Homeless GLBT service finds a new home

The GLBT Host Home Program, a service for homeless GLBT youth that was discontinued in 2003, will again be matching homeless youth with community volunteers. The program, whose roots date back to 1995, was seen as a national model for helping homeless youth find their way off the streets. The program that was created and supported by Youthlink will now be taken over by Avenues for Homeless Youth, a North Minneapolis shelter. The program placed 50 Minnesota youths in homes between 1998 and 2003.

According to the Safe Schools Coalition, GLBT youths account for anywhere from 20% to 45% of homeless youth in the United States. Alex Nelson, homeless youth outreach coordinator for District 202, a community center for GLBT youth, told the Pulse last week: "We see queer youth from rural Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota. In the last decade, more young people feel they can come out as queer, but, then, many are kicked out by their families."

Longtime Host Home Program volunteer Fred Comb agreed. More often than not, homeless queer youth leave home because their parents rejected them, he said. “They became homeless because of their parents. They came out to their parents and their parents were not able to deal with them being gay. [The parents] were not able to cope, or I should say, unwilling to understand.”

The Host Home Program works by allowing youth to select the community volunteer that makes the best fit. Youth screen the applications and interview potential homes. The program screens volunteers much like foster care services screen homes. The main difference is that Host Home Program volunteers get no funding assistance. To ensure the youth and volunteers are getting along, the program holds monthly meetings with case managers in the host home.

GLBT youth often have a hard time accessing existing services for the homeless. A study by the Twin Cities chapter of the Child Welfare League of America and Lambda Legal found that protection from anti-GLBT violence in services for the homeless was a top issue in Minnesota. Transgender homeless youth often have a much harder time, although shelters in the Twin Cities have worked to make that situation better. According to Nelson: “They're asked if they have a penis or not -- to decide what 'side' they'll sleep on. The shelter workers have to worry 'If I put a transgendered person with the females and they see this person as male, they'll freak out. If I put this transgendered youth with the males, what will happen?' There's now a policy on how to house transgendered youth at all shelters here. In other cities, transgendered youth can't be placed in shelters."

Because GLBT youth face violence and discrimination when accessing services, initiatives like the Host Home Program are important to their safety and transition out of homelessness.

“I was involved in it because I wanted to lend a helping hand for youth who needed assistance,” Comb said. “That assistance just wasn’t available for them in any other way. That’s why I got involved, and it’s been very rewarding.”

State Sen. Scott Dibble will host a house party to re-launch the Host Home Program later this month, according to a press release: "We will be celebrating a new beginning for this important effort," said Dibble. "It is a vital component in our goal to end long-term homelessness in Minnesota."

The celebration will be Thursday, Jan. 25, from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Grant Park Fireplace Room at Grant Park Apartments, 500 E. Grant Street in downtown Minneapolis.