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When Natalie Salazar was 19, she wasn’t prepared to return out to her household.
“I used to be afraid of even my very own shadow as a result of I simply didn’t [see] any optimistic illustration of queer Latinas in my household,” the native San Antonian stated.
However in the future, her girlfriend’s mom delivered an ultimatum: “Inform your loved ones or I’ll,” she recalled.
Salazar left handwritten letters on her mother and father’ nightstands and braced for the fallout. In a single day, she went from being a “mommy’s and daddy’s lady” to feeling unsafe in her own residence. Her grades on the College of the Incarnate Phrase plummeted as her psychological well being spiraled.
“My mother and father by no means kicked me out,” she stated, however the wound of being reduce off emotionally from her household was beginning to fester. “I needed to depart to outlive.”
That’s when she found Thrive Youth Middle. Thrive has 16 beds devoted to LGBTQ+ youth inside Haven for Hope, the state’s largest homeless shelter and transformational campus. That accounts for 60% of all LGBTQ+ emergency shelter beds within the state. Thrive additionally offers providers to 50 youth dwelling in residences. Thrive serves about 35 younger adults per 12 months on campus and about 115 by its off-site supportive housing program.
With the assistance of case managers who grew to become like household, Salazar moved into an residence, began remedy, and — most significantly — discovered acceptance. At 28 years outdated, she’s now thriving with a level from UIW, a profession in legislation enforcement, clear boundaries and full independence. She has additionally reconnected along with her mother and father.
“I’m proud to say I used to be a Thrive child,” she stated. “They gave me the instruments and braveness to construct my very own life.”
On Oct. 11, Nationwide Coming Out Day, Thrive will rejoice its tenth anniversary with a “Deep within the Coronary heart” brunch and award ceremony 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the Tobin Middle for the Performing Arts. Tickets and sponsorship alternatives, which straight profit Thrive’s emergency shelter growth, can be found now.
“Youth which have the chance to reside their true selves are much less more likely to change into homeless,” stated Thrive Govt Director Justin Holley. “That’s why we rejoice Delight and Coming Out Day.”
The nonprofit’s decennial is greater than a milestone — it’s a launching pad to serve extra youth, Thrive Board Chair Martin Keighley stated.
“We at all times have 5-7 folks needing beds that we don’t have,” he stated. He hopes Thrive’s message and mission attain extra folks in San Antonio who is probably not conscious of it — and encourage them to offer, volunteer or serve on Thrive’s board.
The imaginative and prescient, the dialog and the social gathering
Thrive was based in 2015 by Sandra Whitley, whose personal coming-out journey formed the mission. As an adolescent in a small Texas Panhandle city within the Seventies, she was positioned in a psychological establishment by her mother and father for being homosexual. Later, when she got here out in faculty, her household disowned her for 20 years.
Whitley’s private historical past impressed her to create a protected area for LGBTQ+ youth who, like her, confronted rejection and homelessness. Beneath her management, Thrive grew from a daring concept into the state’s solely devoted LGBTQ+ youth shelter and one among only a handful nationwide. She retired in 2023, leaving a legacy of compassion that continues in the present day below the management of Holley, who took the reins in 2024.
A panel dialogue, “Addressing Youth Homelessness,” will happen in the course of the brunch. Whitley will probably be joined by Ryan Berg, creator of “No Home to Name My Residence,” and Carl Siciliano, founding father of the Ali Forney Middle in New York and creator of “Making Room: Three Many years of Combating for Beds, Belonging, and a Protected Place for LGBTQ Youth.”
Past essential conversations, the anniversary brunch will characteristic a full program of inspiration and leisure. Simply after midday, visitors will take pleasure in a cabaret efficiency by Tony Award winner and Broadway star Religion Prince of latest “BOOP!” fame.
The subsequent 10 years
“We wish to construct on the robust basis of those first 10 years,” Keighley stated. “Meaning strengthening our monetary safety so we are able to develop our attain, add extra emergency and transitional beds, and discover new fashions of care.”
That might take the form of a everlasting Thrive footprint past the Haven for Hope campus, reminiscent of a devoted drop-in middle, the place youth can entry providers even when they don’t want housing, or extra transitional housing for younger adults to maneuver out of — or keep away from — homelessness.
“Housing is step one, however it’s housing plus,” Keighley defined. “Our youth want emotional assist, life expertise, and group to really thrive. This anniversary is about securing that future.”
The nonprofit goals to develop its base of particular person donors and personal monetary assist, as federal and state funding priorities shift. Finally, extra group funding means the power to supply extra assist with fewer exterior restraints.
“We now have to seek out methods to be extra artistic, to do extra with what we’ve got in an effort to assist these organizations meet the wants of their purchasers,” stated Jesse Mata, a author, designer, and board member for Fiesta Cornyation.
Cornyation, one of the crucial outstanding LGBTQ+ occasions within the metropolis, has elevated its fundraising efforts through the years to offer extra again to organizations like Thrive, San Antonio AIDS Basis, and BEAT AIDS.
It’s a trigger that many in the neighborhood personally resonate with.
“After I was 17, I got here out to my people and I used to be instantly reduce off in each manner —financially, emotionally, socially,” Mata stated. “I used to be almost suicidal, almost homeless. If I didn’t have buddies to lean on, I’d have been one other queer homeless youth within the early ’90s. … That’s why Thrive means a lot to me, as a result of I do know firsthand how totally different my story may have been.”
From Fiesta Cornyation’s longtime assist to the voices of nationwide leaders on the homelessness panel, Thrive’s brunch will convey collectively the most effective of San Antonio and past. It’s yet one more “social gathering with a goal” that residents of this metropolis have come to know so effectively.
“We wish to give the youth what they deserve,” Keighley stated. “They deserve not simply to get alongside, they deserve to really thrive.”
