Lost-n-Found Youth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lost-n-Found Youth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Lost-n-Found Youth is an Atlanta, Georgia-based organization that assists homeless LGBT youth.[1][2] The organization, at the time of its 2011 founding was the "only organization actively taking Atlanta's LGBT homeless youth directly off the streets".[3]

Lost-n-Found Youth started as a project organized by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to address the need for a homeless shelter to specifically meet the needs of LGBTQ youth in the Atlanta area. The organization, originally known as the Saint Lost and Found project, was founded by Rick Westbrook, Art Izzard, and Paul Swicord.^[4] Since it's inception, the organization has helped more than 300 young homeless adults.^[5][6]

In 2014, The Human Rights Campaign awarded Lost-n-Found Youth with the Dan Bradley Humanitarian Award.^[5]

The organization is converting an Atlanta home that is more than a century old, into a shelter. Saint Mark's United Methodist Church has rented the house to Lost-n-Found Youth for one per year, on a 20 year lease.^[7][8][9]

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Highly religious parents are significantly more likely than their less-religious counterparts to reject their children for being gay – a finding that social-service workers believe goes a long way toward explaining why LGBT people make up roughly five percent of the youth population overall, but an estimated 40 percent of the homeless-youth population. The Center for American Progress has reported that there are between 320,000 and 400,000 homeless LGBT youths in the United States. Meanwhile, as societal advancements have made being gay less stigmatized and gay people more visible – and as the Internet now allows kids to reach beyond their circumscribed social groups for acceptance and support – the average coming-out age has dropped from post-college age in the 1990s to around 16 today, which means that more and more kids are coming out while they're still economically reliant on their families. The resulting flood of kids who end up on the street, kicked out by parents whose religious beliefs often make them feel compelled to cast out their own offspring (one study estimates that up to 40 percent of LGBT homeless youth leave home due to family rejection), has been called a "hidden epidemic." Tragically, every step forward for the gay-rights movement creates a false hope of acceptance for certain youth, and therefore a swelling of the homeless-youth population.

Read more: 

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/the-forsaken-a-rising-number-of-homeless-gay-teens-are-being-cast-out-by-religious-families-20140903#ixzz3X9IFZl2M

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"May I ask what your religion is?"

~(Simply Jim)~

"Jewish."

~(Youth walking his dog on sidewalk front of my home)~

"May I ask why you are Jewish?"

~(Simply Jim)~

"You don't get to pick your religion."

~(Youth with dog standing on sidewalk running through my yard)~

"May I ask what your ethnic origin is?"

~(Simply Jim)~

"Taiwanese."

~(Same youth/dog:  They obviously ain't in a hurry)~

"So...why...are...you...Jewish?"

~(Simply Jim)~

"Oh!  I'm adopted."

~(Jewish Taiwanese Adolescence with dog)~

"So your adopted parents are Jewish?"

~(Simply Jim)~

"No."

~(???)~

"So you are rebelling by choosing to be Jewish?"

~(Simply Jim)~

"No."

~(???)~

"Sooo..(answering his cellphone)..never mind!"

~(Simply Jim)~

Strange how I answered my doorbell tonight to find this same young man, having just turned eighteen, standing at my front door claiming to have just been kicked out of his home by his parents.  

Although he supposedly lives in my neighborhood, I do not know who his parents are or even where he (they) lived.

Was not about to invite him into my home; even just to talk.  Insisted we keep everything visible outside my home.  Would be just too easy for the neighborhood gossip rumor mill to crank up full force.

Call Lost and Found Youth Center for him on my phone and then put him on the phone with them once they returned my call to their hotline.  

He would not give them their name.

Then he tell them he might give them a call tomorrow before ending the call.

Then leaves walking in the direction of Clairmont Road.