Galloway
5:25:38
Good afternoon chair Stephens and council members of the children and youth committee.
5:25:42
My name is Galloway.
5:25:43
I'm the advocacy manager at the LA Forne Center, and I stand before you today not only as an advocate but for a voice for the thousands of young people in this city that have been abandoned for far too long.
5:25:54
Right now across New York City, Black and brown trans and queer youth are being forced into homelessness, pushed out by families who reject them, by policies designed to erase them, and by systems that refuse to invest in their survival.
5:26:05
LGBTQ youth are a 20 times more likely to be put into these systems of survival as opposed to their non LGBTQ peers.
5:26:16
This is not a coincidence.
5:26:17
This is a result of systemic harm, disinvestment, and neglect, and this is a crisis we have the power to change.
5:26:24
New York City calls itself a sanctuary, but a sanctuary is not a word.
5:26:27
It is a responsibility.
5:26:29
That means taking real action to protect LGBTQ youth, especially those arriving here after fleeting anti LGBTQ executive orders and violence.
5:26:38
It means funding survival.
5:26:40
We need 16,400,000.0 added to the runaway and homeless youth budget because our youth cannot wait.
5:26:45
This funding will expand programs to meet urgent needs of newly arriving queer and trans youth, and we need those hundred additional beds.
5:26:51
Shout out to Sherri Stevens for getting us those beds.
5:26:54
We gotta make sure they're contracted y'all at that 70 k bed rate because inflation is real and the bed rates that are out right now are not working.
5:27:01
We need more of just things on the floor.
5:27:03
We need solutions, But shelter alone is not enough.
5:27:06
Housing is more than a bed.
5:27:08
It is stability, safety, and the ability to build a future.
5:27:10
This is why we must invest in peer and housing navigators to help our youth through the system that was not built for them, financial coaches to help them achieve economic security, and wrap around services that support not just their survival but their healing and liberation.
5:27:24
The question before you today is simple.
5:27:26
Will you fund survival or will you fund harm?
5:27:29
LGBTQ youth are coming to us.
5:27:33
We do not need more delays, we do not need more excuses, we need this investment and we need it now.
5:27:38
So thank you so much for your time and I appreciate all the others that amplified the runaway homeless youth needs.
