In the News: Bay Area Reporter

'Encampment' brings attention to homeless LGBT youth

NEWS

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Published 05/19/2011

by Matt Baume

	Homeless youth and their allies staged a "street sweep" in the Castro last Saturday to bring attention to budget cuts for social service programs. Photo: Matt Baume

The May 14 encampment was part of a nationwide demonstration to raise awareness of homelessness among a demographic known as transition-age youth. Homeless and foster youth between 16 and 24 years old can face unique housing challenges, particularly as they age out of the foster care system and learn to navigate services for adults.

"We're here to engage the community on homelessness, and specifically queer homeless youth issues," said organizer Beck, who uses only one name. "We're in kind of a state of emergency, saying, 'hey community, wake up.'"

Saturday's action started at Civic Center with games, an unveiling of protest banners, and hot meals served by Food Not Bombs. A march proceeded to Harvey Milk Plaza, where speakers read poetry and called for improved access to services to get off the street.

Their requests included housing with kitchens, rather than single room occupancy hotels with no facilities for food preparation; employment opportunities for youth who are unable to complete school; and an end to the sit-lie ordinance.

According to local organizers Trans Youth Rise Above, there are 5,700 homeless youth in San Francisco, of which at least 1,000 are queer.

Operation Shine America, which coordinated similar rallies in other cities, estimates that there are 2 million homeless youth in the country. Queers for Economic Equality Now also organized the San Francisco event.

Beck explained that organizations like the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center and Larkin Street Youth Services' Castro Youth Housing Initiative have faced repeated budget cuts, reducing services that can prevent youth from living on the street.

Jodi Schwartz, executive director of LYRIC, agreed that times are tight. "There has been a sizable decrease in investments in LGBTQ youth services," she told the Bay Area Reporter. "Just for LYRIC, if we were to lose the last piece of dollars for transition-age youth workforce, our decrease in funding would be 72 percent over the last four years."

Larkin Street Executive Director Sherilyn Adams told the B.A.R. that the extent of cuts won't be known until Mayor Ed Lee releases a budget later this month.

"There's no proposed cuts to the Castro Youth program," she said, but added, "it does not begin to meet the need."

To address the potential consequences of such cuts, Lee recently convened a stakeholder group consisting of representatives from organizations that advocate for homeless youth. Based on feedback from that group, the mayor asked that the Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families prioritize funding for LGBT and undocumented youth.

While organizations hope to turn around the recent budget cuts, local organizers are seeking ways to demonstrate how the city's rate of youth homelessness could worsen.

After Saturday's protest concluded, about three dozen homeless youth spent parts of the night camped out around the Muni station, according to organizer the Reverend Megan Rohrer, director of the Welcome Ministry, a coalition of 12 churches that seek to provide a faithful response to poverty.

Rohrer is currently working with the GLBT Historical Society to raise visibility by drawing inspiration from past struggles. She incorporated a "street sweep" into Saturday's protest, in which participants swept Castro Street sidewalks with brooms to evoke a similar 1960s-era protest.

In that action, LGBTs protested the city's negligent sanitation and police roundups by pushing brooms through the Tenderloin.

Chosing Not to Sleep on the Streets

I made a decision last night to not sleep on the street as planned. At first I was ashamed of my decision. The Rev. Megan Rohrer told those who gathered there that sleeping on the streets that night would not make you a better person but if you went home, just remember you could not do it even one night, when all these youth don't have that choice (paraphrasing there to get the gist!) She was right, it would not have made me a better person, but knowing myself well enough, it would have made more smug. I would have been more critical of colleagues who didn't even show up at all. She was right, I could not, of my own free will, choose to sleep out after all.

But I do know a little something of what it is like to no longer have the choice. I did spend one week of my life homeless, but unlike these youth, it was thru my own stubbornness, my own stupidity. Every day I saw where people had found my clothes and possessions that I tried to hide, since I couldn't carry them all, having been ransacked and little by little I lost them all but for the one small bag I carried with me. I did not have to sleep on hard streets, like most of the youth and other homeless folks do here in the city, I had park, I would crawl into the underbrush and cover myself with leaves so no one would see me. However, I did only have to do this for a week. And I did move on from there. But that experience stuck with me and is why I work with SF Night Ministry and it was why I joined the rally and march last night.

But I still chose not to sleep on the street.

One of the things I have learned in ministry is that it is tough to find out you have limits. There are just certain lines you come to and cannot cross at that moment. Sometimes all you can do is bear silent witness to others suffering, pain, anger etc. and even there, you still reach your limit. I heard things last night that I did not agree with, things I did not want to hear, things I needed to hear. And sometimes I could not hear a thing as I began to wrestle with what it all really meant, what was I supposed to do, how was I supposed to witness?

I chose to stay as long as the speeches, then I chose to go home. My limit, that line last night was that I could not sleep on the street.

Will I go to another rally like this? You bet I will! And another, and another and another, for as long as I am able. And who knows, maybe next time, or the next time or the time after that, I may cross that line and choose to sleep on the street! or Maybe that will never happen. We will see.

-Bishop Rusty Clyma

Final Thoughts Before Showering

They say that to err is to be human, but I think that more than that it is vulnerability from learning to live in our fragility (what we have done and left undone) that makes us human. We have and create so much pain trying to hide, fix or fall into the shame that often follows vulnerability.

Living in the Tenderloin, either on the streets for this week or in the condo where I spend most of my days, I see the homeless, hungry and addicted as the walking vulnerable in the streets. When I hear about the fear people express about my week living in the streets, I wonder if they are mistaking the vulnerability I see with danger.

Our world and our lives often directly contribute to the poverty and vulnerability of others. For example, in owning a condo, I am invested in the housing market rebounding and becoming even more unaffordable for others.

I don't know if there is a political solution for what seems to be a social problem. Sure, we need to urge politicians to create humane budgets that honor the vulnerable individuals we've promised to protect, we need to put our pocketbooks where our hearts are (donate now), we need to have individual interactions and not punish those with less for being grumpy and rightfully angry about their situations and we need to continue to pray for those things that seem beyond redemption.

There are simple solutions to some of these problems (not that they are easy to come by, but that we at least know how to solve them):
Homelessness is solved by housing;
Hunger is solved by eating;
Hopelessness is solved by hope;
Loneliness is solved by community and companionship;
Mistrust is solved by honesty.

Other issues require a step today followed by a step tomorrow but over time lead to something better than yesterday:
Sobriety;
Mental health;
Independence/interdependence
Faith
Love

I pray that we become people who urge today to fix the things that are fixable if only we had the will and investment (read: money) to do so, who strive each day to become better at the things that we must work each day on, that we have compassion for/with those who may be marching circles around or away from their goal and to forgive ourselves when we expect ourselves to be anything other than vulnerable growing humans.


Location:Fools Court, Tenderloin, San Francisco

Day Seven: Just One More Night

This week I've been noticing the ways in which the homeless working poor venture around San Francisco. One of the things that I've been seeing all week that I haven't mentioned yet in any of my blog posts are the homeless folk that have been paid by local campaigns to care political signs for $10 an hour, or the folk in the GLIDE line that got paid $1 for each signature that they got from individuals in the line. The pitch to sign was: "sign this, I'll get a dollar." The information on the signature sheet left it to the imagination what it was that we were actually signing. It was something to do with reduced telephone fees for the poor, but without additional info it was hard to tell if we were signing in support or opposition.

I'm a big fan of getting people without resources access to resources, particularly through jobs that are well suited for their particular abilities. However, during this campaign season, I find it a misuse of power to have the very people these propositions or politicians will be cutting services for promote the very campaigns that will end their programs.

Paying homeless people to carry signs as if they are supporting the idea or person on the sign sends a false message to others who may want to vote for the person who is most likely to help the poor.

In the same way that people are urging for transparency in commercial sponsorship, it should be required at "grassroots" rallies and public signature gatherers and sign carriers to where t-shirts signifying that they are actually on the payroll of the group, idea or candidate they are supporting.



Tonight will be my last night on the streets and I'll get to go home to my own bed in the morning. I'm deeply looking forward to an end of this particular type of exhaustion in my life. I'm also excited to have more than just fried starchy foods in my diet again. I think my complexion and tummy will also enjoy this.

I feel confident as my street retreat ends, that what I have learned will benefit my work with the homeless for the rest of the year. If you have not yet taken the time to respond to my begging and send a gift large or small to Welcome (where I work with the chronically homeless all year long) I hope you'll click on the donation link on the top right of this blog.

I beg so others don't have to.

Thanks again for readying my adventures on the streets. I'll post another entry tomorrow and be adding some stuff that I didn't have computer access to add earlier.

My prayer tonight is that bosses everywhere will be aware of the power they have and think about the ethics of requiring their workers to preform their daily work duties. And of course for those who are without work to get some - and when they can, to get better jobs (in whatever way that means to them).

Have a blessed night, here's hoping that there is no more rain today! May you and yours be warm and dry tonight and every night.

Location:Starbucks, Polk and Van Ness, San Francisco

Day Six: Raw Emotion

Last night we had so much more cardboard than we needed to gather for our beds. In case you didn't know, the cardboard serves a two-fold purpose. First, it cuts the chill of the concrete, which sucks the heat out of your body. This thin layer of discarded trash can mean the literal difference between waking up alive or dead. Second, the cardboard makes the bed a little bit softer.

In fact, when I was on street retreat for two weeks living with the poor in Nicaragua card board on a bed frame was my mattress. Last night, because we had such an abundance, I got to sleep with two-ply. Like toilet paper, the extra layer makes a difference. Last night I only had to turn over twice because half my body had gone numb.




A better nights sleep lead to a much better morning. However, I have now arrived at one of the most sacred reasons that I embark on these street retreats. I am now emotionally raw. And sitting here in the Starbucks enjoying my favorite comfort food, a soy hot chocolate, I feel myself at the verge of tears. The exhaustion in my body and mind from being in survival mode for six days in a row has caught up with me.

Yet, unlike my normal need to function with very little wavering of feeling in order to balance the manic and erratic feelings of the chronically homeless I work with each day, today I get to have feelings. I get to feel the vulnerability of being a small hungry fish in a large pond full of hungry fish.

So, today I don't take things for granted. I get angry easily over injustice. I embrace the powerful moments and the roll in my belly with a sense of the sacred living around and in me.



One of the most moving moments of my day was when I was sitting with the Larkin youth (predominately homeless queer kids kicked out of their homes for being queer) as they spoke with a screaming queen from the Compton Riots and learned about the history of poor queers demanding their rights and to be treated with dignity I was hit with an overwhelming sense of call. An overwhelming sense that these moments were exactly what I was put on earth to do.

These are all thoughts I've had before in my head. But today, I'm enjoying the rawness of the streets, that brought me to a safe raw space to feel a bit mystical.

My prayers tonight are for all that live in the world feeling raw in an unsafe way, for compassion on safety for anyone considering ending their life (it gets better I promise), for those who live with domestic abuse with no way out, for those who feel covered in the fog of unending depression and for all that have forgotten what hope feels like.

I pray even more deeply that all may have the sense that they are mystical, that God is with them, for them and working through them. And if the idea of God creeps you out a bit, I hope for you a sense of purpose and peace.

Blessings upon blessings,
Megan.

Location:Starbucks, Market and Polk, San Francisco

Day Five: Four doughnuts and a scone

Today, I lived off of yesterday's meetings. For breakfast I had two doughnuts from yesterday's staff meeting. For lunch I had two more doughnuts. Later in the afternoon I had a scone. I learned the hard way the consequences of working during the times when the food lines are open. After work I have never enjoyed beans and rice more, as I quickly consumed my super from Food Not Bombs, a local group that feeds people in protest of the priorities of the governments spending policies.


Later in the evening the generosity of the streets provided as I was able to take the other street retreaters out for dessert at Mel's Diner for Carmen's birthday. This added berry pie to the nutritional value of my day.

Despite the rising number of working poor in today's economy, there is a surprising lack of options for meals during the day. I suppose if I was on the streets longer I could make use of the food pantries that give away food on the weekends, but without a kitchen or a stove I'm not sure what good it would do. I suppose I could apply for food stamps and get a debit card that can be used at Subway, though I doubt the funds last very long when used on precooked food.

This lack of proper nutrition and emphasis on starchy filling foods is a large part of the reason the America's hungry are overweight rather than skinny. Farms can grow some of the food that can be eaten raw by the working poor, but I still long to put into practice a food pantry that gives out precooked food for those who live in buildings without kitchens or who work during regular food line hours.

Also, on a completely different subject, all those that are worried about my safety as I sleep on the street: know that nearly each night I me others who are afraid sleeping on the streets, others are so vulnerable or frail they could not hurt anyone. It seems tha the real danger is non-homeless people. Particularly on a night like tonight, it is those out drinking while watching the World Series that are out of control and unsafe.

Well, sleep beckons. Hope you and yours are warm and safe tonight. Prayers for all the people who pick produce in the fields, who stock shelves and who drive trucks.

Day Four: Junk Food Lines

This morning the line for breakfast at Glide extended two full city blocks. Above is a photo of the second block of the line. When we finally arrived inside for food there was a notice on the wall that proclaimed that the coffee company who donated the coffee was no longer able to donate because of the economy, so there was no coffee this morning.

At a meeting earlier this month I learned that Glide was trying to figure out a way to cut its meals by 20%. For the first time Glide may have to limit people to just one meal or limit the number of people that they feed each meal. As I spend my day working at Welcome and operating our Tuesday drop in meal called the Welcome Center that provides a light lunch from 2-4pm, I wonder about the impact of Glide's cuts at small programs like Welcome. Our Saturday night dinners have already swelled from 100 to 300 this year.

It is believed that the breakfast line is so long because it is full of the working poor, who come for breakfast before heading off to work. It's hard to tell how the folk in line will spend the rest of the day just by looking at them, but the line is certainly younger and whiter then I've ever seen it before.

As, I enter my fourth day on the streets I notice that my ability to focus at work is equal to the amount of caffeine I've consumed to get my brain in order. I wonder how many of the hundreds who ate at Glide this morning were unable to concentrate at work the rest of the day, due to the loss of the coffee donation.

I've also noticed that because when I'm working I miss out on the free meal sites, that I have to consume more fast food than I typically would. I'll have to see how this affects my complexion and waist line. But it is certainly hard to tell the difference between waiting in the line at Glide for breakfast or waiting at McDonald's for the value menu. The clothing, smell and look of exhaustion seems to be the same.

In addition to food trouble, getting ready to go to work and trying to get rid of the look and smell of sleeping on the streets is certainly an ordeal. Bathrooms become shower stalls - with adult sized wet wipes for showers.

So, today I pray that everyone waiting in lines - whether it be for stamps, groceries, food, to pay tolls, etc - experience the compassion of a God who knows the frustration of feeling like all of life is waiting. This God reverses the orders of lines and social structures.

Peace be with you all.