So what's so bad about The Salvation Army anyway?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Back in the early to mid 1990s, I volunteered with a Salvation Army program for street youth

The volunteers distributed food and clothing, tutored the youth for their GEDs, and interacted with the youth at the drop-in center. I used to play cards or board games with them, while other volunteers held craft sessions where the youth could make jewelry or learn to knit. Another volunteer organized a softball team that played against other social service agencies and youth groups.

Our job was to model responsible, non-threatening adult behavior, something many of the youth had seen precious little of. Although most of the youth seemed incapable of producing a sentence without either "fuck" or "shit" in it, we were supposed to refrain from using bad language or discussing sex or street drugs. We also could not use street drugs ever (something I never did anyway) or consume alcohol within 24 hours before our shift.

This was before the news about their anti-gay policies broke.

I was surprised, because I never saw any discrimination against the approximately 1/3 of clients who were GLBT.

Far from it, they told us during training that if being around GLBT youth bothered us, we should go home right now, because we would see them every time we showed up.

They offered a church service on Sunday mornings, but no one was required to attend, although those who did show up got pancakes afterward. No religious activities were required for the daily evening meal, though. All the kids had to do was come some time between 5:00PM and 9:00PM. Those who showed up for morning GED tutoring received lunch as well.

A lot of the clients had been thrown out of the house for being gay, and the Salvation Army worked hard to get the parents to take their children back. It was clear that the Salvation Army officers who worked there KNEW that the GLBT kids were not misbehaving but were simply being themselves, because they expressed exasperation with parents who would take their children back only if "they stopped being gay." They knew better than most people that life on the streets could be a death sentence, if not from AIDS picked up through the prostitution that most street youth, gay or straight, work in to survive at one time or another, then from exposure (sleeping outside on cold nights), untreated non-sexual diseases, or even murder. They were appalled that some parents preferred that their child be dead rather than gay. (They also would not force youth to return to their parents if they felt that the parents were abusive but tried to provide educational and training support so the youth would be prepared to live on their own after they aged out of the program.)

Later, the city of Portland reorganized its youth services, and the Salvation Army lost its contract. I occasionally ran into some of the street youth from the previous program in downtown Portland, and they all said that the Salvation Army program had been better run and provided more real help than the new programs.

So I've seen a Salvation Army program from the inside, and it was non-disriminatory. That's why I drop a dollar into the Salvation Army kettle when I pass one. They help people whose existence most of Middle America would rather forget about it, and they have done so since the 19th century.