No House to Call My Home

June 15, 2015
Just as there is a school-to-prison pipeline in this country, so too, this grim report reveals, is there a home-to-homeless paradigm for many young people. Life on the streets is tough. It is tougher still for LGBT-or, as writer, activist, and former counselor Berg would have it, LGBTQ, the last element meaning "questioning"-kids, who constitute as much as 40 percent of the population of young homeless people. Those numbers vary, and the author is fuzzy on them, but two things are evident: there are far too many homeless children, and, naturally, the gay children among them are stigmatized. Interestingly, Berg raises the prospect that advances on other fronts in the struggle for gay civil rights may be causing the kids to come out early, exposing themselves to the sort of familial rejection that puts them at risk of being turned out onto the streets. There aren't many surprises in the narrative; indeed, there are turns that have by now become cliche, from the disaffected, alcoholic grown-up who is himself saved by trying to save at-risk young people to the crack-addicted but heart-of-gold sex worker. Still, some of Berg's portraits are arresting: "Pimple-faced and slinky, Christina is a cocoa-colored sixteen-year-old transgender Latina from the Bronx who thinks she's a white girl from the suburbs. Her Britney Spears infatuation is all-consuming." Packed full of case studies that are unpleasant from start to finish-all group homes and ransacked lockers, beatings and diseases-Berg's narrative moves from the clinical to Barbara Ehrenreich-style journalism as it progresses. His fraught encounters with individuals become universal, offering a touch of hope even as the parental refrain continues to sound: "no faggot is going to live under this roof." Particularly important for caseworkers and social service specialists, who, by Berg's account, are likely to encounter more young people in the LGBTQ population in the near future.

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July 1, 2015

Berg debuts with a compelling group of human interest stories. Sure, the ostensible purpose here is to detail the distressing state of the foster care system for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trangender, queer (LGBTQ) youth in New York and provide case examples. But the author also shows how red tape and obdurate bureaucracies work against helping the most vulnerable. Berg's extraordinary talent is his portrayal of the human dimension. These are teenagers with the same anxieties, frustrations, interests, hopes, and desires as teenagers (and others) everywhere, but they also face bullying beyond what would break most. Many receive little or no support at home, while others face addiction and prostitution. Oddly, though much of this story is discouraging, there is a sense of hopefulness. The resilience of Raheem, Bella, Rodrigo, and others profiled is so astonishing that it is impossible not to be amazed. VERDICT Berg's accessible writing style makes this book highly recommended to general readers.--David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2015
Even as the nation celebrates the triumph of gay marriage rights, inequalities continue, particularly for LGBTQ youth, overwhelmingly minorities, who are part of the foster care system. Berg was a caseworker in a New York group home for young people in foster care. Rejected by their families, they faced poverty, homelessness, homophobia, and racism, mostly on their own. Many had been subjected to abuse within their families and their foster placements. Their sexual orientations made them highly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Berg's caseload of 15 adolescents included those on the brink of aging out of the system at 21, facing the heightened anxieties of shortly having to fend for themselves. Among his clients were Bella, a transgender woman supporting her drug habit by picking up johns; Reginald, sexually abused but still looking for a father figure to guide him; and Montana, a gay woman whose religious mother thinks her daughter is possessed by the devil. Through their compelling stories, Berg looks at inequalities suffered by LGBTQ youth in housing, public safety, health care, prison, immigration, employment, poverty, and homelessness.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)