Making Room

Three Decades of Fighting for Beds, Belonging, and a Safe Place for LGBTQ Youth

By: Carl Siciliano

Narrated by: Carl Siciliano

From a pioneering advocate for LGBTQ youth, a gripping, impassioned account of how an unhoused queer youth’s murder compelled him to create the nation’s largest housing program for homeless LGBTQ teens.

“A gut-wrenchingly poignant real-life saga . . . Carl Siciliano has written an unputdownable account of what it looks like when compassion is harnessed to funding and policy.”—Tim Murphy, author of Christodora and Speech Team

ONE OF CNN’S ESSENTIAL READS FOR PRIDE MONTH AND BEYOND

What power does a long-disenfranchised community hold to transform the treatment of its most abused members? How can we locate that power?

Carl Siciliano met Ali Forney—a Black nonbinary teenager known for fierce loyalty to friends and an unshakeable faith that “my God will love me for who I am”—in 1994 while working at a daytime center for homeless youth in New York City. Nineteen years old, Forney was one of thousands Siciliano encountered who had been driven from their homes by rejecting families, forced to struggle in the streets due to homophobic and transphobic violence in the shelters.

Then Forney was murdered, a moment of horror and devastation that exposed the brutality that teenagers like Forney faced in a city marked by gentrification, racist policing, and the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic. Anguished by Forney’s loss, Siciliano fought to create homes where unhoused queer teens could live safely, with their human dignity at last affirmed, while he helped lead a movement that compelled New York City to invest millions of dollars in kids who’d been ignored for decades.

Siciliano writes with loving affection for Forney and many other queer teens, showing deep respect for their wisdom, courage, and spiritual integrity. Their stories illuminate the harsh realities faced by hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ youths suffering from homelessness across our nation. And, exposing the political and religious forces that continue to endanger LGBTQ youths, he makes a clarion call for their protection.

Written with heart and profound insight, Making Room is a landmark personal narrative, bringing to life an untold chapter of LGBTQ history and testifying to the power of community, solidarity, and the human spirit.

Eye opening and heartfelt

I listened to this story for a book study and found myself crying, cheering and learning. I plan on listening to "Making Room" again as there were sections I felt drawn to. The author gave a thorough view of the struggles of homeless children from 16 to 25 and especially those who felt marginalized due to there identity. The struggle to find support and laws to help protect the children. to give them a chance to live life unafraid and to face their future with hope. There was a section in the book when he was looking out a train window wondering how these homeless children didn't have someone looking for them or worrying about them. Examples a lost dog you would see posters all over hoping someone had found and would return. How can we pass a hungry or homeless child and not want the same for them? Thank you Carl for your words and care. God Bless you. yhe children and your/our Mission.

Wake up and help!

teens, LGBTQ, biography, memoir, multicultural, homelessness, homophobia, homicide, nonfiction, inspirational, parental-abuse, foster-care-abuse, ostracized, ignorance, safety, NYC, destitute, human-rights, humanity, religious-differences, nonprofit, NGO, hope*****

Society as a whole views the homeless (even families!) as an expensive avoidable nuisance, teenagers of any stripe are viewed as problematic, and LGBTQ youth are viewed as even lower than the seediest long-term alcoholic in the streets. Carl Siciliano is the founder and executive director of the Ali Forney Center, dedicated to homeless L.G.B.T.Q. youth and is a nationally recognized advocate and provider for homeless LGBT youth and has been dedicated to this population since 1994. This book recounts the REAL problem (it is us) and the steps he has taken to make a dent in the ignorance of too many and what positive measures have been taken so far. There are stories both of despair and hope that can lead us to become more humane to each other.
Did you ever notice that we have more shelters for animals than we do for broken and abused humans?
I requested and received a free temporary EARC from Convergent Books via NetGalley. But it was not TTS enabled so I bought the epub version but wound up sharing it away. Now I bought the audio and (even better!) it is narrated by the author!