WAMU: Voices of Wards 7 and 8
For some LGBTQ youth, Southeast is where they find their chosen family
It’s a hot Friday afternoon, and outside a little brick house in Ward 8 is a small Pride cookout.
Youth sit in the grass, enjoying the music, their barbeque and cold drinks – and puppy therapy. Across them is their garden. Grocery stores are scarce in Ward 8, which is part of why they’re learning to grow their own produce, in raised beds painted in LGBTQ-themed colors.
The complex is shared by the Wanda Alston Foundation and SMYAL – both local LGBTQ organizations – and nonprofit Sasha Bruce Youthwork. The youth who live in this complex come from all over the country, but for now Southeast D.C. is their home – and it’s a place of safety and support they may not have had growing up.
LGBTQ youth are at significantly higher risk of becoming homeless. In D.C., they make up about 40% of the homeless youth population.
Cesar Toledo, the executive director of Wanda Alston, says it’s a “crisis.”
“The entire continuum of care supporting our queer and trans young people is at capacity,” he says. Through Wanda Alston, the complex in Ward 8 houses just a few of them – about 20.
Kendall left her hometown Baltimore about two years ago, when she was 19 (we’re omitting her last name, to protect her privacy). She joined a job training program in D.C. but wasn’t able to stay. She became homeless and entered the District’s emergency shelter system.
Kendall is now housed at this complex through Wanda Alston. The services, she says, are “indispensable,” and she’s learning how to live independently and “be an adult.”
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