A conversation with “Making Room” author Carl Siciliano –

Carl Siciliano, author of Making Space: Three Decades of Fighting for Beds, Belonging, and a Safe Place for LGBTQ Youthis an advocate for homeless LGBTQ youth and the founder and executive director of the association Ali Forney Center (AFC) in New York. AFC is not only a shelter/welcome program for homeless LGBTQ+ youth, it is also an internationally recognized organization, setting an example on how to provide cultural support services to homeless LGBTQ+ youth. -shelter.

Young LGBTQ+ people are 120% more likely more affected by homelessness than their cis/heterosexual peers. Queer youth homelessness is an epidemic that is too often ignored or misunderstood – even by other queer people. Carl explains at the beginning of his book: “There are hundreds of thousands of unhoused LGBTQ+ teens in this country, representing about forty percent of all homeless youth. This crisis is a national and global epidemic. It transcends boundaries of country, race, and class, and I have come to view it as one of the most pervasive expressions of homophobia and transphobia of our time. When I was kicked out of my home in the early 2000s, I felt completely alone. It wasn’t until I found my way to a foster program with other homeless gay kids that I realized how many other teenagers had lives that resembled mine.

In 2007, while I was working on my anthology Forced out, which brought together the voices of current and former homeless LGBTQ+ youth from across the country, I got to know Carl and had the privilege of working with him. Together, with other service providers, activists and advocates across the city, we helped raise awareness about the needs of homeless youth: the need for more shelter beds and the increasing age access to a bed in a shelter for 21 to 23 year olds. (This age increase reflects the trend in youth work to recognize the need to provide youth-specific, culturally sensitive services to all homeless youth, but particularly to vulnerable populations like LGBTQ youth.) It was here that I saw Carl’s commitment to caring for homeless LGBTQ+ youth. . For Carl, it wasn’t a job, it was a passion and a calling.

As a young professional deeply inspired by his faith and desire to serve the LGBTQ+ community, Carl began working in a shelter program for homeless youth in New York City thirty years ago. It was there that he met Ali Forney, a seventeen-year-old non-binary black homeless youth who had been living on the streets since the age of thirteen. There is a unique bond that can develop between homeless youth and the staff of programs like this – I know this personally as a former homeless gay child and former educator. Carl and Ali became very close, and over the years Carl saw Ali flourish, even though they remained homeless. In December 1997, Carl received the devastating news that Ali had been found murdered in the street. They were only twenty-two years old. Ali’s death mobilized the community and in 2002, Carl founded the Ali Forney Center in their honor. Since then, the Ali Forney Center has helped transform the lives of thousands of LGBTQ+ young people in New York City, from street action to housing and other support services. The organization’s essential mission is to “transform the lives of these young people so that they can reclaim their lives and never live on the streets again.” Ali’s murder was never brought to justice, but Ali’s spirit lives on in our work and in each of the lives we change.

I recently had the opportunity to meet Carl and learn more about the inspiration behind his book and what he hopes readers take away from it.

GO Magazine: What was your inspiration for writing? To make room?

Carl Siciliano: When I was 15, 16, 17 years old, I was living in this sheltered, upper-middle-class world and I wanted to find a way of living and being alive that was different from the one that was presented to me. Stories were so important in helping me imagine a different kind of life, so I wanted to be one of those storytellers. I feel like a powerful story has the ability to transform consciousness. 35 years later, reflecting on Ali’s life and death and the impact it had on my experience as a young homeless queer man in New York, I felt it was a compelling story that I wanted to tell.

GO: How has the climate around LGBTQ youth homelessness changed over the years you’ve been doing this work?

CS: When I started doing this work, I could count the number of organizations (dedicated to homeless LGBTQ youth) across the country, and I had fingers on one hand. There were about 2 or 3 groups working with homeless gay youth and focused on housing. Today, the Ali Forney Center works with about 30 groups across the country that provide housing, and another 20 around the world. It touches me deeply to see so many people across the country and around the world rolling up their sleeves and getting to work (…) I want people to think about homophobia and transphobia through the lens of protecting their rights. childhood. I truly believe that homophobia and transphobia promote and cause child abuse.

GO: What misconceptions do you think still prevail about homelessness among queer youth?

CS: I’m not sure there are enough designs! I still don’t think there is enough recognition that hundreds of thousands of children are being thrown onto the streets and that this is one of the biggest and dominant examples of homophobia and transphobia in our time. I still don’t think our national LGBTQ organizations are focused enough on it, and I still don’t think there’s enough awareness. Perhaps the biggest misconception is failing to recognize its massive prevalence and the scale of the crisis affecting hundreds of thousands of children in this country.

GO: How has this job changed you?

CS: There’s this narrative going around that you’re supposed to feel very rewarded for doing this work and there’s some truth to that. I have met so many wonderful people, both young people and colleagues, who have greatly enriched my life. I feel like meeting Ali was one of the most pivotal and incredible things that has ever happened in my life. I have a lot of gratitude to have met so many wonderful people (…) and to see just an outpouring of kindness and it has been wonderful. But I don’t think you can expose yourself to trauma and brutality for decades of your life and come out unscathed.

I am heartbroken in so many ways. I have a little cabin that I go to. I try to go there once a week (to) pray and meditate. I often find myself crying. Things young people have told me about their suicide attempts, the violence and the cruel things their pants did to them. I can’t seem to heal from any of this. I definitely feel scarred by this. I am not complaining. Starting this journey as a young man, I was trying to figure out how to live a more loving life and I think love brings suffering, and love brings a kind of havoc. I can be devastated and I can be heartbroken and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t think a week has gone by that I haven’t cried over Ali’s death. It was horrible that this sweet boy, with such a good heart, had to die alone on the sidewalk in the winter. I will never have an answer to that. This is the pain that will stay with me as long as my heart continues to beat.

GO: What do you hope readers will take away from this book?

CS: One hope is a deeper conversation in our society about how we protect young people. Even stripping away the weirdness, there are so many young people on the streets of our country and it’s a pretty destructive experience for so many of them. I have seen some improvements over the last 10 years, but they are so small compared to what is needed. So I want there to be more of a feeling that it is totally inhumane for a society to leave its young people to fend for themselves on the streets. Another thing I really want to get from this book is a deeper understanding of how the religious community can put children in danger. Seeing thousands of young people find themselves on the streets and suffering abominably because of the religious beliefs of their parents is very worrying. We must name it. We must recognize this. We must speak it. If we want to protect our children, we must start to consider that religious homophobia puts children in danger. I say this as a religious person. I think that’s the power of the book. I am not destroying religion; I tremble before God as I do it.

Making Space: Three Decades of Fighting for Beds, Belonging, and a Safe Place for LGBTQ Youth is a courageous, honest, and deeply spiritual reckoning with the trauma and joys of caring for young people who have been rejected by families and communities. What has always amazed, inspired and encouraged me is Carl’s commitment to homeless LGBTQ youth, his unwavering willingness to wear his heart on his sleeve, put his faith into practice and show up to do this work with tears and strength. I also appreciate how he doesn’t defend the atrocities perpetrated by organized religion, while remaining true to his own faith and the reconversion that took place as a homosexual so that he can hold on to that faith. Towards the end of his book, Carl writes: “We can be hurt, sometimes irrevocably, and sometimes even mortally. But when we can nevertheless come together in loving solidarity, supporting one another, we rise above the ashes of our destruction. I can think of nothing more powerful than continuing to fight for the next generations of homeless queer youth from this place of solidarity. To make room is now available wherever books are sold.