By Ruth Ellis Center Executive Director Laura Hughes
PQ/
While we have made some progress in providing support and a safe environment for these young people, much more needs to be done.
One of the little-known facts about this nation's runaway and homeless youth population is that approximately 40% of those who are homeless or runway are lesbian, gay, bi-attractional, transgender and questioning young people.
In many cases, these young people run away or become homeless after confronting a home or foster care situation that does not understand and cannot cope with the unique pressures and challenges these young people often confront.
As the only State of Michigan licensed child caring institution that specializes in LGBTQ youth – in fact as the only organization of our kind in the Midwest and one of three in the nation – we at the Ruth Ellis Center deal with this reality every day. In Detroit alone, as many as 800 homeless LGBT youth are on the streets on any given day, far more than we have the resources to handle. As a whole, this nation's human service network is woefully ill-prepared to deal with the unique challenges that these young people confront.
Society pays a very direct cost for this lack of an effective human service network for LGBTQ young people. A 2007 report from the Pew Charitable Trust and Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative determined that one in four young people will be incarcerated within two years after leaving the foster care system, and more than one-fifth will become homeless sometime after reaching 18 years of age. If considerations aren't made for LGBTQ youth, those statistics will only grow in the coming years.
Fortunately, some progress is being made in meeting the needs of the vulnerable segment of our youth population. In recent years, the Ruth Ellis Center has established a close working partnership with the State of Michigan's Health and Human Services Department that recognizes our ability to identify the unique challenges that exist among LGBTQ youth and work with youth welfare organizations to identify appropriate and healthy living options for them.
Sadly, by the time young people are placed with us they already have experienced an average of four to five foster home placements and have been severely traumatized. When LGBTQ youth are placed in foster homes where parents don't understand their unique challenges, it puts that young person at an extreme disadvantage. The foster parent rarely receives information about resources in the LGBTQ community. Too often, the result is another run-away situation, homelessness or yet another foster home placement for the young person.
While we have made some progress in providing support and a safe environment for these young people, much more needs to be done. Comprehensive and inclusive policies need to be instituted that recognize LGBTQ youth. Staff, workers and health providers need to be trained for LGBTQ considerations. An ombudsman or work group needs to be created to review policies under an LGBTQ lens.
This is a time of hope in Michigan as a new administration has taken office dedicated to the need to reinvent our state. While much of the focus on the need for reinvention has focused on economic and job creation issues, there is a similar need for reinvention in our human service network, including programs that deal specifically with LGBTQ young people.
We are looking forward to working with the new leadership in the DHS to implement programs and policies that meet the needs of this vulnerable and significantly underserved population as we work together to build a better Michigan.
