shelters I was in … I was assaulted in the laundry room,” says Cintron, who lives in New York City. He was 18 when he was told to leave his family’s home. “The staff just walked by and carefully closed the door and just walked by like nothing had happened.”

Like gay youth, transgender young people have specific needs that are often not met, and the situation can become physically dangerous.

“Transgender youth tend to have very difficult times in homeless shelters because there’s this question of should they use the female bathroom or the male bathroom and a lot of times they are [assigned] according to their born gender, which can sometimes put them in harm’s way,” Lane says. “What we find is that that can be an opportunity for harassment and sometimes physical abuse.”

All of this could be changed or mitigated with the addition of gay youth homeless shelters or programs, SMYAL’s leaders say.

“We here at SMYAL would like to urge the District of Columbia to provide extra beds to help LGBT youth and new emergency housing programs specifically for LGBTQ youth,” says Todd Peterson, chair of SMYAL’s board of directors.

Calls to the District’s Department of Health were not returned.

“There are just drips and drops and drubs of funding going toward LGBT programs,” Foreman says. “We have this burgeoning problem and diminishing government response.”