Thursday, March 14, 2013

A Tremendous Tuesday

Heyo!  Nicole and JB here.  Tuesday was definitely a roller coaster ride for our group.  We started the day with a meeting with Meg Owens, of the local homeless coordinating board.  The night before we had reflected on causes and symptoms of homeless and began to try to identify potential solutions.  It was a difficult conversation because the issue is so overwhelming.  Many of our participants were hopeful that the meeting with Meg would clearly define "best practices" for alleviating homelessness in the United States.  She was an incredible speaker and in the hour we had with her she provided us with a wealth of information about the issue and programs being implemented here in SF, as well as the threat posed by sequestration.  Many of us left the meeting with more questions than we started with. Homelessness, especially youth homelessness, is an incredibly complex issue that involves many different systems and institutions.  One participant remarked that it was clear that even confronting the problem in one city was a daunting task- how could we possibly do this on a national level?

the SF Center at 1800 Market St.

After a brief afternoon tour of the Haight-Asbury neighborhood, we moved onto our next meeting with Hajra Khan, the Youth Program Coordinator at the San Francisco LGBT Center.  She started by giving us a tour of the newly opened Queer Youth Space.  It's an incredible area with work stations, a TV area  and a small kitchenette.  The walls are decorated with Community Norms generated by the youth, drawings of what a "safe space," looks like, and a recently started mural project.  Unfortunately, Hajra is the only one who works specifically with youth at the Center and, as such, is unable to keep it open all the time.  Because of lack of funding, many of the incredible programming ideas that she and the Youth Advisory Board have come up with have not come to fruition.  However, the rest of the meeting showed us how much potential this incredible community has.  After our Q&A period and briefing, we moved upstairs to begin setting up for Queer Youth Meal Night.  Queer Youth Meal Night happens every Tuesday.  It brings together local queer youth and service providers for a free meal, a movie, and good conversation in a completely safe space.    The food was delicious, we met lots of wonderful youth activists and got invited to a Queer Dance Party sponsored by Lyric tomorrow night.  Sweet participant Sarah describes it as "Best. Night. Ever."  Others noted that it felt like a family dinner.


Queer Youth Homelessness is a daunting, draining, complex issue, and it's easy to get overwhelmed.  Being able to be welcomed into a community that provides not only things like employment counseling and harm reduction services but also just a sense of community and support, left us with a restored sense of hope and passion.

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