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City approves money for Queer Youth cultural space on Capitol Hill

Queer Youth Space has been recommended to receive nearly $100,000 from the City of Seattle to help create a cultural center on Capitol Hill. The Three Wings Project is documented on threewings.org

A small number of dedicated QYS volunteers drew up a proposal for a youth-led queer cultural space that would operate as a non-profit of Queer Youth Space called Three Wings. The plan reflects and responds to the voices and concerns we heard at the Queer Youth Mutiny in February as well as the many young people we are connected with through various organizations and peer networks.


This spring, CHS talked to Queer Youth Space organizers about their goals and strategy. “We need a space for people to feel comfortable in,” spokesperson Hanna King told CHS in April. “Safe space encourages self-expression, and the physical nature allows youth to really invest in it.”

Seattle Gay News reports that the group is already in talks for an undisclosed Capitol Hill location for the center. SGN also reports the group is targeting fall to open the center.

The money to build the space will come from a grant provided by the Department of Neighborhood’s Large Projects Fund. The matching fund program, which requires awarded groups to match the grant value with volunteer work, funded work at the Hill’s Polish Home last year.

Three Wings is envisioned to feature three components:

WING 1: Cultural Activism Lab builds queer peer support networks, positive youth identities, and community pride by providing a space where queer youth can socialize, work, and create together—in community. The Cultural Activism Lab will include a café, arts and cultural gallery, performance/class space, and community organizing spaces. Open and free to the general public, the lab will serve as the face of THREE WINGS and as the primary function of its physical space where young people can utilize the open format to make media, socialize, and get engaged with local activism.

WING 2: Wellness Collaborative provides critical education and mental health services to address the disparities for health and well-being


experienced by queer youth. The Wellness Collaborative will address disparities in the quality of life of queer people, and other compounding factors, through holistic counseling, coaching and goal-attainment partnerships, peer mediation, health/legal information and referral, academic support, classes/groups aimed at personal healing and community wellness. THREE WINGS offers these services in a non-confrontational and confidential way. Through a youth-led steering committee, Wing 2 will work to inspire a culture of wellness that is holistic, person-centered, and strengths-based. Prevention and wellness services are vital to our community because as queer youth, “we focus so much on just surviving in our environments, and keeping ourselves mentally afloat, that our well-being is often neglected.” Grounded in the belief that queer youth should have equal access to health/wellness information as their heterosexual peers, we intend this wing to be a platform of comfort and self-advocacy, community support, and source of information and referrals.

WING 3 | Research & Education Institute works to positively impact the policies and cultural practices that negatively impact our community by developing a “think tank” that builds leadership and promotes policy and community change through research, education, and advocacy. The Institute produces alternative media and web resources, research-based resources, and educational materials. It provides technical assistance and consultation to schools and agencies.

Queer Youth Space has made a rapid ascension from grassroots youth group to potential creator and operator of a Capitol Hill cultural facility. It has harnessed social media — its Facebook fan page now stands at more than 2,000 “likes” — and low-cost promotions like utility pole flyers to spread its message while weathering — and benefiting from the attention from — criticism from some of the older set of Seattle GLBT activism.

It is not clear how far the city grant will take the Three Wings Project and what the budget plans are to keep the new center open. We’ll follow up with QYS to learn more about their plans now that they have good news about the start of their mission.

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Queer Taxpayer
Queer Taxpayer
13 years ago

It wasn’t only the “Older Set” that disapproved of this. The people who don’t like to see money wasted weren’t crazy about it either.

The city is eleven million in the hole. They think it will be fifty million next year. There are going to be massive cuts in things like park maintenance and libraries, yet we are putting $100k towards what is apparently a hybrid of Lambert House and the VERA project?

If it works, fine. But I’m not holding my breath. I learned my lesson with the GLBT Community Center

Mike with curls
Mike with curls
13 years ago

I think a check of the facts would show that the GLBT center which closed several years ago had little or no city money in its revenues.

I heard of a grant of $15,000. a year for the phone and information line, which was deemed needed to talk health questions and help people with emotional needs. I think Gay City Health Project now gets those meager funds.

I have a wait and see feeling. So far plans as to what this space will provide are very general.

cpahill
cpahill
13 years ago

The Department of Neighborhoods Large Project Fund awarded 1.1 million dollars to 10 groups, averaging about 100,000 dollars. The Queer Youth Space project was one of the groups awarded. To say there isn’t money for community groups to apply for, when the money has been specifically set aside for such groups for the past 20 years, is just plain wrong.

Boston2010
Boston2010
13 years ago

Queer Youth Space would be a great idea, if Lambert House were not around, and thus if QYS were not duplicative in nature. Lambert House serves as a queer youth space; and although a youth doesn’t serve as the ED there, the programs are driven by youth — no program activity happens without the support of youth. The aim of QYS is the same: the ostensible focus of Queer Youth Space was to organize for a space, which is open late, that could serve as an alternative to bars; however, the focus of the QYS organizers has moved beyond that and now threatens Lambert House’s ongoing funding.

Non-profits — and especially the provision of social support and youth development — should not be treated as if they’re in the competitive, for-profit marketplace; with non-profit activities such as social support and youth development, more competition does not always benefit the ‘consumer’. Best practices do NOT encourage new, emerging and untested organizations to compete for the same funding with proven, established and efficient organizations that serve the same population, in the same geographic area.

Lambert House and QYS are not complementary. A reading of QYS’s 67-page proposal to the Department of Neighborhoods clearly communicates that: Lambert House already does about 75 percent of what QYS proposes to do with funding; and Lambert House would be performing the other 25 percent if it had the funding to do so.

If a provider such as LH is doing its job well and efficiently, the emergence and funding of very duplicative organizations (e.g., Queer Youth Space) is usually strongly DIScouraged — just the opposite of what the Department of Neighborhoods is doing. (This also strongly indicates a lack of understanding, at the Department of Neighborhoods, as to the wide array of services Lambert House provides.) Seattle may very well become the only major city in the country in which two LGBT youth centers exist, both providing nearly identical services, to the same population — and that isn’t a good thing.

Lambert House leadership (including myself) has already attempted, several times, to have a positive, engaging conversation with Queer Youth Space leaders, but every time we’ve attempted to do so, we’ve been met with petulance and even hostility by QYS leaders — certainly not reactions that embody much faith in Queer Youth Space’s ability to build community.

Cresdan Maite
Cresdan Maite
13 years ago

I worked for Lambert House for a brief period in 2000. Lambert House serves a vital function for the community which is to provide a safe place for youth who have addiction issues, who are homeless, face abuse in their life and some who are sex workers. Lambert House serves meals to youth who don’t have them, provides laundry services to youth living on the street, some times a bed for youth on their front porch, and as an addition, does programs and events too. Programs and events are not Lambert House’s main thrust. I don’t think the community has ever realized this. What Lambert House really does is keep kids alive who face serious life threatening issues as stated above.

Lambert House is not a place where middle class queer youth, who have stability, food, housing, safety, clothing and people who love them, feel comfortable. Lambert House is not a place for this demographic. It would be like taking a working queer professional adult and having them go to events at the downtown emergency service center. Lambert House has never been for youth who have stable homes. Lambert House does not service middle class, stable youth. Middle class, stable youth have simply not been served.

Both services are needed in our community and both services deserve funding and support. These two groups are not duplicating services or programs.

I don’t know much about QYS, but I have kept their work on my radar. From the little I’ve seen of their marketing and website, and now an application that warrants $100,000 from the department of neighborhoods, whose application is involved, is that they are indicating they have the skills and ability to manage this money responsibily to take their work to the next level.

They have done work to support the community that many people can’t do, even with the best intentions and 10-15 years added to their age. I am looking forward to watching them deliver on their promise.