QEJ Latest Achievements/ Race Update!

QEJ LATEST ACHIEVEMENTS & PROGRAMMATIC UPDATES:

1) Amber Hollibaugh–QEJ Board Member–delivers QEJ’s Tidal Wave Report to the Whitehouse! QEJ is proud to announce that the Obama administration now has several copies of QEJ’s Tidal Wave Report–a collection of much of the existing data on LGBTQ people, poverty, health-care, housing, disability, and other economic justice issues with particular attention to dynamics of race, gender, geographic location, and immigration status. It is especially important as the 2010 Census gets into full swing, that the federal government has some empirical picture of our lives and needs.

2) The Shelter Organizing Project prepares a report on their experiences of City shelters.  QEJ has stepped up its organizing efforts in with LGBTQ people in NYC shelters, and is gathering stories from shelter residents to prepare a report as one step towards a campaign for safety for queer, trans and gender nonconforming shelter residents.

3) The Welfare Justice Campaign (which QEJ is a coalition partner) continues to push the Human Resources Administration to begin implementing best-practice guidelines around gender-non-conforming and LGBTQ welfare applicants after a 5-year push by the Welfare Justice Campaign, which QEJ is a coalition partner.

4) The National Public Education Project’s very popular Act Queer! Teleconference Calls has had over 500 participants in its first year! It serves as a platform for engaged discussion around LGBTQ people and jobs, welfare, incarceration, immigration, the economic recession and other issues & QEJ Plans to reignite the local and national queer economic justice network with a renewed focus on forming alliances with economic justice advocates. Next Call: May 27th at 2pm EST will focus on The REAL ID Act, Local Jobs for America Act, and upcoming TANF Re-authorization. Details coming soon!

5) QEJ will be presenting at the Allied Media Conference and the US Social Forum in Detroit this June! Our Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative will be screening its new documentary at the AMC, while QEJ is also working with the other organizations of the Astraea Movement Building Program to convene dozens of other queer and trans organizations from around the to build a national strategy for future coalition work.

6) The Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative’s new report “A Fabulous Attitude: Low-Income LGBTGNC People Surviving & Thriving on Love, Shelter, & Knowledge,” to be released later this month.
The Amazingly Queer Race for Economic Justice is a fundraiser benefiting Queers for Economic Justice (QEJ). Questions? Please contact us at race@q4ej.org.