May 23, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

The Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL) is facing financial setbacks and staff turnover, prompting some of those familiar with the organization to conclude that it no longer has adequate resources to conduct its mission.

SMYAL, an organization dedicated to serving gay youth in the Washington area, has lost four top officials since June 2007, culminating in the departure of the executive director on May 12. Additionally, SMYAL’s failure to meet certain benchmarks led Maryland late last year to rescind a previously approved grant worth about $70,000.

Todd Peterson, chair of the board for SMYAL, told the Blade that despite those challenges, SMYAL and its remaining leaders are still focused on the organization’s duties.

“The board is 100 percent committed to the mission and our staff and most importantly our youth,” he said.

Tasha Hill, the SMYAL executive director who departed this month, noted some decisions made by the board in a May 13 e-mail to staff announcing her resignation.

“Events in recent weeks, especially some decisions made by the Board, have led me to the discovery that SMYAL is no longer the right place for me,” she wrote.

Peterson said Hill left the organization for medical reasons and did not know which “decisions made by the Board” Hill was referring to in her e-mail.

“She felt her health didn’t permit her to commit her full time and energy to SMYAL,” he said.

An intermediary for Hill said she would not comment on her resignation.

With Hill gone, Andrew Barnett is now acting executive director for SMYAL. Peterson said SMYAL is searching for a new executive director and the search involves an assessment of the organization to determine if SMYAL is providing the programming needed by D.C.’s gay youth.

Four other officials were either terminated or resigned before Hill’s departure. Victor Price, the youth center manager, left in June 2007 and Christopher Lane, director of programs, left in Nov. 2007. Two other officials in addition to Hill left this month — Suzanne Hitchman, the youth leadership development coordinator, and Xanthia Johnson, the mental health coordinator.

Peterson said it’s not uncommon for workers at small non-profits to come across new opportunities.

“Many of our staff members come to a crossroads in their career while they’re at SMYAL and they leave to pursue the next steps in life,” he said.

A source familiar with SMYAL, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said officials left or were terminated because the organization no longer has sufficient funding to maintain a large staff.

The source also suspected officials were let go because of a dispute over whether the organization should handle additional caseloads in Northern Virginia.

The source said Northern Virginia already has sufficient infrastructure to handle the needs of gay youth — such as gay-straight alliances in area high schools — and argued that SMYAL should focus its work on the poorer areas of Washington that have fewer resources.

“There’s such a need in this city for an agency as such, but it seems like there is not a lot of support internally about fitting that particular piece of work with the youth here in D.C.,” the source said.

In addition to the dwindling number of staffers, SMYAL is also facing funding reductions. The Maryland AIDS Administration office last year withdrew about $70,000 in promised funds because SMYAL was not meeting certain benchmarks. The grant was supposed to be used to provide HIV prevention services to gay youth in Maryland public schools.

William Honablew, Jr., the chief of policy for the Maryland office, said the state withdrew the grant, which was subcontracted through the Montgomery County Health Department, because “the organization was not meeting its deliverables.”

Staffers were not receiving enough training hours and SMYAL was not engaged in group-level interventions, he said.

Peterson said his organization has “negotiated the discontinuation” of the $70,000 with Maryland. SMYAL has brought together a team of staffers and board members to determine why it wasn’t meeting the necessary requirements, he said. This team is “assessing all the grants to determine strengths and weaknesses and opportunities for growth,” he said.

Honablew said the Maryland AIDS Administration office would be open to granting requests from SMYAL in the future if the organization continues to address the populations that the office targets.

In addition to the Maryland grant, SMYAL has identified three other grants in which it ...