Youth participate in craft activities at Kaleidoscope Youth Center in Columbus, Ohio. Credit: Courtesy of Kaleidoscope Youth Center
In September, Kaleidoscope Youth Center announced the impending closure of their housing program for queer youth based in Columbus.
In a press release, KYC said the Ohio Department of Health’s failure to renew their large grant — $241,500 — to the program for the 2025-26 fiscal year lead to the closure of their housing program, which has been steadily losing funding since its inception in 2019.
“We saw a lot of youths come to the drop-in center who we’d have conversations with … what we would learn is a lot of times, they didn’t have a safe space to go to that night,” Jen Kuhn, the senior associate director of advancement and strategy at KYC, said. “What we found is a lot of times, other housing programs, that might not center the needs of LGBTQ+ people, didn’t feel like good options for those young folks.”
In a letter to KYC, ODH quoted part of House Bill 96 to explain why their grant will not be renewed.
“No funds shall be distributed to youth shelters that promote social gender transition, in which an individual goes from identifying with and living as a gender that corresponds to the individual’s biological sex, to identifying with and living as a gender different from the individual’s biological sex,” according to the bill.
House Bill 96, alongside other recent legislation across the country aimed at revoking gender-affirming care and resources, has made it difficult for queer youth to feel validated in their identities, T.R., a current resident of the housing program whose identity will remain anonymous, said.
“It’s really hard to feel valued or important whenever all these closures and funding cuts are just telling you, ‘Nobody cares about you,’” T.R. said.
On Sept. 8, the 10 youth residing across the program’s housing sites were informed of the upcoming closure. While an exact timeline hasn’t been set in place yet, it is expected that the youth will have to move out sometime in November at the earliest, giving them a quick turnaround to find alternative housing accommodations.
The housing program connects its residents to other resources, such as a case manager for each person living in the program, which residents will lose after the program officially shuts down.
“The case manager works with them like, ‘OK, what are some goals?” Kuhn said. “‘What milestones do we need to reach?’ and ‘What does success look like for you?’”
T.R. said KYC also provides bus passes to the youth, including the regular COTA pass as well as the Mainstream Pass, COTA’s disability transport line, an expense many of them cannot afford on their own.
“That’s how I get to work, that’s how I get to appointments — literally everywhere I need to go,” T.R. said. “The housing program closing means I might not have transportation as well.”
The case managers also support residents who “graduate out” of the program, aiding them through the process of finding jobs, applying for higher education or saving up money to move into their own apartment, Kuhn said.
The program ran smoothly for its first year of operation, apart from some complications during the COVID-19 pandemic, but began to face issues with funding shortly after.
“First, we started seeing some of the grants that we originally got were decreasing the amount of the renewal, so we weren’t getting as much money in,” Kuhn said. “Some of our grant renewals started to dry up. They weren’t being renewed, so funding just started to decrease.”
According to Kuhn, funding became even harder to come by after the 2024 Presidential Election.
“That’s where we really started to see [issues with funding], because of the sociopolitical climate,” Kuhn said. “It started to become the thing where people were, in a way, free to discriminate. We saw people being more reluctant — businesses being more reluctant to provide financial support.”
Following the announcement of the closure, the resident’s next steps remain uncertain.
“Some of them are definitely ready to go out, rent their own space and we’re helping them with the things that they might need for that,” Kuhn said. “Maybe they don’t have enough saved up for the first month’s rent, so we’re trying to provide that first month’s rent to help them out. Some of the other ones, they might need to be transferred to another housing program.”
T.R. said this uncertainty will greatly impact their quality of life.
“I’m going to be losing a lot of support with getting my basic needs met,” T.R. said. “In between the time the program closes and when we get accepted into the waiting list [for other housing programs], we’re just gonna be around, having to figure things out. Couch surfing, or whatever.”
T.R. said the closure of the housing program is not only harmful to the current residents, but also to those who may need assistance in the future.
“I just think about all of the people who could’ve been helped in the future now who will no longer be able to be helped because of the program’s closure,” T.R. said. “It’s not just affecting the people who are currently in the program but it’s the people who were on the waiting list, the people who were going to apply in the future.”
Since the announcement of the closure, Kuhn said an abundance of support has come in from the Columbus community, local businesses and artists through donations and fundraising efforts.
For example, a fundraiser started by local transgender activist organization Trans Experimental Action has raised nearly $29,000 of their original goal of $30,000, according to the fundraising page.
TEA worked with local poets to throw a Poetry Rave, where all profits made from the $10 entrance fee went towards funding the program. TEA plans to team up with a nonprofit organization to get this money distributed to the current residents of KYC’s housing program.
“If there is any silver lining, I think it’s the support we’ve gotten from the community around it, and just people — whether they’re donating money [directly] or donating supplies like food, just anything,” Kuhn said.
KYC offers week-day programming for youth ages 12-20, which gives them access to computers, support groups and an in-house library. They also hold a monthly young adult night for ages 18-24 with provided food and guided discussion.
“I do take a lot of pride in what our team has been able to accomplish and [how it’s helped] support those young people,” Kuhn said. “I just really wanna make sure that it’s very clear that Kaleidoscope Youth Center as an org is not closing. We’re still here.”
