Ali Forney Center Begs NY Gov. Cuomo: Don't Send Our Kids Back To The Streets

As the New York state budget inches closer to a major cut in funding for homeless youth shelters, today Ali Forney Center executive director Carl Siciliano posts a blistering letter to the governor in Gay City News. An excerpt:

Mr. Governor, I invite you to stop into one of our youth shelters. Maybe you can explain to our kids why they should be turned out of their beds and put in the street so you can give tax breaks to millionaires, to paraphrase your own father in his address at the 1984 Democratic Convention. Maybe you could explain how they are supposed to survive alone on the streets at night. I don’t have an answer for them, and their pain and confusion are palpable. Most of our clients are the most vulnerable LGBT youth in the community, rejected and abused by parents who cannot accept having gay children, discarded and thrown out of their homes simply for being LGBT. It is inexplicable how you –– a longtime ally to the gay community and champion of civil rights for LGBT adults, who has repeatedly made a commitment to marriage equality in New York –– can have so little concern for the safety and welfare of these young people.

Read Siciliano's letter in full.

TAKE ACTION: Sign Change.org's petition to Cuomo. You need not be a New York resident to sign. Call today: Governor Andrew Cuomo (518) 474-8390. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (518) 455-3791. Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (518) 455-3171.