The award, administered through Community Foundation of the Ozarks, was presented on June 17 as a part of the Musgrave Foundation's focus on housing in this year's round of grants.
Both national and local data indicates that members of the LGBTQ community — especially youth — are at an increased risk of homelessness and unstable housing. So when PFLAG executive director Melisabeth Johnston saw the foundation's request for proposal, she called GLO Center Director Aaron Schekorra asking, in her words, "for him to say no" to her idea for a sizeable housing initiative. He did not.
"That tends to be how our working relationship goes," Johnston told KSMU.
In addition to GLO, PFLAG's housing initiative will have a number of community partners, including Missouri State campus ministry Ekklesia, National Avenue Christian Church, Brentwood Christian Church and the Unitarian Universalist Church, all of whom have some level of experience working with homelessness.
Roughly speaking, the initiative will have three phases. The first will be an emergency housing fund, intended for individuals who just need some extra money to make rent or put down a security deposit. Eligibility details for that program are pending, but Johnston said that the fund could be up and running within the next few months.
The second phase will be to house young people at Ekklesia's Multicultural House near the MSU campus, which often has empty rooms throughout the school year. Johnston said that she hopes to have people in rooms by January of next year (the house fills rooms by the semester).
The third phase will be a longer-term project, a host home program modeled on those implemented in other cities. The goal would be to provide long-term, safe shelter to unhoused LGBTQ people while also connecting them with case management services. The goal, according to Johnston, is to have a plan for that in place within a year.
That process will be spearheaded by a new full-time program coordinator who will, in addition to leading the housing initiative, also administer PFLAG's other services. The organization intends to fill that position in October, when the next fiscal year begins.