Groups team up to reach out to homeless LGBT Mormon youth

By Ray Parker, The Salt Lake Tribune

There are no exact figures on the number of homeless youth in Utah who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and who are also Mormon.

But two organizations estimate the figure could be upward of 200 adolescents — many of whom need help to build a life off the streets after parents shunned them for coming out.

Ogden OUTreach Resource Center officials will launch a new project named Safe and Sound, aimed to assist in particular, but not exclusively, LGBT Mormon youth and their families. The new program is receiving assistance from Mormons Building Bridges, a group started to ease tensions between the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and gay-rights activists.

The group garnered international attention when more than 300 straight Mormons marched in Utah’s 2012 Gay Pride Parade.

Safe and Sound organizers plan to use a two-pronged approach to help homeless youth. First, program workers want to reunify youth with families who may have kicked them out because of disagreements over sexual orientation.

If reunification isn’t an option, LGBT youth may be connected with “host homes,” a list of Mormon families who welcome LGBT youth who have been told to leave home.

“It’s cold out there, and we have youth out there without a place to stay,” said Kathy Godwin, co-president of Salt Lake City PFLAG (Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays).

Across the nation, government and homeless officials will conduct an annual census of homeless people on Jan. 31.

Homeless and LGBT officials said the number of homeless Utah youth is estimated at about 1,000, of which about 300 to 400 are LGBT. Out of those LGBT homeless youth, about 150 to 200 are believed to come from Mormon homes.

“The problem of youth living on the streets of Utah, in abandoned buildings, in camps or surfing from couch to couch is simply intolerable,” said Marian Edmonds, executive director of OUTreach Resource Center. “If there’s a youth that is being kicked out, then we want to provide a welcoming and affirming community that would give them a place to stay.”