A place called hope: a novel affordable-housing project in San Diego equips its at-risk gay youths with studio apartments and more.

After his parents kicked him out in late 2005 for being gay, Jeffrey, 23, was homeless for eight weeks. Fortunately for him, he was in San Diego, where the country's first affordable-housing project aimed at LGBTQ youths opened in February 2006. He applied for--and was granted--a studio apartment with a private bath and kitchen, one of 23 such units at the San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center's Youth Housing Project. "It's really a great deal," he says.

It certainly is. In addition to a place to call home, the project--at capacity since its fourth month of existence, with a waiting list of prospective residents currently double its number of apartments--provides job training, college application assistance, and mental health, medical, and social services as needed. Incoming residents must be between the ages of 18 and 24, and most are either homeless or transitioning out of foster care or group homes.

"When we opened the project and I handed sets of keys to youth who had been living on the street--in some cases for several years-that was a pretty good day," says Delores Jacobs, chief executive officer of San Diego's LGBT Community Center, who spearheaded the initiative.

After a 2003 survey conducted by the center and its project partners revealed that more than 400 of San Diego's homeless youths identified as LGBTQ, Jacobs and her staff successfully lobbied San Diego's Centre City Development Corporation--a city-founded nonprofit dedicated to fostering public-spirited projects and programs in the downtown area--along with organizations targeting at-risk youths, local churches, and government officials, including out lesbian city councilwoman Toni Atkins. The goal? To get those kids off the street.

"It just hit me hard," recalls Atkins, who was instrumental in securing CCDC's multimillion-dollar investment in the housing project (the rest of the funding came from private donations and grants). "If we can't take care of our youth, then what are we doing? And if we can't take care of our gay youth, then who will?"

Thanks to the project's job coaching, Jeffrey was hired by two employers in April. "When you're on the street, you have to make sure you have the resources you need to survive," he says. "Here, I know the resources are here for me when I need them."