On Wednesday, Nov. 12, the LGBTQ+ Youth Housing Collaborative hosted a community reception at The Center to present the findings of a needs assessment study regarding GLBT and HIV+ homeless youth in San Diego County. The reception acquainted attendees with the study findings and plans for opening a six to 12 bed, four to eight-unit transitional youth facility that would serve LGBTQ+ youth ages 18-24. Community members were also invited to discuss and participate in the upcoming project, which will unfold over the next two years.

The transitional housing facility is designed to stabilize lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and HIV+ youth, and help them successfully transition from homelessness to healthy, productive lives. The thorough and comprehensive needs assessment study found that a range of services is needed beyond the transitional living facility, including a youth drop-in center, an emergency shelter, foster care and group home services, and permanent affordable housing.

The collaborative began in late 2001 when Rev. Tony Freeman of the Metropolitan Community Church of San Diego and Dr. Heather Berberet of Walden Family Services recognized, through Freeman’s involvement with the church and Berberet’s involvement with Walden Family Services foster care, that the limited access homeless LGBTQ+ youth had to necessary services could be remedied. They united the efforts of MCC-SD, Walden Family Services, YMCA Youth and Family Services, The Center and Children’s Hospital with the shared goal of providing housing services that target the particular needs of LGBTQ+ youth.

The project has also received a major boost from City Councilmember Toni Atkins, who recognized the lack of services for LGBTQ+ youth through her observations and knowledge of local service providers, as well as through her involvement with the Hillcrest Youth Center, which is so far the only LGBTQ+ youth center in San Diego.

“That was why the survey was undertaken,” Atkins said. “To make a case for the need of the operational dollars. I stepped forward and said I want to be part of this in some small way, and that would be to have the city help find the capital dollars for the actual housing.”

Not wanting to create an issue if there one did not truly exist, the collaborative hired a consulting service that surveyed the city’s LGBTQ+ youth homeless population through individual and group interviews, as well as pencil and paper surveys, and interviewed housing providers and community leaders. The consulting service interviewed a total of 400 youth and 50 service providers.

“One of the things I feel pretty confident about saying is that what we found is real,” Berberet said. “That this isn’t the opinion of just a few people. We talked to a lot of people.”

The survey consisted of 31 percent Latino/a, 28 percent Black/African-American, 4 percent Asian/Pacific Islander and 34 percent White/European-American respondents. The majority of participants were between the ages of 15 and 20, though 11 percent were between 12 and 14 years old and 29 percent were 21 to 24. Among the many high-risk behaviors the youth engaged in to survive, 75 percent reported stealing food and clothes and 90 percent had engaged in dealing drugs — though Berberet was quick to clarify their drug use has less to do with addiction than it does with the need to stay awake all night to avoid getting robbed or attacked while sleeping. Thirty-five percent of the youth surveyed had engaged in ‘survival sex’ — the exchange of sexual favors for food, shelter or money — and 45 percent of the youth had been incarcerated in the juvenile justice system.

One of the most distressing things the survey found was that 17 percent of the self-identified LGBTQ+ youth interviewed were HIV-positive, while the national average is 7 percent. “These are youth who had been tested and were willing to disclose their results,” Berberet pointed out, “so I can only guess that the true number is higher than that because many have never been tested and many of them would be unwilling to disclose that information.”

Of the youth interviewed, 39 percent said that the only reason they were homeless was because they had been kicked out of their biological or foster home due to their sexual orientation.

Youth consistently reported that they did not feel safe accessing the support services available to them in San Diego County. They also reported that service providers encouraged them not to disclose their sexual orientation or HIV status at the shelters, for their own safety.

“That is what the youth said,” Berberet stressed. “We didn’t have service providers say that they don’t want kids to disclose. But what I think is … their perception is what is important — if they perceive that the place that they are living doesn’t want them to disclose, they may not disclose.… When we asked the youth what they meant about safety, they meant internal safety of the program. That they can go into one of these services and feel like they would be safe in that program.”

Both the youth and service providers agreed on one main point: there is a very real lack of sufficient shelter for LGBTQ+ youth.

The study concluded that there is a need for all sheltering services, from emergency and transitional shelters to permanent affordable housing. The consultants recommended that the Collaborative start by asking for funding for a smaller facility first — six to 12 beds, rather than 100 — because funding will be easier to get for it, and they can prove the necessity of a larger facility by first showing the success of a smaller one.

Consultants also suggested that they create a foster-care network/group home for minors, which Walden Family Services has been doing independently of the collaborative for the last eighteen months. The consultants suggested the collaborative arrange for cultural competency training for San Diego service providers, assist community-based organizations establish procedures and policies to implement services for LGBTQ+ youth, and create an LGBTQ+ youth services collaborative to address any existing gaps in services.

“All of the service providers that we spoke to,” Berberet added, “said that they want more training and more education and they know that they have something to learn, which I find terribly encouraging.” Prior to the completion of the survey, the collaborative had already formed CATALYST — Coalition Aligned To Advocate for LGBTQ+ Youth Safety and Treatment, to educate area service providers.

Jennifer LeSar, a senior vice president for Bank of America and Center board member, also serves on the board for the Center City Development Corporation, which spends 20 percent of its money developing low-income housing. She outlined the process necessary to complete the first phase of the project, the first step being to actually find a property in a safe neighborhood that will be accepting of such a facility.

“It will most likely take a very compassionate owner who will work with us and give us the time to find the funding to close on that property,” she said. “Second from that, you have to go out and find different funding for operating the property — the funding that pays for staff, that pays for food, mortgage, for all the services that our youth need.”

On-site operations and services will include drug and alcohol treatment, professional mental health and counseling services, youth case management, health, HIV and STD education, basic medical care, job training and employment services, educational resources and tutoring, basic financial planning and fundamental life skills training.

The collaborative predicts it will take a year or two to complete these initial steps. With the survey just completed, no fundraising plans have yet been established. The collaboration is, however, asking the community to help locate a real estate agent with expertise in Hillcrest, North Park and possibly South Park — a location that is accessible by bus line and in a compassionate, understanding neighborhood — who is willing to donate a portion or all of their commission on the sale of such a property, for which they anticipate they will have to pay full market value. They also need people involved in the community planning process to assist them in identifying such neighborhoods, and a property owner who is willing to be patient with the eight to eighteen months they project it will take to gather the funding necessary to purchase the property once located.