street roots
9
July 8, 2011
VOICE, fro m page 8
homeless, because they are LGBT and they
are already vulnerable, and because they
are alienated from social service support in
the first place; we can guess that they don’t
perceive police as their friends and so they
are more likely to become victims of crime
and less likely to report those crimes to the
police or other authorities.
B.B.: What is being done to help change
that?
S.H.: We have advocated for a number of
responses, particularly with the federal
government, to assist homeless youth in
service training for social service providers
so that they interact better with and better
serve LGBT youth, so that they have an
understanding of what it means to be young
lesbian, gay, bi-sexual or transgender and
living on the street. There are also
programs to not just do in-service training
but also to actually change and rewrite the
policies Written at emergency shelters and
social service providers. They must have a
written policy banning discrimination on the
basis of sexual orientation or gender
identity.
There are developed model programs to
improve service delivery to LGBT homeless
youth. The Home for Little Wanderers has
made a particular effort to organize and
present these training programs for youth
providers and The Waltham House in
Waltham, Mass., does a lot of working and
collaboration with the office of DSS to train
program staff who work with homeless
youth so they are serving better the LGBT
homeless youth.
B.B.: So do you work with other service
providers?
We don’t work with the service providers,
we work with governmenLagencies and
government leaders to ensure better
policies. Some examples of that are:
(A) It is very important that youth who
are unaccompanied-minors receive primary
and specialty healthcare services without .
the written consent of a parent or guardian.
These are young people who are on the
street. They don’t have parents who can
sign off on forms for them to receive
healthcare services or mental health
services.
(B) Federal funding to target LGBT youth
for prevention programs around sexually
transmitted diseases, substance abuse,
mental health issues and intervention
programs for the same sets of issues that
they face on the street
(C) Federal and State minimum wages
need to be raised to livable wages so that
when young people are able to get a job
they will be making enough to support
themselves.
(D) The United States Department of
Healtii & Urban Developments’ definition
of a homeless individual should include
living arrangements that are common to
homeless youth. Homeless youth are
sometimes in group houses, formal group
houses and in informal group living
arrangements with other peers and young
people. They need to be recognized as
homeless individuals who are entitled to
services from the federal, state and local
government.
(E) Funding streams and housing
opportunities, housing provisions, low-
income housing and access to low-income
housing has to include homeless youth.
Young people who maybe aren’t old enough
at this point in their lives to make lease
contract agreements with landlords
(private/public) must be able to have access
to that option irrespective of their age.
(F) There should be space dedicated to
shelter space for LGBT youth. They are
vulnerable to sex abuse, criminal
victimization and they’re vulnerable to living
in a place with adults that is not geared to
the needs of young people whether they’re
LGBT or not.
B.B.: I thought there were teen shelters for
young adults whether they were gay or not?
S.H.: There are, but the bed space
available does not meet the need of the
numbers of youth and LGBT youth out on
the street.
B.B.: So they're prone to the same problems
as adults?
S.H.: Exactly. There’s not enough for
them. When they get there sometimes
they’re in an environment that is completely
inappropriate for them. They’re in a shelter
space that is primarily utilized by adults
who are homeless.
B.B.: We have batteredmen and battered
women’s shelters in Massachusetts, but they
don’t take in transgender people. What do you
think about thisJ ^ ueZZ,.,.
S.H.: Shelters should serve on the basis
of their identity. It’s not who I think you
are, it’s how you identify. One of the
problems is these layers of interpretation
get in the way of service providers just
perceiving a human being who needs help
that (they) can give in the way that is most
appropriate for him or her.
B.B.: In closing is there anything you’d like
people to think about?
S.H.: There’s a failure to see transgender
people as human beings in need of help.
Instead people are looking at them like...
Who are you again? What are you again?
Instead of just saying; how can I help you?
What kind of services do I have that will be
most appropriate for you? It’s a matter of
education.
For more information on the Gay and
Lesbian Task Force visit, www.thetaskforce.oig
www.streetnewsservice.org/ Spare Change
News (USA)
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IN T E R N A T IO N A L *
We tip our mugs to Coffee Bean International for donating coffee to Street
Roots and keeping our vendors warm in the morning!
Thank you!
fp ,!w
Office Cat Rooty wants to express
heartfelt thanks fo r the work o f
volunteer, writer and SR board
member Ruth Kovaks. Thank you for
six fantastic years!
The secret
By Wallace E. High
There’s something about a secret,
A separate entity unto itself
That breathes and stirs and writhes
Like a creature hidden in hibernation
Buried still vita dark and deep
At first unwilling to forsake its cocoon
Of sheathed integrity and purpose
Intently defiant of its revelation
That would lead betrayal by the hand
At the moment of sinister exposure
Yet trembling at the choking retention
Of information compressed, suppressed,
Its kinetic force growing, expanding,
Wanting to shout from the rooftops,
To howl at the fullest of moons,
To burst into orgasmic heights of relief
Even as the bonds of trusted confidence shatter
Like and eggshell at the moment of fracture
To release its contents into the open air,
Into the swirling elements of the universe
Beyond deceit, never to be retrieved,
Never to resume the sanctity of silence,
Never to reenter the womb of privacy
Where it could languish in obscurity;
Still it always vibrates with pent-up power
Its potential unmarred in waiting
For the inevitable conduit of human urge
To divulge, to boast, to expose and destroy
To set free the awful forces that propagate
Sorrow, regret, violence, greed and death,
The wobbly lips unsealed, sneering, loosening
Clouds of hurled, thrusting dagger-points
Flying in all diverse directions
-To inflict the swift, deadly stabs of treason,
The rumors leaping like startled birds,
The mouth already tasting sweet and sour,
Already suffering the awful breath of meanness
From the foul decay of private confidentials
Now violated, a sacred covenant destroyed,
A good name scandalized, besmirched, denigrated
Beyond the reach of any damage control,
Beyond the stretch of mortal emotion
As even God’s reluctance to intervene
Grants the uncaging of the secret.
Open the Book of Dusk
By Mary Lou McAuley
Open the book of dusk
to the page where dreams
crowd the comers
of that vast room
where things as yet unmade
are already fading.
These pages are dressed with
silver paint and gold curlicues with
diamonds of red and purple near the bottom and
you must place your thumb
and you must strike your
skin against the door
to enter the silver and the diamonds and the gold
and catch the first scent, the rustle, the sigh
of all dreams
shrinking from your timid touch.