Out Youth At Risk of Boarding Up Doors

Out Youth is one of the few nonprofits in Austin that seeks to provide a safe haven for GLBT teens. Starting out back in 1990 from a support program at the UT School of Social Work, they've expanded over the years to eventually operate out of a two-story house in Central Austin, where they offer peer support groups, community education programs, counseling hotlines and more to countless adolescents. Like ALLGO, Q, and a handful of others, Out Youth is part of a small but crucial network that rallies together our city's GLBT community.

News8 reported yesterday that the organization officially closed its doors earlier this week, after encountering serious budget problems. Faced with the prospect of permanently ending its sixteen-year run, Out Youth board members are now working hard to create a viable strategy that will allow them to remain financially solvent for the long-term:

"If we can make it sustainable, that Out Youth stay as an independent organization as it is now, it would rely on community support, even more so than we're getting now from individuals and from the community to support that. We'd have to make sure that the plan is sustainable so that we're not in the same situation six months or a year from now," board member Bryant Hilton said.

But in the meantime, they could most assuredly use whatever assistance the public might offer -- you can find our more information here.