LGBTQ Homeless Youth

by Michael Jones · 2008-12-12 16:07:00 UTC
Topics:

End HomelessnessMad props to Shannon Moriarity, change.org's "End Homelessness" blogger.  She has a great post up right now on the alarming prevalence of homelessness among LGBTQ youth. Per Shannon's post:

Gay youth are disproportionately represented among homeless youth, according to a study released this week. Roughly 20 percent of homeless youth self-identify as LGBTQ... and that's a conservative estimate. Homeless LGBTQ youth are more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse than their heterosexual peers. Even more disconcerting is that the social service safety net to catch these troubled teens is, in many communities, nonexistent.

The stats here are alarming, but there's definitely things we can do in order to help change this trend around.  Check out Shannon's post, as well as a report from the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) detailing the research on LGBTQ homelessness.  As NAEH research shows, between 240,000 and 400,000 LGBTQ youth experience at least one episode of homelessness each year in the United States.  That's not only alarming, it's unacceptable.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
The Ghost of Anita Bryant in Kalamazoo?
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (4)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.