Look at these queer kids. They’re earnest and smart—so earnest and so smart that you’d give them lots of the city’s cash to start a clubhouse and community center for queer youth, right?
The city’s Department of Neighborhoods thought so, too, and awarded them $100,000 on June 16 to open a “queer youth space” on Capitol Hill. (The city council still needs to formally approve the grant, but it’s essentially a done deal.)
“We believe that it’s the largest grant the city has ever given to an LGBT youth organization,” says 17-year-old Hanna King, one of about 15 people driving the day-to-day operations of the group (best known for canvassing the city with posters that say “We Need Queer Youth Space”). The organization is run almost entirely by folks between the age of 15 and 20—and that’s what they say makes it unique. Other organizations that serve queer youth are run by adults, and they say it’s time for a change.
“The difference is that Lambert House is where youth go to get help,” says one of the group’s founders, Kyle Rapiñan. “Queer Youth Space is for youth to help themselves.”
But after the excitement of getting a grant ebbs, the group must do what few have managed to do successfully in Seattle: operate a social-service organization for gay people. With only one full-time staffer funded in its grant, a group of young volunteers must lease a space (they’re negotiating terms for a 3,000-square-foot spot on Capitol Hill where they can build a stage and set up a sound system), satisfy a bushel of promises to the city (70 workshops, thousands of people at events, dozens of referrals to health providers, and more), and—the biggest hurdle for so many queer groups with big ambitions—stay relevant and solvent.
King, who graduated this month from Garfield High School, says queer youth need to be able to find other people like them.
“To be the only queer kid in your entire school and to endure bullying and teasing every day is a common experience for kids in Seattle,” she says. “Queer youth space gives people a home, a starting place to go out and interact with the world. We have had a lot of contact from teenagers who have wanted to access services, but they don’t know where it’s safe.”
Why don’t they believe that Lambert House, the drop-in center for gay youth, can satisfy the interests of queer kids looking for shared space?
“It’s empty. There are not queer youth there,” says Zara Sedore-Mallin, who adds that most of the folks she saw there were older volunteers. (She doesn’t mention that Lambert House lost city funding in 2003 and caused a controversy after its director was found to have spent an evening on the town with a 21-year-old youth board member.) “I went into Lambert House,” Sedore-Mallin continues, “and sat there for one hour reading a copy of Seattle Gay News and no one showed up. I left and never went back.”
When I went to Lambert House to write this story, the log from the previous day showed that 14 youth had dropped in. Remy Neely, a floor supervisor, says as many as 30 youth can show up in a day or as few as eight. But splitting off with a new group, he says, could divide limited funding for the organizations. He also cautioned, “You don’t want homeless or disadvantaged youth to go to Lambert House but LGBT kids with houses and families to go to an upper-class queer youth space.” He says that could create “a divide between the haves and the have-nots.”
City council member Tom Rasmussen suggests that some disadvantaged youth—gays and lesbians, racial minorities—don’t feel well-served by Lambert House or other gay organizations.
“From time to time, young LGBT folks, especially youth of color, tell me how none of the organizations here meet their needs and something else should be tried,” says Rasmussen. At least one of the organizers, Mario Lemafa, says he was attracted to Queer Youth Space because he felt welcome as a person of color.
The real test for Queer Youth Space is going to be survival. There have been several attempts to get gay community centers off the ground in town—and an equal number of failures. In 2008, the LGBT Center on Pike Street folded after it had become a deserted space. The Lesbian Resource Center, vital at first, limped along for years after interest and support dried up.
“Frankly, not enough women cared,” says city council member Sally Clark, a former leader at the Lesbian Resource Center. “They found what they needed for their lives in other places. But that’s the past, and the kids say they need a space, so why not give it a try?”
Money at the city is tight—about $56 million short for next year—but funding for the queer youth space comes from a neighborhood matching fund, which the city budgeted $3.6 million for last year (down slightly from the year before) and was even cut slightly this spring due to a city budget shortfall. Next year, the queer youth project, called Three Wings in the grant application, will need to find money from private donors.
Clark, who also used to run the community-resources division of Lifelong AIDS Alliance, has some closing advice on budgets: “The big cautions are the boring but deadly ones: Pay your bills. Have insurance. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. And pay your bills.” 
This story has been updated since its original publication.
YAY YAY YAY
this is great 🙂
My only advise… FUNDRAISE FUNDRAISE FUNDRAISE!!! Keep funds coming in so you can pay those bills and keep the doors open.
It will be dead in 2 years, 5 at the max. There are similar groups in other towns with similar philosophies and at best they wind up being a group of self important queer kids who form a little clique who hand out condoms on weekends and throw around big concepts like heteronormativity, gender transgression, and assimilation, and occasionally have a dance party no one attends all in the name of making their white and often privileged asses feel unique and important.
Ya, I ranted , so shoot me.
As a former Lambert House volunteer who saw major problems with its program, I am thrilled to see our city funding an alternative for LGBTQ youth!
QYS is whatsup, but I’m so uncomfortable with referring to this as the “gay ghetto,” for a lot of reasons.
Do you think the author could clarify as to why they used that wording?
Lambert house may suffer, but if that is what it takes to do it the right way, than so be it.
Somethings work because they stand in sharp contrast to what hasn’t.
I am all for this new space and think their approach is more unique and effective than this article is presenting.
@5 see FIERCE in NYC, a youth-led queer activist group. It has been around for over 10 years and is still kicking. 🙂
@7) Sure, I’ll explain. “Gay ghetto” is slang adopted by LGBT folk as a term for gay neighborhoods. It used to refer to places where gays were ostracized. Now it mostly co-opts an arguably derogatory term–like “queer,” for instance–and makes it lovely. As per the grant requirement, Queer Youth Space has to be in the city’s eastern district, which includes Capitol Hill. And that’s where QYS will set up shop. In the wiki entry on gay neighborhoods, under the ghetto sub-listing, Capitol Hill is even mentioned specifically.
What i want to know is what they are going to be doing to make it an open and welcoming place for all people, people who should want to come back.
They need to have some kind of system setup, what exactly i don’t know, that allows any new person to come off the street and be welcomed and be able to join in the activities without feeling like they arn’t in on the joke or left out.
I think lots of detailed, well marketed activities would help with the precise goal of getting in people who are new to the group. Maybe even have a “New Folks” day with activities and information just for people who are new to the group.
If a shy kid still in the closet suspects for even a second he/she is not welcome or among friends, or is an imposition, they will be outa there.
It might also be a good idea to do activities that take the onus off sex, not to try to prevent it or anything, but to take some of the pressure off of integrating with the rest of the group. A kid coming out of the closet might get his hormones confused with friendship and it seems like it would be a good idea to focus on friendship and community building within the space.
@10: I love wikipedia’s explanation on the effects of gentrification in gay ghettos, generally:
Love it.
Yeah kids! Fundraise and get money, keep your doors open, branch out and start to create dialogues with queers of all age groups!
Then Eli from the stranger can run a story about the ways you are failing and your responsibility to all. Then a huge shitstorm or anger and resentment can destroy your project.
Seriously, Eli is a jerk.
Leather is expensive, and most guys who are into it—and own lots of it—are white and affluent.
Grants are complicated and take a lot of work just to apply. I’d be interested to know what kind of help the kids had. As a former earnest and intelligent teenage over-achiever myself, I can say that looking back I realize a lot of the things my friends and I put together never would have panned out without a helpful adult making sure insurance was taken care of, bills were paid, and grant requirements were met. Event planning is one thing, contractual obligations are another. Even earnest and smart ADULTS need professional help with that sometimes.
Good point 14.
I had some lengthy comment to add, but im too busy lusting at Dominic’s avatar. Plus im really lazy.
Idiots. Can they explain what it is that they need before attacking Lambert House?
There are enough queer youth in seattle to justify multiple queer youth spaces, but for the QueerYouthSpace and The Stranger to stupidly SLANDER Lambert House, one of the most venerable and respected queer youth organizations on capitol hill, just because some of the QYS founders and their advisors themselves have had LESS than honorable associations with Lambert House in the past, doesn’t give them the right to lie and misrepresent Lambert House and its wonderful staff and volunqueers. They, incidentally, are the reason why Lambert house is still so crucial to the Seattle LGBT Community, because they act as both supervision and role models. It not only unlikely a leased space, insurance company, or the city would allow 13-21 year olds to assemble together without SOME sort of adult supervision, it’s laughable. Queer youth (Over 500+ in 2009 alone!) HAVE a safe LGBT space in Lambert House where they can hang out, play games, have fun, participate in groups, and access a variety of resources. STOP attacking Lambert House and focus on helping queer youth, there’s room enough for everyone.
Why doesn’t The Stranger actually interview the current youth of Lambert House and print an objective piece about Seattle’s Queer Youth Spaces for once?
CORRECTION: Lambert House lost funding in 2003, then the current Executive Director was hired in 2004 and got the city to reinstate funding. Check your GOSSIP before you print it Stranger!
I’m totally in agreement with CRuoRiN — nearly every paragraph of this article contains something significantly inaccurate.
I’m totally in agreement with CRuoRiN — nearly every paragraph of this article contains something significantly inaccurate:
a) Lambert House is not only where youth go to receive help, but ALSO where youth go to help themselves;
b) there’re lots of youth who go to Lambert House (approximately 600, individual/unduplicated youth per year, with an average of around 30+ per night, make 14,000+ service contacts with Lambert House annually);
c) Lambert House lost funding in 2003 before the current ED arrived (at the end of that calendar year), and, under the current ED, RESTORED funding;
d) the “kid” in that mention was an adult volunteer and board member, who was acting in his role as a Lambert House board member;
e) re Tom Rasmussen’s quote, about half of Lambert House youth are racial minorities, and they love it there — one would be hard-pressed to find anyone aside from Mr. Lemafa in any real leadership capacity within Queer Youth Space;
f) Sallay Clark was never ran, or was the ED, of Lifelong AIDS Alliance — she was their policy director.
All that aside…
Queer Youth Space would be a great idea, if Lambert House were not around, and thus if QYS were not duplicative in nature. Lambert House serves as a queer youth space; and although a youth doesn’t serve as the ED there, the programs are driven by youth — no program activity happens without the support of youth. The aim of QYS is the same: the ostensible focus of Queer Youth Space was to organize for a space, which is open late, that could serve as an alternative to bars; however, the focus of the QYS organizers has moved beyond that and now threatens Lambert House’s ongoing funding.
Non-profits — and especially the provision of social support and youth development — should not be treated as if they’re in the competitive, for-profit marketplace; with non-profit activities such as social support and youth development, more competition does not always benefit the ‘consumer’. Best practices do NOT encourage new, emerging and untested organizations to compete for the same funding with proven, established and efficient organizations that serve the same population, in the same geographic area.
Lambert House and QYS are not complementary. A reading of QYS’s 67-page proposal to the Department of Neighborhoods clearly communicates that: Lambert House already does about 75 percent of what QYS proposes to do with funding; and Lambert House would be performing the other 25 percent if it had the funding to do so.
If a provider such as LH is doing its job well and efficiently, the emergence and funding of very duplicative organizations (e.g., Queer Youth Space) is usually strongly DIScouraged — just the opposite of what the Department of Neighborhoods is doing. (This also strongly indicates a lack of understanding, at the Department of Neighborhoods, as to the wide array of services Lambert House provides.) Seattle may very well become the only major city in the country in which two LGBT youth centers exist, both providing nearly identical services, to the same population — and that isn’t a good thing.
Lambert House leadership (including myself) has already attempted, several times, to have a positive, engaging conversation with Queer Youth Space leaders, but every time we’ve attempted to do so, we’ve been met with petulance and even hostility by QYS leaders — certainly not reactions that embody much faith in Queer Youth Space’s ability to build community.
Are all queer youth white with light brown hair?
Did one family end up with %100 gay fraternal sextuplets?
I know I’m not helping.
fuck yeah zara!!
The Bleating of The Lambs
A play by Alexander Noretsky Miltov
Delusional over-eager self-important gay kids with rich parents (DOSGKWRP): Kewl we got to open our club with free money! Wew!!
Reasonable passerby (RP): What exactly is this for?
DOSGKWRP: For gay kids to hang out and junk!
RP: And…? This seems more like a lame excuse to make a space for you and your privileged friends to hang out, talk shit, feel big and meet hook ups.
DOSGKWRP: OMG GO AWAY HOMOPHOBE!
RP: Whatever..
DOSGKWRP: Free money! Wew!
The End
@23 This picture does make the POC argument seem like so much BS.
You go, white kids. Way to get into some fancy-ass colleges with this on your resume.
Did anyone else notice that ALL the kids have the EXACT same color hair? Is that weird? Are they all related or something? Or is it a gay thing? Hmmmm….
What the fuck. There were no gay guys that hot where i grew up.
Can’t even believe some of these comments. Not all of these kids are white; take a look at the last names you idiots. And not all of these kids are so “privileged,” considering that being homeless led some of them to direct themselves toward helping other queer youth in the first place…
Just don’t understand what’s up with the CONSTANT JUDGEMENT and ridicule of proactive youth