just out ▼ fubruary 4, 1994 ▼ 15
In order to protect the youth who have
told their life stories for this article,
their names have been changed.
t’s Thursday night, and a downstairs room
of Outside In is abuzz with excitement as
young people congregate for a weekly
VOICES meeting. Some gather around a
center table and eat pizza; others sort
through a pile of painted T-shirts, looking for the
ones they created. Dance music blares in the
background.
Since March 1992, VOICES, which stands
for “Voices of Individual and Community Em
powerment from the Street,” has brought queer
street youth together for two hours a week to be
with friends, eat pizza, listen to music, experi
ment with a video camera, design T-shirts or just
hang out in a safe, supporting environment.
VOICES was founded by Mark Stucker when he
was attending the Graduate School of Social
Work at Portland State University. While two
other groups in Portland serve queer youth,
VOICES is the only group that specifically serves
youths who are homeless or living on the streets.
Facilitated by Stucker and Ann Hinds and co
sponsored by Outside In and Phoenix Rising,
VOICES encompasses many projects for youth.
Designing T-shirts, for example, is a weekly
activity. The project gives them something to
wear that shows off their personality.
Another ongoing component is Street Friends,
by Pamela Lyons
which was added early last year. To encourage
community activ
ism, each week two
youths are chosen to
represent
the
VOICES group on
the streets. They
hand out business
cards with the time
and place of
VOICES to anyone
who might be inter
ested in coming to
the group. Youth are
paid $10 for each
week they work.
This outreach work
helps to bring in
some of the esti
mated 65 percent of
queer street youth
who haven’t previ
ously attended
VOICES.
“Before we get
started, who wants
to do Street Friends
this week?" Stucker
asks the group.Toni
St. James, who is 21
years old and has
been living on the
street since he was
15, automatically
raises his hand,
along with a few
others. Through
some negotiation,
it's decided that St.
James and a new
participant to
Toni St. James at Outside In
VOICES, Scott
Jones, will be Street Friends this week.
Part of being themselves means, for many out with friends.
St. James said he likes encouraging friends
But when the tall, thin, brown-haired man
who are hesitant to come to the group. “I find youths, honoring the streets as their home. “The
myself as a role model when I take these cards street itself represents a lot of what is thought to be showed up at a bar on Stark Street, he was brutally
and get people to come to the group.” Jones and gay life,” Hinds said. There can also be a sense of reminded of his past. “They wouldn’t let me in,” he
another youth, Rick Davies, learned of VOICES rejection and isolation seen nowhere as clearly as said. “They wouldn’t let me in because they said
on the streets, she said. Also, youth are often times they saw me prostituting across the street. They
through S t James.
When Street Friends assignments are settled, attracted to the street because that’s where they didn’t want me in there prostituting.”
St. James, who is European American, has been
the youths start on this week’s activity. The kids hear the “gay community” is, Stucker said. To be
homeless
since his mother kicked him out of the
on
the
streets
may
mean
to
them
that
they
have
have designed a billboard for VOICES to be
displayed at Outside In. Tonight, they are draw “made it.” “The freedom of being on the streets can house when he was 15 years old. He was just
ing pictures that will be incorporated into the feel like a sense of high self-esteem, and also low struggling to come out at the lime. After going
from foster home to foster home, with nowhere
self-esteem,” Hinds said.
design.
else
to turn, he went to the streets. He lives mostly
“I feel that the kids who come are the voice of
When St. James turned 21 last year, he in Portland and spends time in Seattle and San
VOICES,” S l James said. Youth who attend can
explore parts of themselves that can be squelched wanted to take part in all the usual rituals—going Francisco.
to bars, having his first legal drink and hanging
To make money, he would participate in pros
elsewhere, he said.
r
SETHI OUT OSMI
VOICES honors the survival stories
of queer youth who have found a
home on the streets
titution. To get “dates,” or “johns,” he’d hang out
across from the bars on a Stark Street comer. He
might have 30 or more johns in any given week.
While living on the streets, he was stabbed in a
homophobic assault that caused one lung to col
lapse, and was arrested for prostitution by a police
man posing as a john.
Last June, St. James decided to give up prosti
tution. Sometimes, he’s tempted to go back and
make the quick money—but then he remembers
what it was like. “Believe it or not, when I’m on a
‘date,’ I numb all my feelings,” he said. “I don’t let
any feeling show at all. I mean, it hurts inside — but
I’d need the money.”
St. James’ story of survival on the streets is not
uncommon. He said he knows at least 30 queer
youth who live on the streets or in shelters. While
actual numbers are hard to determine, some profes
sionals estimate that 16 queer youth are sleeping on
Portland streets on any given night. That’s about 30
percentof the total downtown street youth popula
tion.
When these youths need help— housing, food,
health care or emotional support—there aren’t that
many places to which they can turn. They might
experience homophobia in shelters, or they might
get glares from passers-by while on the streets.
When help is offered, it often can come with
negative judgments or downright contempt for
their lives.
“It doesn’t matter who I get help from,” St.
James said. “In a way. I’m kinda depressed. I’m a
very depressed per
son. Mainly be
cause I’m disap
pointed in my com
munity.”
When
St.
James says com
munity, he is refer
ring to the adult
gay, lesbian and
bisexual commu
nity. The adult
sexual minority
community docs
not have a strong
tradition of caring
for youth for a few
reasons, said
Stucker. Because
there are few struc
tures set up, people
might not know
where to go to help.
Or people might
want to, but are
scared of being ac
cused of “recruit
ment” or molesta
tion. “When we
talk about home
less gay youth,
we’re really talk
ing about our
selves—or around
ourselves,”
Stucker said.
“W e’re talking
aboutour failure to
establish ... that
sense of taking care
* * * * * * * * * * of one.s own
We’re talking around our failure to establish tradi
tions of social service—except when our own
lives, or the lives of those very similar, are at
stake.”
VOICES may be the beginning of creating a
tradition in Portland for assisting queer street youth.
A diverse group of street youth have attended
VOICES since its inception. Last year, about one-
third of the participants were women, 60 percent of
whom identified as bisexual. Ten percent of the
women identified as lesbian, five percent as dyke
and the rest as gay, straight or unsure. Of the men,
41 percent said they were gay, 26 percent were
bisexual, 15 percent straight and the rest unsure or
didn’t answer the question. (Queer participants of
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