LGBTQ Youth: Foster Care and Homelessness

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My husband and I were raising 2 biological children and had raised multiple foster children, when one of our daughters came to us upset. She had met a friend while she was in a residential who's parents had put them there because they were religious and the child was gay. Our daughter had lost contact with her friend because they'd been put into foster care, that child's parents couldn't find room in their hearts to love a gay child. After that experience we started researching what happens to lgbtq youth who don't have loving and accepting parents. It wasn't and isn't a pretty story but it is a true one and for too many youth it is the only story that they know. 

 "A 2019 study found 30.4 percent of youth in foster care identify as LGBTQ and 5 percent as transgender, compared to 11.2 percent and 1.17 percent of youth not in foster care." To put that into perspective there is a higher prevalence in foster care of those who identify as lgbtq than who aren't in foster care, those numbers are concerning. We also know that it is harder to find accepting and affirming homes for these children and they often go to families who try to fix or change them rather than accept them. 

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" 28% of LGBTQ youth reported experiencing homelessness or housing instability at some point in their lives" Learn More

" “Nothing repairs the damage that is typically done by being rejected by your family, your community, the culture at large,” Bill Torres, director of drop-in support services at the Ali Forney Center in New York, one of the largest LGBTQ youth homeless shelters in the U.S., said." Youth who are rejected by their families and their primary support systems are harmed by this rejection. Learn More

If you have a room, a bed, a closet, and an open mind and heart then there is a child waiting for you. 

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