A quick glance at our Summer events!
Summer is still poppin’ at QEJ with out awesome August events. Check it out!
- Jay’s Walking Tour on Saturday, July 30th. The famous Jay Toole, QEJ’s shelter organizer, will be leading a tour of her life through the 60′s as a homeless butch lesbian. The tour will begin at 12:00pm in Washington Square Park and last about 2 1/2 hours.
- Queer Writing Workshops on August 3rd and August 10th–both from 6:30-8:30pm. Lead by Brooklyn-based writer, Sassafras Lowrey, these workshops are for shelter residents and friends to explore their creative side and share with a queer-friendly group. Food and metro cards will be provided. Our writers will have a Queer Performance on Friday August 12th at 6pm where they will read their work. This event is open to the public.
- Are you interested in being a shelter facilitator? QEJ works in several shelters around NYC organizing queer shelter residents; if you want to learn more join us for Shelter Facilitator Orientation on August 5th (6-7:30pm) and August 6th (1-2:30pm). You only have to come to one! At this orientation Jay and Carlos will lead the group in learning how to facilitate shelter sessions.
- Come to QEJ’s 2nd Leadership School on Saturday August 13th from 12-5pm. This 4-5 hour workshop is intended for activists and shelter residents and will discuss queer history, defining racial/economic justice, and learning about the systems of economy. Food and metro cards will be available.
- Sunday August 15th is QEJ’s August Game Night! From 6-8pm we will be relaxing with some snacks and fun games. Scrabble? Monopoly? Spades? What’s your favorite game? Come school us (or watch us school you) as we enjoy a relaxing Sunday night together.
- Saturday August 20th is the 2nd Monthly Resident’s Movie Night. Join QEJ and friends from 6-9pm as we watch The Aggressives, a hard-hitting documentary about masculine butch lesbians. A discussion will follow the movie showing. Food and metro cards available.
- Monday, August 29th, QEJ’s Board Chair Terry Boggis will lead a Know Your Rights Training at 6pm. This event is for anyone interested in understanding their legal rights family issues and family law.
All events unless otherwise noted are held at the QEJ office. Metro cards are available to those who need it. We are located at 147 W. 24th St., 4th Floor New York, NY 10011
Support us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Queers-For-Economic-Justice/18201778500
QEJ Pride March
Do you want to march in the Pride March on Sunday June 26th but don’t have anyone to march with?
Well look no further friend, come join QEJ as we proudly show New York that poor queers are just as important to the movement as anyone else. QEJ staff, volunteers, shelter residents and more will be struttin’ our stuff down 5th ave, and we would absolutely love it if you joined
Meet PROMPTLY 12pm on 39th St btwn. 5th and Madison Ave…look for the QEJ Van
RSVP with Jay at 917 939 2511 or jay@q4ej.org
New Video: See the Work Your Donation Supports
Dear Friend,
Many people around the country know QEJ from our presence at Creating Change, the Act Queer Teleconference Series, our Beyond Marriage statement, or some of the other national work we do to bring an economic justice perspective to queer organizing.
But fewer of you know what our work in NYC looks like on a day to day basis. Much of our NYC based work is organizing LGBTQ people in the NYC shelter system. As we come to the end of the year, and if you are still debating about where to make your end-of-year donations, or you’ve been looking for a way to tell your friends about QEJ, take a look at this video we’ve recently produced (with the help of QEJ intern Nicole Henry) about QEJ’s work on queer homelessness in NYC.
After viewing, please make a tax deductible contribution to QEJ, and forward this to 10 friends, asking them to make a donation as well.
QEJ Applauds NYC Comptroller Audit of DHS Program
QEJ Applauds Comptroller Report
On the Department of Homeless Services’
Work Advantage Program
On July 15, 2010 the New York City Office of the Comptroller released the results of an audit of the Department of Homeless Services’ (DHS) Work Advantage Program (WADV). The report contains conclusions drawn from a review of WADV operations and procedures, as well as recommendations to DHS for correcting the problems that were found.
Queers for Economic Justice applauds Comptroller John Liu and his staff for this report, and hope that this helps bring about changes in the program for homeless New Yorkers.
The Work Advantage (WADV) Program is a subsidized housing program that offers rental subsidies to working homeless families and individuals living in temporary shelters. Once it is determined that a client is eligible for WADV, DHS presents the client with a list of registered apartment units, and after the lease is signed DHS subsidizes the client’s rent in the form of a voucher. The subsidy lasts for one year, and may be renewed for a second year. This program, if administered correctly, can provide the kind of support to help individuals and families move permanently out of the shelter system.
But the Comptroller’s report found several problems with the program, including:
· DHS does not adequately ensure that the WADV program is carried out according to its current guidelines. In part, this is the result of its failure to update and distribute guidelines to DHS staff on a timely basis, which has led to inconsistencies in how they carry out procedures.
· DHS does not adequately deal with landlords and brokers who pressure their tenants to pay additional rent payments outside their lease agreements, otherwise known as side deals.
· DHS does not keep track of, and continues to do business with, landlords who have records of abuses in the WADV program.
· DHS does not have inadequate controls for the maintenance of its case files. These case files contain important information, and DHS has no system in place to keep track of them or prevent their misuse or unauthorized alteration.
The Office of the Comptroller issued a number of recommendations, including that DHS should:
· Ensure that all DHS employees are aware of and abide by all polices and procedures.
· Enforce regulations that prohibit side deals, and refrain from doing business with landlords and brokers who participate in side deals.
· Ensure that shelter clients have accurate information and are informed of their rights.
· Re-examine its current clearance procedures and set stringent thresholds and guidelines with regard to building violations to ensure that apartments with numerous hazardous violations are not registered.
· Emphasize to case workers the importance of obtaining all the required documentation and signatures in the lease-signing process.
Queers for Economic Justice works with LGBT people in the NYC shelter system everyday. We have found that the problems with the WADV program named by the Comptrollers report are in fact an accurate reflection of what our constituents go through with WADV program, and with unscrupulous landlords who are not monitored. We hope that further monitoring happens to ensure the recommendations by the Comptroller are adhered to, so that homeless New Yorkers are given the support they need, are not taken advantage of, and have responsive channels of recourse when abuses occur.
Not only must our shelters be made safe, but so must the housing that people moving out of homelessness are provided.
Shelter Project Builds Movement By Building Community
It was a great summer for the Shelter Project.
We completed five shelter groups. Each weekly session was originally scheduled to last an hour, but we often surpassed the schedule; our volunteers and interns just didn’t want to leave. The six week time frame was expanded by two weeks for the same reason, and we can’t seem to limit ourselves to eight weeks either. The program’s strength lies not only in its basic mission of helping the homeless community, but in honoring the humanity of its participants; their stories of homelessness, of heartbreak, of losing a partner to the system’s bureaucracy, of losing their families to ignorance are rendered all the more powerful when you realize that without QEJ, there would be no safe place to share them.
The residents also shared things they felt could be improved upon in the shelter system. Much of the attention was paid to conflict resolution, but there was also concern about the basic safety of each shelter. The group empowered the residents not only within themselves, but within a structure than can often seem massive and inhuman.
While organizing shelter residents to make changes in their individual shelters, a large part of our work is also to help build community. Homelessness in general can be very isolating, and shelter system does not encourage community. So not only do we work to build community among the shelter residents who come to our meetings, but we also work to bring them out of the shelters and into community spaces.
PRIDE PARADE
This past June, about 50 of our folks from the shelter system marched as the QEJ contingent for NYC’s Pride Parade.
In May we started organizing for Pride. The shelter residents were excited to actually march, many of whom had never attended the parade. Everyone wanted to help, and we decided on painting t-shirts for the parade. The shelter staff approved, and everyone got a taste of what Pride’s really about: fun and healing.
All of QEJ pitched in on the day of Pride. We drove vans and picked up folks, brought them to the staging area, shared a fantastic breakfast, and distributed Pride flags. As we neared 5th Avenue, the anticipation grew. This was their time. They hit that avenue, some of them on foot and some of them in a provided van and car, full of a very personal pride. They were members of a community first, and homeless a distant second.
Special thanks to those who helped with pride: Deanna for the van, Emily and Lyndsey for the car, Aine and Maija for the great breakfast, and every one of QEJ’s staff, volunteers, interns, and board members, old and new.
QEJ’s First Annual BBQ for LGBT Shelter Residents, Families & Allies
In September, we held our first QEJ picnic for the homeless. Welfare Warrior Dwayne Bibb and shelter volunteer Jessica Valdez advertised, organized the five shelters, and even got a few other recovery shelters involved. About sixty homeless queer folks cooked and ate together, learn to make soap and practice self-defense, and just had a good time together. Special thanks to those who helped with the picnic: Hsaio and Ronica and everyone from our community who showed up in support of the LGBTGNC homeless.
Shelter groups often get framed as therapy. And while the intimacy and recuperation found in the groups is remarkable, their greatest achievement has always been the unique, unbreakable bond these residents share. Not a bad way to start a movement.
Shelter Project Creates Community Among LGBTQ Homeless
You can tell that directing the Shelter Project at Queers for Economic Justice is more than just a job for Jay Toole. “Even though [sometimes] I’m tired,” she says, “I see twenty women painting [banners for Pride] and laughing and smiling, which is why I do this work. These are queer people in a safe setting that are proud of who they are.”
QEJ’s shelter project has been organizing support groups in Tillary Street, New Providence, Broadway House, and Park Slope since December. (All are shelters for female-bodied or identified people – transgender individuals can decide which gender shelter they would like to be placed into, regardless of their birth sex.) Toole realized the need for LGBTQ-specific support groups after her experience within the shelter system. After attending a group meeting in which all the female members talked about their husbands and boyfriends, but she was not allowed to speak about her partner, she knew something was wrong. “How can I help myself if I can’t talk about my relationships?” she thought. On top of their daily struggles, queers in the shelter system are often isolated from each other. They’re “hungry for community,” says Toole. “They have no idea what is going on in the queer [world].” These support groups provide them with an outlet to talk about their day-to-day struggles as well as connect with each other and share important information. “I’ve been in and out of shelters,” says group member Margarita Moya, “but when I saw Jay running the group, I knew she was going to help me…I can talk all I want to in the group, I’m always the same person.” Lillian Wisner, another group attendee, says, “[Queers] really need it because they can’t find themselves and can’t relate to the people in there…[but because of the group] we keep on multiplying.”
The groups have certain guidelines – confidentiality and respect – but otherwise run with a minimal amount of structure. “It’s hard enough for me to follow rules, so why should I make them?” jokes Toole. QEJ’s support groups are spaces that deal with a very visceral kind of political engagement – from venting about “being called a dyke by security,” as one group member spoke about, to how to obtain a domestic partnership. The support groups have given members the confidence to advocate within the shelter system for both themselves and each other. “I want to keep learning more, and help more,” says Wisner. Even just having the presence of other LGBTQ folks in their shelter is empowering. “They know we’re queers coming in, and they’re so thankful…you can feel the electricity,” says Toole.
QEJ also directs group participants to support services, which encompasses everything from lawyers doing pro bono work clearing criminal records and filing name changes to referrals for queer-friendly medical treatment.
Even when many LGBTQ folks themselves think about the movement, poverty is not on their priority list – hot button issues like gay marriage dominate media coverage, along with the funding and resources of mainstream gay right’s organizations. But considering that at least 30 percent of homeless youth in New York City are LGBTQ-identified, and LGBT adults are disproportionately represented in the shelter system, economic justice is a huge issue. “Queer homelessness is so buried and invisible in our own communities,” says Toole. “Gay marriage isn’t everything and it shouldn’t be.”
As group participant Moya says it, “[These groups are] needed everywhere and in every shelter.”
The Shelter Project marched at Brooklyn Pride, and is planning to march under the QEJ banner at New York Pride this Sunday. “They all want to march,” says Toole. “[They are] our community, our family.” QEJ invites you to march with them! We’ll be stepping off in Section 3 at 11:00am Sunday morning on 56th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue.
5/17: Come Celebrate Jay’s Birthday!!!
Jay Toole’s Belated Birthday Bash
(and Shelter Project Fundraiser)
Sunday, May 17th from 3 – 8 PM
Sycamore Bar
1112 Cortelyou Road. Brooklyn, NY.
(Q Train to Cortelyou)
Fun for the whole family (yes, bring the kids)!
There will be food, games, and most importantly JAY!
There will be a suggested donation and an auction to benefit the Queers for Economic Justice Shelter Project!
RSVP to Emily Davison at davisonemily@gmail.com
