20 People to Watch - Rick Westbrook: The helping hand

Lost-n-Found Youth’s executive director is a ‘Mama’ to many

Rick Westbrook lived in Atlanta through the early days of the AIDS epidemic. When he lost his best friend to the disease, Westbrook went from quiet activist to outspoken mover and shaker.

I started noticing that LGBTQ homeless youth didn’t have a place to go in our community,” Westbrook says. “That’s when I knew there had to be something we could do to help our youth so I got together with a few other activists and Lost-n-Found Youth was born.”

The nonprofit has sought to help Atlanta-area homeless LGBTQ youth since 2011. LNFY runs a 24-hour phone and text hotline seven days a week in a small housing facility. In its current housing program, the organization can give a youth shelter for up to 90 days.

“Living in the South, more than 50 percent of the youth we serve come to us because they’ve been rejected by their families after they came out,” says Westbrook, LNFY’s executive director. “We’re often their only refuge and source of support. Atlanta is ground zero for the LGBTQ homeless youth problem in America.”

Westbrook, often called “Mama Rick” among the LNFY employees and residents, says each day claims the lives of six queer youth on the streets. “Our youth need not suffer for who they love,” Westbrook told Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s (GLAAD) “All Access” in December.

LNFY offers each youth — age 26 and younger — help with finding job listings and preparing candidates for interviews. The organization also runs a thrift store that raises funds and provides employment opportunities for the displaced youth it serves. LNFY aims to equip LGBTQ youth with the tools they need to become independent in a safe, supportive environment. “Each of our youth experience very real struggles, mainly because of rejection from their families and church,” Westbrook says.

A well-timed nod from Rolling Stone in September coupled with the viral video of gay 19-year-old Georgian Daniel Pierce’s “pray the gay away” intervention, gave LNFY a nice fundraising push.

“It really helped catapult the issue of LGBTQ homeless youth issues into a mainstream conversation,” Westbrook says. “All of a sudden, everyone wanted to know about our youth.”

But they still have a financial hike ahead of them.

“It’s helped our fundraising, but not as much as you’d think,” he says. “We still have a long way to go to get to our $1 million goal to open our new transitional housing facility in Midtown.”

The new group home would accommodate three times as many beds as LNFY currently offers.

“We’ve completed the first phase of the project which includes design plans and securing access from the outside and elements with a new roofing system and windows throughout the house,” Westbrook says.

An expanded facility would be great news for the community LNFY serves, but much larger cultural work remains, and Westbrook shows no signs of slowing down. “We’re not letting up on our effort,” he says. “Our youth mean too much to us.”

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