Ten years ago
this month, Ali Forney -- a gay man who for years had
struggled with homelessness and drug use -- was fatally shot
in the head.
His death
highlighted the issue of homelessness among lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender youths and young adults, and it
led to the opening of an organization that provides
housing and other help for them.
Dozens of people
gathered in a Manhattan church Thursday evening for a
service commemorating Forney's death and the work done in
its wake. It marked the first memorial service for
Forney since his 1997 death.
''I miss you,
Ali, and I love you, and I hope you're proud of what we've
done in your name,'' Ali Forney Center founder and executive
director Carl Siciliano said.
Forney, 22, was
homeless at a time when there were no homeless shelters
for gay youths, Siciliano recalled before the service.
''Gay youth were
getting gay-bashed'' in the city's traditional youth
shelters, Siciliano said, ''so Ali was afraid to go there. A
lot of them decided to stay on the street.''
Siciliano met
Forney while working at a defunct Times Square center for
homeless youths. Fed up with the absence of housing and
services for gay youths and what he saw as the lack of
a sense of urgency to provide them, he was inspired to
create the Forney center in 2002. It started in a
church basement with a $37,000 grant from an anonymous
donor.
Today, the center
has an annual budget of more than $3 million and houses
43 LGBT, people between the ages of 16 and 24. It also
provides HIV testing, health care, meals, and
employment assistance, said Siciliano.
In a December
2006 report, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and
the National Coalition for the Homeless called homelessness
among LGBT youths an ''epidemic,'' estimating that
they account for up to 42% of the estimated 575,000 to
1.6 million homeless or runaway youths nationwide.
During the
memorial service, many spoke of Forney's humor, quick wit,
tart tongue, bright eyes, gangly physical presence, and
warmth and love for others despite his hardships. His
killer has never been identified.
Even some who had
never met Forney, but have benefited from services at
the center named for him, spoke.
''If it wasn't
for him,'' 21-year-old Ari Yanopulo told the crowd, ''we
wouldn't have a place to go.'' (Marcus Franklin, AP)
