Mary Inzana, CEO and founder of Life Ties, a nonprofit organization that runs Triad House, a home for LGBTQ youth.
Ewing non-profit, Life Ties, offer a place for homeless LGBTQ youth to stay.
By Michele Alperin
While liberal 20-somethings are posting supportive messages on Facebook each time a new state adopts gay marriage, there are still LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning) youth who are getting shunned and kicked out of their houses.
According to a 2006 report by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute and the National Coalition for the Homeless, LGBTQ youth account for 20 to 40 percent of homeless youth in the United States, but only 5 percent of the nation’s youth population.
In 2008, Life Ties, a nonprofit supporting vulnerable youth for almost 31 years, realized it was time to modify its structure to serve homeless LGBTQ youth.
Mary Inzana, chief executive officer and founder of Life Ties, had learned about the problems of LGBTQ youth through Life Ties’ many gay and lesbian supporters.
“In talking to them and some of their friends, I understood that even though these people were accomplished in whatever field they chose, some had been thrown out of the house or their parents were not speaking of them because of their sexual orientation,” she said. “I thought it would be important to instill in LGBTQ adolescents a sense of safety, self-esteem, and to be proud of who they were.”
So in 2008, Inzana decided to reorient Triad House, which was then a group home serving physically and sexually abused adolescents, as a group home for homeless LGBTQ youth.
She went to Massachusetts to visit Waltham House, one of two group homes in the nation at that time for LGBTQ youth, and when she came back, convinced her board to change Triad House’s population.
As this change was implemented in 2009, Inzana started learning more about the kids.
“They were on the street because their parents threw them out, and some became involved in minor crime to eat and live,” she said.
Many had been in the child welfare system a long time, either because their mothers were addicted or because parental rights had been severed due to abuse, and often because of a child’s sexuality.
Even within the system, problems of abuse and bullying often continued. In foster homes, for example, they might be told, “If you are religious and believe in God, being gay is an abomination to the church; why don’t you pray on it?”
Transgender youth face similar challenges.
“It is very hard for people to understand what some of these kids feel like when they are born in the wrong body — the frustration and inner turmoil they experience on a daily basis,” said Inzana.
In the face of these pressures, some kids keep their sexuality hidden for fear of bullying or worse.
“Some never felt safe until they came here,” said Inzana.
The Ewing schools have been very helpful integrating the kids from Triad House, Inzana said. She has been involved in numerous discussions about changing policies in the child welfare system regarding LGBTQ youth to ensure they are protected against discrimination.
Triad House was also able to project this message through a January 2013 conference on homeless LGBTQ youth it held with the New Jersey State Bar Association.
Triad House is licensed for 12 teens and has a contract with Child Behavioral Health for nine. Currently it has seven youngsters between the ages of 14 and 18.
“It is run like a house,” Inzana said. “The kids have chores, go to school every day, come home, have snacks, and have free time.”
They also have individual and group therapy paid for through two grants, from Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Bristol-Myers Squibb, to pay for private psychiatrists.
Triad House’s biggest challenge, said Inzana, has been trying to help the child welfare system find the kids who need the kind of group home it offers.
About 25 to 30 youngsters have gone through Triad House.
One young woman, who was not attending school when she arrived at Triad is now a junior at Georgian Court University in Lakewood. Although they haven’t been successful with every child whose lives they have touched, Triad does work for many.
“We emphasize education and want them to understand they can be and do anything they want to be in life as long as they are willing to work,” Inzana said.
Inzana worked for the Division of Youth and Family Services and Child Welfare for 17 years before she founded Life Ties in 1982.
“One of the things I saw when I went out with my workers to residential treatment facilities — as taxpayers we were spending enormous amounts of money placing kids out of state, and a lot of kids were having a highly therapeutic environment but never felt that people really cared about them,” she said.
So she started an organization that was different. In addition to Triad House, Life Ties also runs Rainbow House for teens living with HIV/AIDS and other illnesses, a life skills program called Teen Independent Living Training, and Mary’s Place apartments for adolescents aging out of the foster care system.
“The heart and soul of Life Ties is that the staff really care about and love the kids, and I think the kids absolutely know that,” said Inzana. “Once they know that, therapy and everything else takes on whole different meaning.”
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