Allison Rogers Week 2

Being at the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center (MGLCC) the past few weeks has shown me that the non-profit world was not as glamorous or exciting as I had previously thought. During my time at Rhodes so far, I had garnered ideas of what non-profits were like, without much direct exposure to them. Even while volunteering regularly at the MGLCC, I feel I lacked a general understanding of how non-profits function. While the MGLCC seeks to better the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the Mid-South through support and social groups, HIV testing, and education and outreach, what many people don't know about the center is that the staff and volunteers serve many Queer homeless youth who need access to food, transportation, and steady income. 

These homeless youth, having no where else to go, seek refuge at the center during the day. This has certainly taken some getting used to, as the MGLCC that I remembered was much quieter and peaceful during the day, but the youth bring a ton of energy to the space, which has been a welcome change, but also a challenge. When interacting with the youth, I was very curious about their lives, but held back for fear of asking rude or invasive questions. I wanted to hear about their lives and where they stayed at night, how they avoided the police and other potentially dangerous situations. The more I thought about it, the more guilty I felt that I hardly knew anything about them. On Thursday night, I found out the answer to one of my questions. Two of the youth stayed at the center until 8:30pm, a half hour until closing time. As I was taking out the garbage and tidying up the center, they started to put their few belongings into their filthy backpacks and head out the door. I noticed one of them had a sleeping bag. When they left the center, they prepared for the 4 mile walk to Overton Park, where they stayed for the night. 

I couldn't stop thinking about their situations and how they became homeless in the first place. I asked one of my coworkers if she ever gets upset thinking about them, and she said she used to cry constantly about it. As a community center, the MGLCC is not able to take them in or provide housing for them, although the staff give them monthly bus passes and offer them food from the pantry every day. But as much as the MGLCC does for Queer homeless youth, there is still so much that is lacking in their lives. They don't have jobs, a roof over their heads, or any sense of security (except when they're at the center). It is heart breaking to see that there is only so much that one organization can do. When I first learned about the role of non-profits in major cities like Memphis, admittedly I romanticized their role and assumed (very naively) that they could single handedly solve social problems such as LGBTQ homelessness. Of course, the MGLCC cannot take on such a huge task without the help of other individuals and organizations, but they certainly do the best they can. People depend on the MGLCC, and many of them talk about the center as their home, and a few have said that the center saved their lives. 

One of the many roles that the center plays in the youth's lives is case management. Because many homeless youth who visit the center live with psychological and mental disorders, the staff tries to find government programs that support people with disabilities, and at the very least, secure some form of income. Although the youth services manager at the center works closely with the youth, good intentions and high hopes are often crushed under piles of paperwork and strangled by bureaucratic language and regulations. One caseworker remarked that "they try to make things complicated for the youth because they don't really want them to get the benefits." This struck me as particularly poignant - the MGLCC is not the only organization in Memphis to address the needs of people experiencing homelessness and disabilities, but it can be frustrating to be forced to work within systems of oppression rather than being able to change them. The MGLCC is an impressive organization and I'm so honored to be a part of it. Being in the non-profit world is challenging and not gratifying at all at times, but Memphis, and the world at large, needs these organizations that grapple with intense moral and ethical issues while also meeting people's immediate needs on a daily basis.