Giving Compass' Take:

•According to Pew Charitable Trusts, as housing costs increase in California, so does the number of LGBTQ homeless youth. 

• How can local community groups approach this issue from a systems change perspective? Does it start with housing or with LGBTQ rights and services?

• Read the report from Voices of Youth Count as it shares experiences from the LGBTQ homeless population. 

Throughout high school and college, Alicia slept in cars, tents, friends’ couches, benches, on the bus, on the train and in group homes. Almost anywhere but a shelter.

"My experience with shelters is that you’d go when it was raining. You'd go to San Francisco, wait in line and sleep on the floor, if you slept at all," the serious, soft-spoken Oakland woman, who's now 22, said last week. "It's scary enough to be a young person there. But if you're queer you just feel a lot more vulnerable. You definitely avoid them."

Alicia is still homeless but lives at a youth shelter in Oakland. She asked that her real name not be used to protect her identity.

As the cost of housing continues to soar in California and elsewhere, an increasing number of young people have become homeless, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. Among those homeless, one group has it especially tough: Young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Read the full article about LGBT homeless youth by Carolyn Jones at Edsource