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Homeless LGBTQ Youth: Stories And Solutions

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With Guest Host Jessica Yellin.

Up to 40 percent of homeless young people are LGBTQ. We’ll hear their stories.

In a Friday, March 2, 2012 file photo, Donnie Dawson, 20, left, attends a youth advocacy group meeting at the Ruth Ellis Center, a drop-in shelter for LGBT - lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender youth in Detroit. (AP)
In a Friday, March 2, 2012 file photo, Donnie Dawson, 20, left, attends a youth advocacy group meeting at the Ruth Ellis Center, a drop-in shelter for LGBT - lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender youth in Detroit. (AP)

It’s a troubling statistic.  Up to forty percent of the nation’s homeless youth are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer. Many of them of them kicked out, disowned by families who won’t accept who they are. They find themselves rejected, living in the shadows, with few places to turn for shelter and emotional support . Leaders in the LGBTQ movement are calling for a stepped up government and private support for these kids. This hour On Point:  the heartbreaking stories and national crisis facing LGBTQ teenagers living on the streets.
-- Jessica Yellin

Guests

Sassafras Lowrey, activist, writer and speaker. Editor of "Kicked Out" and author of "Roving Pack." (@sassafraslowrey)

Gregory Lewis, executive director of the True Colors Fund, where he leads the Forty to None Project. (@iamgregorylewis)

Caitlin Ryan, director and co-founder of the Family Acceptance Project.

From The Reading List

Rolling Stone: The Forsaken: A Rising Number of Homeless Gay Teens Are Being Cast Out by Religious Families — "Research done by San Francisco State University's Family Acceptance Project, which studies and works to prevent health and mental­health risks facing LGBT youth, empirically confirms what common sense would imply to be true: Highly religious parents are significantly more likely than their less-religious counterparts to reject their children for being gay – a finding that social-service workers believe goes a long way toward explaining why LGBT people make up roughly five percent of the youth population overall, but an estimated 40 percent of the homeless-youth population."

Center for American Progress: Seeking Shelter — "LGBT youth continue to be disproportionately represented among homeless youth in our country, and their experiences of homelessness continue to be characterized by violence, discrimination, poor health, and unmet needs. Family rejection, harassment in schools, and the shortcoming of juvenille justice and child welfare continue to drive these elevated rates of homelessness."

Lavender Magazine: A Safe Place for Youth -- "I thought back to living in small-city Iowa in the 1960s and ’70s and how having a collection of safe people to talk to could have made all the difference in the world. I could only think of how my life would have been different had I experienced such empowerment."

This program aired on November 19, 2014.

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