On December 12th the LGBTQ Social Justice group welcomed Charles King the director and founder of Housing Works to speak with the 8th grade. Housing works is an organization that helps LGBTQ youth find housing and provides medical attention for youth that need it. We wanted to learn more about Housing Works, including different ways of helping LGBTQ youth survive in the city. When he came to the city there weren’t many homeless shelters for LGBTQ youth. Housing Works runs 14 thrift shops in NYC. The thrift shops are placed in wealthier neighborhoods and sell items that are more up scale. There was originally one thrift shop. It started as a fund raiser. Housing Works needed to raise on million dollars to fund the housing. He hired a planner that has done many fund raisers. She decided to locate it in a wealthier neighborhood and it would sell items that appeal to wealthier people. King thought that the thrift shop would make one million dollars in two or three months, but it made one million dollars it two or three days. Because of that result King decided to open more stores. Currently in there are 14 thrift stores in the city. The LGBTQ Social Justice group is hoping that they can volunteer at one of the stores and help out.
