"How dare we say 'it gets better' to the kids if we are not willing to fight to make sure they have what they need."

There are times when I'm frustrated with NPR's lack of interest in certain issues facing the working class and poor, but Margot Adler's "Young, Gay and Homeless: Fighting For Resources" was a great segment/article about important issues absent from the mainstream debate on GLBT rights.  It's also why I think the concerns of OWS cannot be separated from issues disproportionately affecting GLBT youth.

Young, Gay and Homeless: Fighting For Resources

November 20, 2011

 LGBT youth gathered in Union Square in late October to protest New York City's policies toward the homeless.

 

A number of studies of homeless youth in big cities put forth a startling statistic: Depending on the study, somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of homeless youths identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

It's largely because gay youths are more often kicked out of their homes than straight youths. And even if they are not kicked out, they may feel so uncomfortable that they leave.

In New York City, nearly 4,000 young people are homeless every night — many of them gay.

Reaching Out To Homeless Youths

On the Christopher Street pier in Greenwich Village, where dozens of gay and transgender youths hang out, Carter Seabron and Elena Wood of Safe Horizon's Streetwork Project hand out snacks, condoms and information. The organization sends out several nightly teams to find homeless youths.

"Would you like a snack?" Seabron and Wood ask. Oreos, Rice Krispies treats and chewy bars are the favorites. They also give out information about Streetwork's drop-in centers, where young people can get showers, clothing and housing referrals.

Seabron, the outreach coordinator for the Streetwork Project, says that "for the most part, the majority of youth we see who identify as being homeless also identify as being LGBT."

Wood says not all of them are thrown out of their homes, although many are.

Enlarge Margot Adler/NPR Tiffany Cocco (left to right), Jeremiah Beaverly, Carl Siciliano and Avi Bowie hang out at the Ali Forney Center in Manhattan.

"The parent might not say, 'You have to get out now,' like, 'I am kicking you out,' especially since that is illegal if they are under 18," she says. "It's a fine line between what is their choice and what is not."

Each homeless young person has a different story.

Jeremiah Beaverly grew up in Wisconsin and Illinois.

"The day after my 18th birthday this year, my adopted parent kicked me out," he says. "At the time, I was really infatuated with this guy, and she was listening to my phone calls. She started telling my family, 'He is this, he is that, he is gay,' and talking about me as if I wasn't part of the family."

Beaverly was lucky — he had friends whose parents were more accepting. He stayed with them until he finished high school. Now, in New York City, he is in emergency housing — only available for 90 days.

"I went from shelters and couch-surfing to my own bed," he says. "I haven't slept in my own bed for almost a year, so it is really nice."

'Living In A Societal Moment'

There are three organizations that cater to homeless gay kids in New York City.

Carl Siciliano is the founder and executive director of the Ali Forney Center, which he describes as the nation's largest organization dedicated to homeless LGBT youth. When he started the center almost 10 years ago, he says, "kids were dying in the streets; there was no shelter for gay youth; every couple of months, I would know someone who was murdered in the streets."

It has become clear to me that we are living in a societal moment, where kids are coming out at younger and younger ages, and there are so many parents who can't be parents to their gay kids.

In the beginning, Siciliano's goal was just keeping kids safe. But as the years have gone on, he says, "it has become clear to me that we are living in a societal moment, where kids are coming out at younger and younger ages, and there are so many parents who can't be parents to their gay kids. They can't cope, they can't deal with it, their religion is in conflict with the reality of their kids' lives, and these kids are getting thrown away."

It makes sense if you think about it. Kids growing up today see gay people on television. They read about gay marriage in several states. If they think they are gay, they think they can come out of the closet at a younger age.

Tiffany Cocco grew up in East Harlem. She dropped out of school, did some drugs, was kicked out by her parents. She is now 23 and on a waiting list for housing. She's been homeless since she was in her teens. She says she has slept at friends' houses, couch-surfing, among other places.

"I lived on the streets," she says. "Literally, the A Train was my best ride: Waking up to the sunrise, gorgeous. I slept on stoops, park benches — then, finally, shelters."

Siciliano says the gay rights movement has not been good about dealing with the issue of homeless gay youth.

"The movement was articulated and thought out at a time when it was almost all adults coming out," he says. "We have framed our fight for equality in adult terms, and almost all the victories we have won only really benefit the adults in our community."

He also says the gay community hasn't really dealt with poverty and destitution.

A Fight For Resources

Siciliano attended a recent rally in Union Square for gay homeless youths. A crowd of several hundred people chanted, "They're our kids; they're our kids."

At the microphone, Siciliano says it's a different kind of struggle to protect gay kids than the battles the movement has fought in the past.

"With adults, it's a fight for laws like marriage equality," he says. "It is not so much laws with the kids; it is economics. It's a fight for resources. That's what our community hasn't quite gotten yet; we have to fight for resources to protect our kids. How dare we say 'it gets better' to the kids if we are not willing to fight to make sure they have what they need."

There are only 250 beds for 3,800 homeless kids in New York City; waiting lists are huge. Facing a $10 billion deficit, Gov. Andrew Cuomo made compromises with the New York state Legislature. Budget cuts would have taken 100 of those beds away. The city council restored monies cut from both the city and state budgets, so no beds have been cut. A spokesperson said Cuomo asked all local governments to take more responsibility for their budgets by eliminating waste and prioritizing vital programs.

But Siciliano is still angry that homeless kids are not a priority. Of the governor, whom Siciliano describes as heroic in regard to gay marriage, he says, "It's tearing my heart in two. Here you have a political leader who is doing so much to help the adults of our community and is taking actions that harm and imperil the most vulnerable youth of our community. What do we do? What is our response to that?"

Siciliano hopes the rally in late October is the beginning of a real campaign for youth shelter. They're calling for 100 more beds for homeless youth each year until the need is met. But homeless kids don't have power, money or votes. It's hard to believe they will be at the top of many politicians' list in future city and state budgets.

Doomsday Predictions for the Future of Tenure in Higher Education.

Last week I applied to EMU and U of M.  In one of my essay answers to U of M I mentioned my interest in online education.  This week my employer went through with the layoffs we all suspected were coming.  I was spared, but it's already left me with an increasing resentment concerning my current educational situation at JCC. 

This semester I have an online course with a very attentive adjunct and one completely AWOL "Professor" meaning a full professor, not an assistant, associate, instructor, or adjunct.  At first, I just assumed the professor's class was ridiculously easy and that she opened up all the discussions and course materials at once for no particular reason.  I also believed when she said she read all of our posts everyday.  But then someone violated one of her rules by posting something extremely racist and she didn't say anything.  Then our discussion units weren't graded.  Then I posted a question to the "ask your instructor" forum and it wasn't answered for a month.  Then someone else posted a question and a month has passed without a reply. 

Then I decided to do my research at ratemyprofessor.com and I noticed that the last couple reviews, spanning the last couple of years, were about how she had been AWOL throughout their entire online course.  Clearly, this is an established pattern of behavior. 

And here's my concern:  Besides students learning less, degrees meaning less, and me wasting my money, I'm concerned about what this means for the future of tenure at universities.  K-12 teachers have already witnessed an assault on tenure and collective-bargaining rights and this anti-education campaign isn't going away.  Our economy still stinks, the cost of higher education continues to rise, and people like my coworkers who work their asses off are being laid off left and right!  Some of them will enroll in school and,  because they're going to be seeking employment and taking care of their children, they'll probably enroll in online courses.  So, imagine how fucking pissed off they're going to be when they realize their tax dollars support the salaries of people who don't even bother to teach them. 

Everyone expects online education to be cheaper, so the technology fee that JCC and other schools charge has always baffled many students.  The Chronicle has recently reported that online education is becoming more and more profitable for colleges because there's better and cheaper software and infrastructure options needed for online learning. 

Plus, online education is growing.  EMU offers entire degree programs online and JCC is looking to do the same.  More and more students are going to be learning online and when they see tenured professors being completely absent from their courses they are going to start demanding changes.  Pay cuts, the end of tenure, more adjuncts, so on and so forth.  And many of these online learners are adults, which tends to make them more likely to vote than the traditional eighteen year old student. 

Professors who treat their online courses like vacations from teaching are not only taking a shit on the students, but they are taking a shit on future educators who will watch their tenure and academic freedom stripped away by angry former students. 

I'm angry at these absent professors because I want a future in education and academic freedom is very important to me.  I'm angry at them because I've seen what this assault on tenure has done to wonderful teachers, like my Aunt.  I'm angry because I know that a lot of these anti-teacher decisions were probably made by people who still hold a grudge against some awful fifth grade history teacher who made them cry.  I'm angry because if intelligent professors aren't going to try and TEACH their students, then their students minds are going to rot and they are going to latch on to the first thing that pulls at their heartstrings, like Waiting for Superman and Michelle Rhee.

I'm angry because the fight for control in higher education is coming, and professors who don't teach are going to be the greatest threat to good professors who can use their tenure to benefit their students.