Type 501(c)3 non-profit Location Little Rock, Arkansas | Tax ID no. 45-3671770 Area served Central Arkansas | |
Founder Penelope Poppers
Diedra Levi Focus Homeless LGBTQ Young Adults | ||
Lucie's Place is an organization in Little Rock, Arkansas working to open a home for homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless LGBTQ young adults. Lucie's Place is named in memory of Lucille Marie Hamilton, a young transgender woman who died on July 11, 2009.
Contents
History
Lucie's Place began as a project of the Living & Affected Corporation, an HIV/AIDS advocacy non-profit organization. In August 2011 a board of directors was formed and decided to begin the process of becoming a separate non-profit organization.
Lucie's Place incorporated on November 2, 2011, and received non-profit status June 27, 2012.
Programs
Lucie's Place currently operates a drop-in center, located at 300 S. Spring St., Suite 803, Little Rock, AR 72201. At this center, homeless LGBT young adults store their personal belongings, utilize the computer lab, apply for jobs, create their resume, take a nap, read a book or play games. Homeless LGBT young adults also receive supportive services from this center, such as free counseling, bus passes, cell phones/minutes, food, toiletries, and referrals to other programs in the area when needed.
The first housing program of Lucie's Place will the opening of a Transitional Living Program (TLP) for LGBTQ young adults in Central Arkansas. The program will be open to any young adult (age 18-25) who identifies as LGBTQ and is currently homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless. The programming and guidelines for the TLP are based on similar programming from The Ali Forney Center in New York City, NY and Our House in Little Rock, AR. Lucie's Place is working to open this home in 2016.
Need
While LGBT individuals make up 5-10% of the general population, they represent 20-40% of the homeless population. These shelters are often affiliated with religious doctrine that opposes LGBT equality or believes that homosexuality is morally wrong.
Homeless shelters are often problematic for LGBT individuals, as these shelters often do not have policies that specifically protect LGBT people. Homeless shelters can be especially troublesome for transgender individuals, as most residential programs require residents to stay in the dorm of the gender assigned to them at birth, not the gender they actually identify with.
#DefendTheDuggars
In August 2014, The Duggar Family of TLC's "19 Kids and Counting" donated $10,000 to help repeal an amendment to the Civil Rights ordinance in Fayetteville, AR that was inclusive of Transgender people. A petition was begun to take "19 Kids and Counting" off the air and the hashtag #DefendTheDuggars was created for individuals to show support of The Duggar Family. LGBT and allied individuals in turn took that hashtag and turned it into a pro-LGBT hashtag. Scott Wooledge of "Memographs" then created a meme, stating "The Duggars spent $10,000 to fight for "the right" to fire gay people for who they love in Arkansas. On a operating budget of just over $7,500 Lucie's Place ministers to the LGBTQ homeless youth population of Arkansas. Which cause would Jesus support?"
This original was retweeted several times and began to go viral. Lucie's Place began to see a great increase in donations and then the #DoubleTheDuggars campaign began. To date Lucie's Place has received $24,000 in response to the original $10,000 donation The Duggars made. The story was picked up by The Arkansas Times, Bilerico and Dan Savage's "Slog".