The Wanda Alston House was featured in a Washington Post article last weekend. It is a three-story brick house in northeast Washington with 8 bedrooms…and hence eight residents…all LGBT. All of them ended up homeless or nearly so.
In Room 8, the carpet is stained and the walls are bare, except for strips of tape that once held someone else’s photos. But to the 21-year-old getting dressed this morning, the room offers a measure of freedom she has never had: a place where, without judgment, she can slip on a flower-print blouse and shave her face. A place where no one knows Guy Jones, only Sarah Feliciano.
Sarah was sleeping at Reagan WAshington National Airport until she heard about Alston House, which honors the life and work of Wanda Alston, an LGBT activist dedicated to her community who died in her home in 2005.
There's a video of Sarah Feliciano here, but it's a Washington Post video and is failing to show here.
Devin, a transgender male living at the Wanda Alston House in northeast Washington D.C., reads a poem he wrote. The Wanda Alston House is a place where homeless or near homeless gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth can live for up to 18 months.
--Whitney Shefte
There's a poem by Devin, Reducible to a he/she, with a Washington Post video which fails to work here.
Services at Wanda Alston House include:
• Individual Counseling
• Support Groups
• Individual Treatment Plans
• Drop In Center
• HIV Prevention Counseling
• Referrals
• Showers
• Laundry
• Life Skills Workshops/Job Training and Educational Assistance
• Computer Lab
• HIV Testing
• Snacks
To donate please make checks payable to Transgender Health Empowerment, Inc and mail checks to: T.H.E.'s Wanda Alston House, 1414 North Capitol Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20002. Or go here. THE is a 501c3 non-profit organization, so all donations are tax-deductible.
Just so you know, there are voices in our community quite put out by the fact that the article and video disclose Sarah's former name and show her shaving her face, a stereotypically male behavior. People feel that this sort of thing that causes the following:
There are people claiming that this is all "liberal bias"…and that alternate viewpoints should be heard.
Notice how I've provided a link to an asshole's opinion as if it has the same weight as our experience.
Our lives are not "viewpoints". We are people. Our existence should not be a matter of opinion.