Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is one of the people leading the effort to reauthorize the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, our nation’s only federal law that specifically funds vital services for youth experiencing homelessness. The bipartisan reauthorization bill includes a non-discrimination clause that will help ensure that the 40 percent of youth experiencing homelessness who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) not only have access to critical services, but that those services are safe, welcoming, and tailored to meet their unique needs.
As Senator Leahy said on the Senate floor:
“Any program accepting federal money must help care for all these children. They can’t turn these young people away because they don’t like the way they look or the way they dress or who they love. No program that takes federal money should be able to discriminate. Period.”
All homeless youth deserve to feel safe and supported – regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Programs and services receiving federal funding must be inclusive of 100 percent our youth, not just 60 percent. Congress can fix this by passing the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act (which would reauthorize RHYA). As our co-founder Cyndi Lauper said in her op-ed in The Hill, “The time to act is now, because homeless youth don’t have the time for us to wait until tomorrow.”
Nicolas Seip is the Program and Communications Associate at the True Colors Fund.