Reducing LGBTQ+ Homelessness Starts With Acceptance

With the constant harboring of conservative families and lack of proper education on parenthood, queer youths and adults are being thrown out on a global scale for trying to be themselves. If you are someone with any sort of privilege (i.e. being straight/cisgender, male, white, financially stable, etc.), it's important to understand the trials and tribulations that minorities face on a daily basis. What you can do to address this situation is seek out accessible resources, digital or analog, that provide unbiased information about LGBTQ+ communities, both local and online. Below is some basic information about common attributes and traits that queer people associate themselves with. There is plenty more information to be learned in the long run, and people are indeed capable of learning it, but consider these as a start for your path to understanding and accepting queer culture.

Sexual Orientations:
Gay - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gay
Lesbian - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lesbian
Bisexual - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bisexual
Pansexual/Omnisexual - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/pansexual
Demisexual - https://www.dictionary.com/e/gender-sexuality/demisexual
Asexual - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/asexual

Gender Identities:
Cisgender - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cisgender
Transgender - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/transgender
Non-binary - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nonbinary
Gender-neutral - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gender-neutral
Gender-fluid - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gender-fluid
Agender - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/agender
Two-spirit - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/two-spirit

Pronouns:
He/him - https://pronoun.is/he
She/her - https://pronoun.is/she
They/them - https://pronoun.is/they/.../themselves
Ze/hir - https://pronoun.is/ze/hir
Ze/zir - https://pronoun.is/ze/zir
Xey/xem - https://pronoun.is/xey/xem/xyr
Other pronouns - https://pronoun.is/all-pronouns

Where do I go? Problems with Prisoner Reintegration.

Though the United States is about 4% of the world’s population, we hold around 25% of the worlds prison population. The US prison population has exploded since the Reagan Administration, with a 700% increase from 1970 to 2003. According to The National Employment Law Project, one-in-four US adults currently have some sort of criminal record [1]. Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Laws, the three strikes law, The War on Drugs, Racialization, prison privatization, and crummy politics have all been major contributing factors for our prison overpopulation. Understanding the growing prison population in the US is a formidable undertaking by itself. But, could it be directly tied to our growing homeless population? 

There are around five million ex-prisoners living in the United States, and they are nearly 10 times more likely to be homeless then the general public. The California Department of Corrections stated that around 30 to 50 percent of the state’s parolees in major urban areas are homeless [2]. According to a 1996 HUD study, 49 percent of homeless adults have reportedly spent five or more days in a city or county jail over their lifetimes. Prisoner and felons are often treated as second class citizens, if citizens at all. We have adopted public policies that prevent prisoners from being able to successfully adapt back to society. Several legal and social barriers to reintegration hinder prisoners from finding a permanent roof over their head, and establishing themselves back in the general public. Felons are generally not allowed access to affordable housing. It becomes near impossible to access welfare, veteran’s benefits, education, and most especially, employment as an ex-convict. We have created a social environment that is unquestionably inhospitable for released prisoners.

So, do I have a correctional plan of action in mind? Not particularly. There has been growing investment in federally subsidized housing and transitional housing for ex-convicts, but that’s just putting a band aide on a larger wound. I think our treatment of convicts is closer to the source of the problem. I feel there is a growing awareness and disdain for our gargantuan prison population. Successful reintegration requires experimentation, collaboration, and funding. There needs to be a complete overhaul with our prison industrial complex, and we need to systematically asses policies and practices that shed light on how and how much we need to invest in our transitioning population.

-Isaac Pea

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[1] Rodriguez, M., & Emsellem, M. (2011). 65 MILLION “NEED NOT APPLY” The Case for Reforming Criminal Background Checks for Employment. The National Employment Law Project.

[2] California Department of Corrections, Prevention Parolee Failure Program: An Evaluation (Sacramento, CA: California Department of Corrections, 1997).