Lives In Focus Project Gives Families of the Incarcerated Space

Lives in Focus is a project that uses video, audio, and photographs to present the voices and stories of those coping with loved ones being in prison.  The website (livesinfocus.org/prison) provides a space where families of the incarcerated can:

Connect with others going through similar situations and join our free social network
Watch our video blogs or express yourself and submit your own
Read the latest news articles on incarceration
Get info on upcoming events and workshops

The project also trains at-risk community youth in video and audio editing at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism so they can tell their own story in their own style and learn valuable skills at the same time.  To find out more about the project or how to get involved visit the site.

Operation Home Base Provides Home Away From Home for Youth

They are everywhere – street corners, subways stations, sidewalks, storefront doorways. Oftentimes their struggle for shelter, food, and help go unnoticed or even ignored. They, are the homeless. However, the struggle to survive can be made all the more difficult when you’re “different”.

In a 2007 report conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, approximately 20 to 40 percent of the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 of homeless youth in New York City identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT).

In an effort to decrease these numbers the Bronx Community Pride Center, located at 448 East 149th Street in the South Bronx, created Operation Home Base. The program, funded by New York City’s Department of Youth and Community Development, provides homeless and runaway youth with intervention, case management and counseling on homelessness, psychosocial issues and academic performance.

Utilized by generally Black and Latino youth between the ages of 17-24 of all genders and orientations, Operation Home Base negotiates LGBT friendly emergency housing with organizations such as Covenant House, Green Chimneys, and Carmen’s Place. This month the center estimated that they connected about 130 Bronx youths to resources regarding emergency housing.

Although Director of Research, Evaluation, and Outreach, Zachariah Hennessey, acknowledges the other services the city offers for displaced youth, he recognizes the pride center’s unique position in the borough. “We are the only drop-in center for runaway and homeless youth,” he said. “And the only organization that provides special services for LGBT people.”

Sean Coleman, Operation Home Base Coordinator said that although the program is designed to accommodate LGBT youth no one will be turned away. Due to its position as the Bronx’s only drop-in center most clients are dealing with several external factors including home hostility, teenage rebellion, intolerance of sexuality, as well as issues of abuse, he said.

With a heavy emphasis on education, family mediation and reunification Operation Home Base intends to instill youth with the tools to cope with the issues that resulted in their displacement.

If programs like Operation Home Base weren’t provided Arbert Santana, Director of Youth Services, sees kids “falling between the cracks.” “I definitely believe that we are one of the few agencies that help fill those cracks by linking people to resources,” he said. By connecting youth with counselors, agencies, and outside resources the pride center hopes to ensure that they will have a place to lay their heads.

“At the end of the day we are providing a safe space for their [the Bronx’s] youth,” said Coleman. “And hopefully the emphasis won’t be on just their sexuality,” he said. “These are just kids and that should supercede everything else,” said Coleman.