Housing insecurity is an urgent issue for queer people. The U.S. government estimates that between 20-40% of houseless youths are LGBTQ+. Despite this harsh reality, it has been notoriously difficult for shelters that serve queer people to get public funding. But Casa Ruby, a bilingual LGBTQ+ community center in D.C. that also provides emergency housing, is a rare case. Casa Ruby has received government funding for years, but it has now been revoked and the organization is facing shutdown. Why is D.C.’s Department of Human Services (DHS) revoking the funding of this LGBTQ+ emergency homeless shelter in the middle of a pandemic?
Casa Ruby is a nonprofit that has been serving the LGBTQ+ youth in D.C. since 2012. It started as a small volunteer-run community center. The founder of Casa Ruby, a trans woman named Ruby Corado, initially funded the program using the money she got from winning a disability case after surviving a murder attempt, them. reported. Now Casa Ruby has more than 100 employees, shelter beds in seven locations in D.C., and offers everything from health to counseling services, according to the Washington Post.
