'Community creates change' | New Knoxville nonprofit provides housing, support for homeless LGBTQ+ youth

The Hope and Healing Survivor Resource Center in Akron, Ohio offers LGBTQ+ intimate partner violence survivors the option to stay in local hotels instead of traditional emergency shelters. After implementing LGBTQ+ cultural competency training in 2023, the organization saw a 10% increase in LGBTQ+ survivors accessing their services.

The city of Tucson and two nonprofit partners, Primavera Foundation and Old Pueblo Community Services, launched STAR Village, a safe sleeping site offering supervised tent housing, bathrooms, showers, case management, and outreach services for up to 25 homeless women and nonbinary people. The site is entering its second year, funded by approximately $300,000 in unspent city office budgets, plus nonprofit contributions.

Swords to Plowshares is a San Francisco nonprofit providing homeless veterans with a place to live and different types of therapy while working to get them jobs, military benefits, and permanent housing.

The Fostering Connections to Success Act helps aged-out foster children obtain housing, but it's not always easy for LGBTQ+ youth to find safe, accepting places to live. But with the newly implemented Resource Family Approval program, members of area child protective services departments and foster care representatives meet with potential foster families to evaluate how they would support LGBTQ+ youth in their home.

Health Care Advocates International’s free breast binder program provides binders to transgender youths by donating them to local clinics or paying to ship them. The binders help prevent body dysphoria triggers by creating a flat-chest appearance.

Several programs have cropped up throughout California to help former foster youth navigate what has been identified as the biggest challenge of aging out of the foster case system -- housing. NextUp and other initiatives at community colleges provide counseling and financial support to students who lack a built-in support network.

The Safe Parking Program in Los Angeles is providing people living out of their vehicles with secure lots. For those facing housing instability, this temporary measure helps people save their energy and resources so that they can maintain employment and find permanent housing.

Housing First is a programme aimed at reducing homeless. It is rooted in the premise that “the main thing a homeless person needs is a home. The program has been adopted in Finland, Denmark, Spain, France, and parts of the U.S. and Canada. In Finland, there is proof of results. “ Finland is the only European Union country where homelessness is not rising but falling – by an average of 35% between 2008 and 2015. “

Homes for All Veterans, a program within the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Human Services, recently began training volunteers to walk the city's streets in search of homeless veterans, with the goal of effectively eliminate veteran homelessness by the end of the year. If successful, advocates say the push to end veteran homelessness could be the first step in addressing the city's larger, chronically homeless population.

The 100 Families Program provides a vital connection point for community organizations serving people in need, streamlining the process for clients to get help with everything from obtaining a GED to finding housing and getting set up with food benefits. In Texarkana, which established its version of the program in 2022, over 100 community partners are now involved in the effort, and nearly half of clients who came into the program in the last year have since earned a high school diploma or are now working toward one.