Gay, Black and forced out onto the streets. Why COVID is leaving some men homeless in N.J. – NJ.com

Nelix Joseph is 22 and a Black gay man living in New Jersey. And last year, he found himself in a homeless shelter in New Jersey.

His story is not unique, according to those who spoke to NJ Advance Media over the past few months. They have shared accounts of members of the LGBTQ+ community experiencing homelessness as a result of the coronavirus pandemic at a rate higher than other people in the Garden State. Because of cultural and religious reasons, they say, being gay and Black puts you at even greater risk of homelessness.

Although he left his home by choice, Joseph said his decision was rooted in his family’s inability to accept that he is gay. “(My family) is foreign (they are from Jamaica), so (being gay) is like, a big no-no,” Joseph said. “I felt the aggression, the fighting coming on, so that’s why I left.”

From last fall to early 2021, Joseph lived in housing provided by the Essex LGBT Reaching Adolescents In Need (RAIN) Foundation, an organization that provides shelter for those who are LGBTQ+ and between the ages of 18 and 26.

In an interview with NJ Advance Media, Joseph said he contacted the RAIN Foundation after struggling “to see eye to eye” with the other family members in his household, including his two brothers, sister, mother, and grandmother. Like so many others, the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to spend more and more time at home.

He was subjected to both verbal and physical abuse, he said, saying his two brothers, both in their 20s, struggled to accept him. Joseph said he finally left so the other members of his family wouldn’t be subjected to the constant fighting.

“Me and my brothers had different walks of life,” Joseph said. “They felt like the streets are for them. It’s a toxic masculinity thing.”

A recent study by a Rutgers-led research team found that Black sexual minority men are more likely to see themselves as a burden to others, as well as experience higher rates of anxiety among other negative psychological and behavioral health outcomes if they live in states with high levels of structural racism and anti-LGBTQ+ policies.

“When we’re looking at states with indicators of structural racism, they include Black/white inequities in housing, education, incarceration and economic indicators … And one of the highest scoring states on the structural racism index is New Jersey,” said Devin English, author of the study and an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health.

He said is study found that “one of the most powerful effects we saw is they see themselves as a burden to others they’re around.”

More people seeking help

According to the RAIN Foundation, the organization has been sheltering more people than ever before due to an increasing number of domestic disputes in the home as a result of the ongoing epidemic.

The Trevor Project reports that LGBTQ+ youth represent as much as 40% of the youth homeless population in the United States. Members of this community are 120% more likely to experience homelessness than other youth, according to True Colors United.

Those who provide homeless services in New Jersey don’t yet know the true impact of the pandemic on homelessness, as results of the annual survey of homelessness conducted in January won’t be available for months. But, those who provide services say they have seen an increase in the number of people seeking help, including Elaine Helms, executive director of the RAIN Foundation.

Helms said prior to the pandemic the organization served an average of one to two people per week. Since mid-March, that number is now four to five per week.

“The kids that have been coming home, now their parents can get more into their business and see who they really are, and they’re not able to deal with it — when they get up in their face like that,” Helms said. “A lot of the kids are sent to the shelter by their own parents.

“Nine times out of ten, individuals that come from a family that has strong religious beliefs or they come from different islands and don’t believe in LGBT, it’s really hard on these individuals when they’re home with their parents, and it’s mostly the males that get a lot of flack.”

Many are referred to the foundation by Garden State Equality, New Jersey’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy and education organization. Christian Fuscarino, Equality’s executive director, said the organization has received an influx of calls about parents kicking their children out since the pandemic began.

“While we don’t have any hard data, we’re left to believe that it’s because everyone is quarantining at home, and families are spending a lot more time with each other,” Fuscarino said. “Schools … sometimes are safe places for young people who don’t have a supportive environment at home. They can escape to a school throughout the day.”

It can be hard to find acceptance

Gary Paul Wright, co-founder and executive director of the African American Office of Gay Concerns in Newark, said despite progress made in recent years, people within the LGBTQ+ community are not as widely accepted by others as many may perceive them to be.

“Everybody thinks it’s all hunky-dory and everybody accepts gay people and this and that, but that’s really not the truth,” Wright said. “Things are a lot better than say when I was growing up in Dallas, Texas … Here in New Jersey, it’s not such a desperate situation as it is in other places.

“But things are slowly turning around — and I do mean slowly.”

Wright said the influence of religion in the households of many Black families is a potential factor for their resistance to fully accept someone’s sexuality.

“The Catholic Church just came out and said, ‘We love you, but what you’re doing is a sin.’ Well, you take families who are so used to the Bible — and we’re talking Black churches here — they’re still teaching that homosexuality is a sin,” Wright said. “And it’s going to take maybe another generation before things calm down.”

Still, he underscored that Black communities are not necessarily more homophobic than other communities.

”I would say they’re just as homophobic in the Black community as they are in the white community,” he said. “If you add the churches and what they’re teaching in the churches, it’s so easy for families to come down on their gay siblings and relatives — because it’s still a sin.”

The Rev. Kevin Taylor, pastor of Unity Fellowship Church in Newark, said understanding the relationship between sexual orientation and Black communities requires an understanding of Black culture.

“Religion is the basis of our cultures; it is the root, it is the foundation, and that can many times be in conflict with gender expression, sexuality, sexual orientation,” said Taylor, whose church is home to both Black and LGBTQ+ parishioners. “That sometimes flies in the face of being, ‘Black people are more homophobic.’ No, Black people can just be more conservative and more traditional.”

Taylor said the very existence of the LGBTQ+ community “flies in the face of traditionalism” — while emphasizing that adherence to what’s traditional does not necessarily justify the rejection of inclusivity.

“It’s not to excuse it; it’s just not to throw this gauntlet in the face of Black families who are thrown into homophobia when we’re in the Black church, when we’re singing in those choirs, when we’re sometimes pastoring those churches,” Taylor said. “It’s like wait a minute y’all: we’re all in the fabric of the church, we just don’t talk about it. Because again, we’re traditional.”

Aaron Frazier, chair of the Men’s Ministry and deacon at the church, noted that Black families tend to not discuss sexual orientation in the household.

“They didn’t talk about sexual practice, even with the mishaps of children being molested or harmed … because in those particular families they did not think discussing sexuality or sexual practice was necessary because they were raising their family one way, but society was saying something totally different,” Frazier said.

A volunteer coordinator for the LGBTQ Resource Center at the Newark Public Library and a coordinator for Newark Gay Pride, Frazier added that families’ struggle to accept their children’s sexual orientation may also be derived from a place of concern rather than prejudice.

“Not all Black families are against their children who become LGBTQ, whatever the particulars are. What the reality is in most families — they just don’t want their child hurt or harmed,” Frazier explained.

Moving out, and finding a way to move on

Phillip Jenkins, 23, lived in RAIN Foundation’s shelter from October to earlier this year until he — like Joseph — voluntarily moved out of his home in Irvington as a result of increasing tensions between himself and his family.

Jenkins, who is Black and gay, described his situation at home as “very uncomfortable” and credited the epidemic with “amping up the tension.

“(There’s) anxiety, dealing with trauma in the household, and not really being able to go outside and be by yourself, and everybody’s together ­– that’s going to make the situation more tense,” Jenkins said. “When I’m not around my family and I can talk to them every once in awhile, things are usually good. But when I’m living with them and we’re seeing each other every day … and dealing with everybody’s stuff and baggage, it’s not a good situation.”

Jenkins said he sought help from the RAIN Foundation in October because he believed he was going “to be kicked out anyway” due in part to his family’s inability to accept him being gay.

“I felt like my family was toxic and I couldn’t express my true self and who I was. Any time I tried to, it just was rejected,” Jenkins said. “My sexual orientation is part of it … and the regular daily stresses of life, that all culminated. And I feel like this pandemic actually aggravated it even more.”

Jenkins had been living with his grandparents and his aunt; when he left in October, it was the second time he sought help from the RAIN Foundation and fourth time he had left home.

When speaking with NJ Advance Media in December of last year, Jenkins said he was determined to earn his own financial independence rather than return home to his family for a fifth time. Employed as a nursing assistant at the Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, he has since moved to East Orange.

“I just feel like in minority families, we’re kind of kicked out an early age. We’re expected to be independent at such an early age when we still can’t even take care of ourselves properly,” Jenkins said in December. “I feel like if I were able to go back, it would still be a continuous cycle of me being uncomfortable, me feeling like I need to rush and hurry up and get my own.

“I want to end the cycle now and take my independence now.”

Joseph, who currently lives at the Harmony House in Newark, said he hopes to someday move out of New Jersey and wants to earn a degree at the University of Alabama in information technology.

“I just feel like I need a fresh start, and I feel like that’s a good place,” Joseph said.

He said someday he would like to reconnect with his family, with the exception of his brothers, as he’s not certain they will ever accept him for who he is.

“I’ve tried reconnecting with my brothers so many times and I just get the same account. So I’m just washing my hands of them,” he said.

Finding a path out of the storm

Like Jenkins and Joseph, youth seeking shelter from the RAIN Foundation have all “been suffering” in some regard, according to Helms.

“It’s the pandemic, them not being able to go about their lives, not being able to see … their partner, hang out with their friends, and then they have to deal with the stigma and the prejudice and stereotyping and hatred towards who they are or try to hide it,” Helms said.

Regardless of what goes on in the home, Frazier noted that gay Black men throughout the state now have more resources at their disposal to turn to — including and beyond the RAIN Foundation — than were available in his generation or any that preceded him.

“Back then, there were no programs,” Frazier said. “Our way of acceptance was you fight the bullies in the neighborhood, and you get your respect. It’s a big difference from then and now.”

• Individuals can contact the Union County Office of LGBTQ Affairs via email at info@ucnj.org or call 908-527-4000.
• The PROUD Gender Center of New Jersey can be reached at 833-247-7683.
• The Essex LGBT Reaching Adolescents In Need (RAIN) Foundation takes calls at 973-675-6780 or messages can be sent online.
• Garden State Equality can be reached at 973-509-5428 or via email at Contact@GardenStateEquality.org.
• A list of LGBTQ+ resources in New Jersey is provided by the state here.
• A list of resources for those in crisis, including those struggling with thoughts of suicide or addiction, can be found here.

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Caroline Fassett may be reached at cfassett@njadvancemedia.com.