The Ali Forney Center's newly opened shelter for homeless LGBT youth in Astoria Queens was defaced last night with anti-gay graffiti. At 6am this morning, two of the residents of the shelter discovered the slurs which included; "We don't want gay people here" written on the exterior of the shelter, and "Gay Shelter" written on the site's door (see attached JPG).
"I am infuriated that someone would target our kids in this cowardly way" says Carl Siciliano, Executive Director of the Ali Forney Center, the nation's largest organization serving homeless LGBT youth. "The young people who come to us for help and shelter have already experienced terrible hardship, and I will not stand for them to be further abused."
The Ali Forney Center (AFC) is working with the New York City Anti-Violence Project, with City Council Speaker
Christine Quinn, and with local Councilmember Peter Vallone on devising strategies to protect its residents from further attacks. AFC has also reached out to the local police precinct and the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force who are now conducting an investigation into the incident.
"The New York City Anti-Violence Project was shocked to learn about this violent act directed at the youth and staff of the Ali Forney Center and we will do everything we can to provide support to AFC and the communities affected by the violence," said Sharon Stapel, Executive Director of AVP, in response to this news. "We stand with AFC in denouncing this act of bias and hate. At AVP we know these acts of hate violence are intended to scare and intimidate the LGBT communities and the youth and staff at the shelter. We say to the perpetrator of this heinous violence: we will not be scared, we will not be intimidated. We will not tolerate the targeting of LGBT youth."
Council Speaker
Christine C. Quinn also responded to the incident stating "The act of hate demonstrated outside the Ali Forney Center in the Astoria is unacceptable. I was angered and deeply disturbed when I heard someone would go to such great lengths to vandalize a building that acts as a safe space for our youth. The Ali Forney center serves hundreds of LGBT youth every year and will continue to serve those in need. Anyone who vandalizes a space for runaway and homeless youth in the middle of the night is a coward. Our community will continue to work to combat hate crimes in our city and ensure spaces like the Ali Forney Center stay safe."
The Astoria shelter which opened last October, is located in a church building rented to the Ali Forney Center at low cost by the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, which spent $200K over the past year renovating the space in order to offer shelter to homeless LGBT Youth.
Bishop Lawrence C. Provenzano of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island also spoke out in support of the victims of this horrendousact stating "This is an affront to the people served by St. Andrew's shelter and to our ministry. We are committed to working with other community leaders to find out who is behind this hateful action."
The majority of the clients of the Ali Forney Center were rejected by their families for being gay. The Ali Forney Center has been working with a number of other LGBT youth providers to plan a rally to protect homeless LGBT youth on Monday, June 14th at 6:30pm at Union Square, and asks that people come to the rally to express their support for homeless LGBT youth, and their outrage at the many ways in which LGBT youth are hurt and attacked.
For more information on the rally, go to:
http://www.aliforneycenter.org/events.html#RallyToProtect
