Homelessness among the LGBTQ Community
The overall theme my group is choosing to focus on this semester is inequity within the LGBTQ community. My specific topic discusses homelessness as it relates to the queer community. I chose this topic to help raise awareness and educate my audience on why homelessness among the queer community is so prominent. This topic interests me because it allows me to take a closer look into the social stigma and discrimination LGBTQ persons face. It isn’t uncommon for homeless shelters to turn LGBTQ persons away. In fact, it’s more common for these individuals to experience violence and exploitation in comparison to their heterosexual peers. I think that I’ll find research that directly backs my hypothesis and personal anecdotes, as well as provide a new insight into the other perspectives involved. It’s important to have conversation about social injustices, much like this one, to broaden perspectives and allow room for change. Discussing the things that many see as “small” can play a large role in changing and influencing stereotypes and generalizations about a certain group. My topic fits in with Young’s Five Faces of Oppression because the topic I’m choosing to discuss (homelessness and LBGTQ inequalities) fits in with a number of the categories discussed in the article.
Problems to be Investigated:
Why are LGBTQ youth at high risk for homelessness?
Is it time to start counting kids who are LGBTQ in Child Welfare?
Does representation in the media affect the way the LGBTQ community is viewed?
How do non-LGBTQ people view the queer community?
Why do LGBTQ youth make up a vast percentage of the homeless population?
My topic’s key issues will focus on why LQBTQ+ youth make up such a large percentage of the homeless community. This issue has a direct influence on the negative cultural views the LGBTQ community receives as a whole.
I plan on gathering articles and scholarly journals from Galileo and other online databases.
Barman-Adhikari, Anamika. “A Social Capital Approach to Identifying Correlates of Perceived Social Support Among Homeless Youth.” Child & Youth Care Forum, Vol. 45, no. 5, Oct. 2016, pp 691-708.
Dolamore, Stephanie. “Providing Solutions to LGBT Homeless Youth: Lessons from Baltimore’s Youth Empowered Society.” Public Integrity, Vol. 20, no. 6, Dec. 2018, pp 595-610.
Field, Tracey. “It is Time to Start Counting Kids who are LGBTQ in Child Welfare.” Child Welfare, Vol. 96, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp 14-17.
Forge, Nicholas. “Out of the System and onto the Streets: LGBTQ-Identified Youth Experiencing Homelessness with Past Child Welfare System Involvement.” Child Welfare, vol. 96, no. 2, 2018, pp 47-74.
Hensley, Cammie. “Millennial Consumers Responses to Cause-Related Marketing in Support of LGBTQ Homeless Youth.” Social Sciences, vol. 8, no. 8, 2019, pp 240.
Johnson, Richard Greggory. “A Public Ethics Approach Focused on the Lives of Diverse LGBTQ Homeless Youth.” Public Integrity, Vol. 20, no. 6, Nov. 2018, pp 611-624.
Mayer, Kenneth H. “Promoting the Successful Development of Sexual and Gender Minority Youths.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 104, no. 6, June 2014, pp 967, 981.
McCandless, Sean. “LGBT Homeless Youth and Policing.” Public Integrity, vol. 20, no. 6, Dec. 2018, pp 558-570.
Nolan, Theresea C. “Outcomes for a Transitional Living Program Serving LGBTQ Youth in New York City.” Child Welfare, vol. 85, no. 2, April 2006, pp 385-406.
Norman-Major, Kristen. “Thinking Outside the Box: Using Multi-Sector Approaches to Address the Wicked Problem of Homelessness Among LGBTQ Youth.” Public Integrity, Vol. 20, no. 6, Dec. 2018, pp 546-557.
Page, Michelle. “Forgotten Youth: Homeless LGBT Youth of Color and the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act.” Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy, vol. 12, no. 2, 2017, pp 17-45.
Robinson, Brandon Andrew. “Child Welfare System and LGBTQ Youth Homelessness: Gender segregation, Instability, and Intersectionality.” Child Welfare, Vol. 96, no. 2, 2018, pp 29-45.
For my field resources, I plan on doing a combination of online surveys and reading outside sources to help me form a better idea of the perceptions students at CCGA have about the LGBTQ community.
Annotated Bibliography Portion:
- Dolamore, Stephanie. “Providing Solutions to LGBT Homeless Youth: Lessons from Baltimore’s Youth Empowered Society.” Public Integrity, Vol. 20, no. 6, Dec. 2018, pp 595-610.
- Summary: This article is composed of research that claims up to 20-40% of underaged children that run away from home are part of the LGBTQ community. This suggests that approximately 80,000 of these children are homeless from times varying from a week to years. The author, Stephanie Dolamore argues that people who classify themselves as queer are more likely to suffer from poverty, violence, discrimination, attempted suicide, and often, drug use, as opposed to their heterosexual peers. This article goes farther, suggesting that we take legal precautions to ensure that they are guaranteed their constitutional rights.
- Asses: This article is very interesting. It goes above and beyond to confirm that LGBTQ youth make up a large percentage of the homeless community. The information found in this article is sourced by Public Integrity, which is a reliable news outlet that “reveals abuses of power, corruption and dereliction of duty by powerful public and private institutions in order to cause them to operate...and put the public interest first.” This article is objective because it backs its information with data from a wide range of dependable experiments.
- Reflect: I will definitely use this source in my final project. The information presented in this article is backed by statistics from a reliable datasource. These percentages allow me to have a better interpretation of the topic I’m discussing. If anything, this article re-enforces my original thesis.
- Field, Tracey. “It is Time to Start Counting Kids who are LGBTQ in Child Welfare.” Child Welfare, Vol. 96, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp 14-17.
- Summary: The main purpose of this article is to inform readers on the statistical analysis behind the causation of homelessness among the LGBTQ community and how we should take preventative measures to ensure the safety of these children. The author extensively discusses child welfare, an agency that protects minors from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. The article also makes it very clear that children categorized as queer follow the same distribution pattern as children with certain races, ethnicities, and religions when moving into a foster home. However, LGBTQ children are not covered under Child Welfare, which makes finding them shelter significantly harder.
- Asses: This article provided little information. Though it did establish a good argument, it felt like the author was recycling other authors findings, rather than her own. However, I did find a few points that didn’t sound as biased as her others pieces. I plan on using this in my final project.
- Reflect: I will pull a couple of quotes from this article, but I don’t plan on using it very thoroughly. Though it did have good points, it was very repetitive and followed the same format that other articles about this topic covered. Overall, this source just doesn’t fit into the point that I’m trying to get across to my audience.
- Johnson, Richard Greggory. “A Public Ethics Approach Focused on the Lives of Diverse LGBTQ Homeless Youth.” Public Integrity, Vol. 20, no. 6, Nov. 2018, pp 611-624.
- Summary: The goal of this article is to help emphasize the challenges faced by youth who categorize themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ), particularly those who are homeless. The authors talk in depth about why LGBTQ youth make up such a large percent of the homeless population and the sacrifices some of these people undergo just to find help and feel “normal.”
- Asses: This source is very useful. It provides factual information and scenarios that I, as a heterosexual reader, can relate to. The author was able to breakdown each argument and explain it in a way that was easy to relate to. I trust that this article is reliable, as it was found under “scholarly articles” in Galileo.
- Reflect: I will more than likely use this as one of my sources. The author used a number of credible sources, which helped emphasize my thesis statement. The article is very in-depth and covers everything that I want to talk about in my paper. It provides a definite awareness into the foregoing inequities LGBTQ persons deal with daily. Overall, this source is very interesting and informative which could help get my thesis across to an audience.
- Page, Michelle. “Forgotten Youth: Homeless LGBT Youth of Color and the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act.” Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy, vol. 12, no. 2, 2017, pp 17-45.
- Summary: This article discusses the steady rise of LGBTQ homelessness and the preventative actions the government has taken to attempt to lower this statistic. The Runaway and Homeless Youth Act is thoroughly discussed, showing alternative measures to keep children off the streets. Overall, this article is very interesting and provides a ton of insight as to why these children are running away from home so early and ending up on the street.
- Asses: This article was full of useful information. It established multiple reliable statistics and tables. Unlike some of my other sources, it didn’t show a bias and stayed true to its original point. The article was very objective and allowed the audience insight as to why homelessness among the LGBTQ community is more prominent than it should be.
- Reflect: This article is very enticing. I will definitely be using this in my final product. It will be one of my main sources because it challenges the reader to understand a different perspective, while also providing factual insight.