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LGBTQ Youth Rally Against Cuts to Runaway Services

By DNAinfo Staff on December 21, 2010 7:20pm  | Updated on December 22, 2010 6:24am

By Tara Kyle

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

DOWNTOWN — The same LGBTQ teens and advocates who just months ago stood alongside Mayor Michael Bloomberg celebrating empowerment denounced him at a rally Tuesday afternoon.

The young people, along with a slew of City Council members and advocates, rallied at City Hall against cuts to the Department of Youth and Community Development's runaway homeless youth programs.

"I don't understand how Mayor Bloomberg is cutting budgets when kids are sleeping on the streets," said runaway Raciel Castillo, 18, who is currently applying for community college after getting help from Brooklyn's Ali Forney Center, which provides housing for gay youth. "I'm sure you have cozy pajamas to fit into when you go to sleep — I don't."

LGBTQ youth comprise approximately 40 percent of runaways, according to Queens City Councilman Daniel Dromm.

The cuts, announced just after Thanksgiving, are effective January 1 and will slice half the city's support for street outreach to runaway youth and 33 to 50 percent of its support for homeless youth drop-in centers. In July, support for street outreach will be eliminated.

"The Bloomberg administration knows that these kids are suffering," said Forney Center Executive Director Carl Siciliano. "You can't say that you're a friend to the LGBT community and make this cut."

Many of the organizations represented at Tuesday's rally, including FIERCE and the Ali Forney Center, had previously stood next to Bloomberg on the steps of City Hall in late October, after the mayor issued a proclamation marking it LGBTQ Youth Empowerment Month.

While the cuts are steep, Department of Youth and Community Development spokesperson Andrew Doba pointed out that services for runaway and homeless youth survived unscathed through the eight most recent rounds of budget cuts. Additionally, he said no cuts will be made to shelter beds for runaway homeless youth.

"The agency realizes the importance of these services for this vulnerable population," Doba said, calling the cuts a "difficult decision" forced by city and state budget reductions.

One of the young women in attendance Tuesday, Bay Ridge native Kelcey Roberts, 21, said she skipped plans to apply for a domestic partnership in order to make the rally.

Roberts and her fiancé, Danielle Matthews, are four-month veterans of the Sylvia's Place Shelter for LGBTQ youth in Hell's Kitchen.

"We're just like everybody else, it doesn't make sense," Roberts said. "Nobody knows what it's like in the real world until you're out in the cold and have nowhere to go."