No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, and Other Transgressions

by Ryan Berg

Underemployed and directionless, Ryan Berg took a job in a group home for disowned and homeless LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning) teenagers. His job was to help these teens discover their self worth, get them back on their feet, earn high school degrees, and find jobs. But he had no idea how difficult it would be, and the complexities that were involved with coaxing them away from dangerous sex work and cycles of drug and alcohol abuse, and helping them heal from years of abandonment and abuse.

In No House to Call My Home, Ryan Berg tells profoundly moving, intimate, and raw stories from the frontlines of LGBTQ homelessness and foster care. In the United States, 43% of homeless youth were forced out by their parents because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Berg faced young people who have battled extreme poverty, experienced unbalanced opportunities, structural racism, and homophobia. He found himself ill-equipped to help, in part because they are working within a system that paints in broad strokes, focused on warehousing young people, rather than helping them build healthy relationships with adults that could lead to a successful life once they age out of foster care.

By digging deep and asking the hard questions, and by haltingly opening himself up to his charges, Berg gained their trust. Focusing on a handful of memorable characters and their entourage, he illustrates the key issues and recurring patterns in the suffering, psychology and recovery of these neglected teens.

No House to Call My Home will provoke readers into thinking in new ways about how we define privilege, identity, love and family. Because beyond the tears and abuse, the bluster and bravado, what emerges here is a love song to that irrepressible life force of youth: hope.

Genres: Nonfiction, LGBT, Memoir, Queer, Gay, Social Work, Biography

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 24, 2015

Reviews

[Kathrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some people's stories aren't often told -- their identities aren't valued, they don't have the resources to tell their own stories, there's too small an audience willing to hear them because their stories bring pain, guilt, hopelessness. Berg uses his proximity as a residential counselor at an LGBTQ youth shelter to tell some people's stories of abuse, neglect, addiction and trauma. At times it feels shamefully voyeuristic, but it serves the purpose of a greater good -- to draw our attention to the unfathomable pain of a small and overlooked segment of our population --poor youth of color with queer identities lacking familial and cultural support, caught in a system designed to warehouse, not habilitate; to sequester, not affirm. Some of these kids are just not pleasant people, but how can I blame them, considering the experiences they've had? To believe that growing up is a process of progress is a privilege I take for granted, and to see clearly how some kids do not expect a better life some day is challenging, to say the least. There are no easy answers here. Berg comes to the conclusion that he cannot prevent the pain his charges will endure, but maybe he can do some little thing to reduce the damage in some small measure, and his willingness to do so, despite his own pain, feels heroic.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book for free from the author's publicist after being alerted to its existence by Heidi Cullinan. Thank you, Tom, for sending it, and thank you, Heidi for bringing it to my attention.


It's heartbreaking to read about these kids, thrown away by the people who were supposed to love them and protect them, trying to find their place in life, and failing miserably, despite the efforts of the social workers who give so much of themselves to help them.

It's heartbreaking to know that this is real life, that this sort of thing happens every day in every city and state in this country, and there aren't enough resources to save them all.

It's heartbreaking to know that LGBTQ kids have little hope and little chance of making it, simply because of who they are and whom they love. Abused, neglected, thrown into the streets, they resort to drugs to numb themselves against the pain and anger, sex for hire to buy the drugs, lashing out at the very people who are trying to help them. Some of them are HIV+, and their chances are even more bleak. Antiretroviral drugs aren't cheap and must be taken regularly to work - an option these kids don't often have.

In this memoir, Ryan Berg paints a bleak picture of real life for these kids in the New York foster care system, chronicling his experience as a residential counselor in two different group homes for LGBTQ teens, most of whom are POC. He tries to help them prepare for life after the group home, when they age out of the system, but realizes quickly after starting in that position that the adversity these kids face is nearly insurmountable, for various reasons.

The author, with sensitivity and much heart, tells the stories of the young people he tries to help, and calls out the serious lack of resources, of funding, of programs that work. He doesn't shy away from telling it as it is in all its ugliness. There are many moments where his frustration shines through, deservedly so, when a kid takes one step forward, and two steps back, when red tape and rules prevent him from doing the one thing that might help.

Overall, the book is full of heartache and despair. While there are some success stories in it, a large number of kids never make the transition to successful adults, and instead sink deeper into addiction, and continue on the downward spiral of prostitution and drugs, eventually ending up as another statistic, another young life destroyed before reaching its potential.

Mr. Berg lists a variety of agencies, charities, and crisis hotlines as available resources at the end of the book. There is much work to be done, and much money is needed to help these marginalized children all over this country of ours.


My thanks to the author's publicist for providing my copy of this book for review.

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently binge watched America's ABC Family series The Fosters, a one-hour drama about a multi-ethnic family mix of foster and biological teenaged kids being raised by two moms. In one of the later seasons, a main character is remanded to a residential foster home and one of the teenage residents in the home is transgender. Though his story is told quite broadly over one or two episodes, it stuck with me, and so my interest was piqued when No House to Call My Home by Ryan Berg came up for review.

No House to Call My Home is a book that illustrates the struggles of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) youth of colour in America's foster system. While the challenges for youth in foster care are numerous, the problems LGBTQ youth face are often compounded by their struggle with gender, sexual, racial and cultural identity. Berg states that 70% of LGBTQ youth in group homes reported experiencing violence based on their LGBTQ status, 100% reported verbal harassment, and 78% of youth were removed or ran away from placement because of hostility towards their LGBTQ status.

The stories in this book offer readers a glimpse into the lives of the LGBTQ youth of colour Berg worked with in two residential units serving the LGBTQ foster youth in New York City. Focusing on a handful of characters, Berg shares their uniformly harrowing stories, often involving histories of childhood physical and sexual abuse, neglect, poverty and victimisation. Now aged between 14 and 21 (21 being the age at which foster children are released from the system) Berg and his colleagues battle to help these youths manage a myriad of issues, including addictions to drugs and high risk behaviours, to improve their chances at living healthy and fulfilling lives.

The stories are affecting, the children's mixture of bravado, naivete, hurt and hope are difficult to read, but I think as a result I am better informed and more understanding of their circumstances. Sadly, most of the young people that we are introduced to in No House To Call Home will age out without the means, skills or opportunity to find stable housing or get a job with a livable wage.

No House to Call My Home is an accessible read for an audience curious about the issue of LGBTQ youth in foster care. I imagine it also would have value for social workers, school counselors, foster carers and LGBTQ youth advocates.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me start by saying: I'm a social worker, and I work with young people. Working in foster care hasn't been my primary setting but I do have a little experience with it. So, much about this book was familiar to me. And the book clearly came out of a place of wanting to bring to life the stories of young people who have been deeply hurt and traumatized. A good, compassionate intention. And yet.

I was uncomfortable with the author's role in sharing the young people's stories, as the clueless, well-meaning white person who pops into the kids' lives for a couple of years and then is out. I do appreciate that the author is apparently still working in the field (in a different city), so he's not totally "OK, thanks for the material, I'm off to write a book." Still, he shares some of the most intimate details of each young person's most vulnerable and traumatic moments, while only giving tiny glimpses into his own experience. For example, he's talking to a young man who has been cruising for sex in the park, and the young man asks him if he's ever been to the park. Berg gets a little embarrassed and changes the subject. The narrative returns quickly to the young man's story. So... what was going on there? It sounded like Berg HAD been to the park. TBH, it would be a more interesting story to me if it included Berg's experiences that are informing this interaction. By keeping himself out of the story, he casts himself as the "neutral" or "normal" or "regular" person in the interaction, and keeps the young people in their role as the "subject" or the "client" or the "one with issues."

Ultimately I couldn't help but feel this dynamic was a little exploitative. I would have preferred a book in which he helped the youth to tell their OWN stories instead of telling it for them. (He does allude at the end to possibly doing this for a youth who he's in touch with - that would be great to see.)

[BookChampions · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such an important Pride Read for me--difficult but asking hard questions:

"There are more than 2 million LGBTQ adults in the United States willing to foster or adopt, yet 60 percent of foster care agencies report never having placed youth with LGBTQ couples, and 40 percent of agencies said they would not even accept applications from LGBTQ individuals or couples"

And that's far from the hardest statistic to swallow. Ryan Berg's storytelling from his work inside the foster care system, fighting pervasive homelessness and hopelessness and homophobia, left me feeling deeply the humanity of the young people he worked with and knew.

Much the way Michelle Kuo beautifully bore witness in *Reading With Patrick*, a favourite read from a few years ago, Berg reminds us that stories are what breeds empathy and the joyful hope for change. We must look and listen to those we are hoping to serve. We must teach that our stories matter, and they have value. It's exactly what Hannah Gadsby says in *Nanette*: "Stories hold our cure."

Thank you also, Ryan, for reminding me, through Laura in your book, to "believe in yourself more." An activist who is always cutting himself down as a failure terribly undermines his effectiveness. It may be time to reread the books in bell hooks' teaching series.

[C.E. G · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you think the LGBTQ rights movement ended with marriage or the repeal of DADT, read this book (or another on youth homelessness) to understand how those changes almost feel trivial compared to what so many in the community need. As Berg rightly points out: "LGBTQ youth struggles are intrinsically tied to health care, housing, public safety, prison, immigration, employment, poverty, and homelessness."

However, with a cis white adult writing about mostly black and brown (and also often trans) youth, and with the assumption that the profits of this book going to him rather than the youth whose stories he is telling, I was sometimes uncomfortable with this book. I think he made some good efforts, but his descriptions of gender presentation sometimes felt icky to me:

Bella wants to pass, but she doesn't. With a quick glance you might not see what a closer inspection reveals. She's constantly plucking, cinching, stuffing, bleaching, and erasing, but she can't hide her Adam's apple, her broad shoulders, her large hands. She fills her bra with socks, tucks and secures her penis between her legs, and tapes maxi pads together and stuffs them down the sides of her pants to create the illusion of hips.

Why all the detail? It feels like another example of cis people being invasively interested in how trans women present. It also just felt disrespectful - how would the teen he's writing about feel if she read that? I feel like there may have been some relevant chapters in Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano.

So, I feel glad this book is bringing attention to youth homelessness, and glad that Berg is doing the work he is doing, but I also have a few reservations.

See also: Kicked Out

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a lot sadder than I expected, although saying that makes me question just what I did expect. But…Berg writes of his experience serving as a counsellor for homeless LGBTQ youth. This was not a prestigious position, or one that he came to with much experience. This was an effort to find a fitting career path and do some good, but it sounds like the upshot was basically damage reduction. As in: things are probably not going to get better, but it might be possible to keep them from getting worse.

There’s an element of too little, too late here, not because the people Berg was working with were ‘hopeless’ or anything like that but because it’s so clear that so many of them needed more support much, much earlier. How do you ask someone who has been living for survival for years that they need to take on new priorities? Why should they listen? Why should they listen to you, if you’ve never been through 90% of their formative experiences?

I don’t question Berg’s motives, and I don’t question that he did the best he did with the resources at his disposal. But he paints a messy, honest picture, and it’s clear that there aren’t easy fixes to a problematic system.

Some things to consider:
When 40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ yet make up only 8 percent of the population, it's clear the greatest struggles the queer community faces are not all oriented around marriage. (xviii)

There are more than 2 million LGBTQ adults in the United States willing to foster or adopt, yet 60 percent of foster care agencies report never having placed a youth with LGBTQ couples, and 40 percent of agencies said they would not even accept applications for LGBTQ individuals or couples. (257)

[D.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ryan Berg's "No House to Call My Home" takes readers inside the New York State foster care system, to a home where LGBTQ youth who have been abandoned or abused are housed in order to keep them off the streets and out of harm. Residential counselors advise and advocate for these kids, helping them to negotiate institutional red tape, visits with their real families, education, employment and recovery. Berg's chronicle of the lives of the young residents at the 401 and Keap Street shows how much adversity they face and how much strength they draw from one another. These kids are smart, resourceful, brave and fierce. But they are also kids. "No House to Call My Home" is a call for greater understanding, support and advocacy for these children struggling to stand on their own as they "age out" of the system and enter adulthood. Challenge and change are the daily currency for them. How are they to succeed with so many obstacles? This book offers suggestions and hope.

[Siddharth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being in the Bay area, I have often contemplated on the origin of homelessness and why it is so rampant in almost all major cities. I attributed it to alcoholism, drug abuse stemming from opioid epidemic, war veterans suffering from PTSD and mental disorders in general. While that may be, this book opens our eyes to the possibilities of kids born under such dire conditions and additionally handling the burden of belonging to LGBTQ community. The author does a fantastic job of portraying the turbulent lives of such kids under his care during his two-year stint as a caseworker. It's obviously a difficult topic to process for most of us readers and everyone expects redemption at the end of a book. But as Jessica told him once, the reward comes from the act of doing (in our case -- reading) and not the result (how it made us feel ashamed/helpless).

[Meghan Geary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Berg has a gift. Not only does he tell important stories, he tells them well. He is also a writer who obviously cares very deeply for his subject. This book was one that needed to be written, and he has given voices to some of the voiceless. I appreciate his honesty, vulnerability, and sensitivity. He is not overly sentimental nor exploitive, but we are able to get very vivid, intense and agonizingly real images of these youth and their lives...lives that are rife with seemingly insurmountable challenges. As an LGBTQ activist and a teacher, I'm grateful to Berg for his in-depth preface, the resource guide at the end, and for the fact that he offers some ideas for solving the problems he illustrates in his book. This is not a misery-loving memoir, but an opportunity for us to learn of the dire situation facing homeless queer youth and to do something about it.

[Samu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Depressing book about something utterly horrifying. Not sure if I liked it or not but I don't really think that's the point. Nonfiction about queer kids in foster care where no one much cares and even when they do, are met with insurmountable odds against them. Some self analysis on the authors part, too, which made reading this possible. I want to give this more stars than it might deserve on just literary basis because so much of it hits home. One of the statistics quoted in the book says there are over 2 million queer adults willing to foster with most of the agencies not accepting queer applicants even though they would be an obvious solution to at least part of the problem. That really gives you a pause. Anyway, important topic, important kids, don't forget about them.

[Regina · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely engaging portrait of the challenges faced by underprivileged LGBTQ youth. The author, a white middle class gay man from the Midwest, succeeds in the telling of his experiences of working in NYC group homes for them by not presenting himself as a "white knight" savior. Rather, he simply bears witness to this crisis and allows the reader to feel the helplessness of the situation along with him.

[Kenzie Rybak · Rating 4 out of 5]

The caseworker perspective offered invaluable insight to work in a group home and the specific strengths and challenges faced by LGBTQ+ youth of color. I could relate to some of the caseworker's challenges and valued his empathy and honestly as he wrote about the young people that he worked with without seeming to put his own spin on their stories.

[Adam Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, easily the best book I’ve read this year.
I was wondering while reading this why there aren’t similar books out there helping shed light on these experiences and then I saw the reviews and I knew. By writing this book the author opens himself up to a lot of crap! Not only do you have charges that you’re betraying the trust of the kids, but everyone has an opinion on your actions and them all seem to think they know better than you. Who would want to deal with that?
There’s a charge made that the author should have had more training, I’m sure he’d be the first to agree. He was hired with no experience for a job that pays $11 an hour and told “not to impose my white, middle-class expectations on the youth.” I’m not sure what else you’re expecting. What level of trained psychologist are you going to get for $11 an hour in Manhattan?
Another complaint was a section in the book where a kid writes of his life. The reviewer seems to think the author sensationalized the text but it’s not even his writing, it’s the kids. It must be difficult not to write replies to online reviews.
One thing in the book that made me temporarily angry was the length, the book is short and feels shorter as it goes by so fast. When I got to 68% of the text and it said the book was done I really wanted the rest. A ridiculously detailed index follows taking up a third of the book. Headers such as “Transformative moments” and “Washington, Denzel” really take indexing to a new level of redundancy.
On to the book itself, I had ideas going in as to what to expect and the specific situations described really tore all those ideas down. There’s a section where a transgender woman is “aging out”, turning 21 and no longer able to stay in the program. They’re trying to work with her and secure her a place to stay and she doesn’t want to hear it. She knows a guy she met a week ago who will give her an apartment. When the counsellors question the feasibility of the arrangement too much, the girl says “Can’t you just let me have my dream?” This is it, you’re trying not to crush the kids with reality but at the same time instilling in them a need for a roof and food, very tough.
Many situations in the book I discussed with friends or my husband and all with no clear answers. I remember one they’re trying to teach a kid the importance of going to school and that actions have consequences, that if he doesn’t go he won’t graduate with his friends. On graduation day the school calls, they don’t want to deal with him next year so he can graduate so that he’ll leave them alone. What do you do? Do you call the school and explain your training to show the kid his actions have consequences and leave him open to possibly never graduating?
Another problem is obviously our society; we have empowered these kids with their rights but not their associated responsibilities. One resident’s room needs to be cleaned and she refuses to help. The author’s manager says he needs to clean it. The kid walks in and says “You can’t just throw my stuff away,” she says. “There’re rules.” Now her voice breaks. “I’ll sue.” These kids are masters at gaming the system. One kid had like 40 pairs of $100 shoes as they get a mandatory clothing allowance each year they can spend at their discretion. No place to live, but 40 shoe boxes.
Being LGBTQ presents special circumstances for these kids:
“When the youth’s sexual or gender identity is discovered, they get sent back to the agency, or they’re berated and abused for their “sinful” lifestyle. Frequently, the homes the youth end up in are nearly as bad as the ones from which they were removed.”
“Many of our young people report that when living in a general-population group home they encounter harassment, ridicule, or physical or sexual assault on a daily basis. The program’s goal is to provide a safe place for them to be themselves. They experience enough hatred in their everyday lives; they shouldn’t have to face that at home as well.”
The author eventually left the situation for what I thought was an excellent reason, he was “unable to separate my worth from the ability to fulfill their needs.” So what is the lesson? A quote from the book describes it wonderfully:
“She told me about Japanese rock gardens, how when the monks finish their intricate design, they immediately begin to erase it, never giving themselves time to admire what they’ve just created. ‘The reward comes from the doing,’ she said, ‘not the result.’”
An excellent book that deserves to be widely read.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high expectations for this book and found myself pretty let down. I thought this might be a refreshing, eye-opening glimpse into the world of LGBTQ homelessness and the troubles, both unique and not, in that population. Unfortunately I found that Berg, like many others who find themselves in social service, happened upon a job working with traumatized youth (which required minimal qualifications), found himself overcome by the need and injustice of the kids and of the system in which they found themselves and eventually becoming overwhelmed with all of those factors and leaving. It's the sad but unrelenting reality of most teens (and workers) in the foster care system, add trauma and sexual or gender difference to the mix and there is virtually no hope of permanent placement or adoption. I am glad that someone like Berg is taking his experiences and, as much as he can, those of the youth with whom he worked and putting it into a public forum. I am also glad that residential facilities such as those Berg worked in exist to give some modicum of support to this population, but it's a very temporary and tremendously inadequate fix to an infuriatingly complex and growing issue. Because I have worked in a group home and continue to work with victims of violence and trauma I didn't feel like this book showed me anything I didn't know, but it did make me face the facts I sometimes forget around the reality of life for so many kids in the US today. Would recommend for anyone with an interest in the issues of foster care and homelessness for LGBTQ youth but not for anyone who has lived the reality of work or life in a group home.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

"No House to Call My Home" is a collection of true stories from the author's experiences as a case worker for LGBTQ youths in group foster homes in NYC. The purpose of the book is transparently to garner sympathy, understanding and support for this select marginalized group. The book provides an index of agencies, charities and hotlines which made it particularly useful to me as a public librarian in NYC. You never know when a patron will come up to the reference desk in need of a referral for such services.

As a reading experience, the book tries to keep it real, not glossing over the ugly side of group faster care or the very real dangers these youths face at school and in public. There are tales of drug abuse, prostitution, abuse and HIV/AIDS. Mr. Berg allows his frustrations and occasional despair to be part of the thread that holds these individual tales together. There are also some success stories to keep things from getting too bleak. Recommended for readers with interest in LGBTQ issues and also as a reference source for public librarians and those in urban social work.

[Vince · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is powerful as a window into the struggle of the LGBTQ homeless youth in NYC. I think their lives reveal the struggle of many LGBTQ -- attempting to live a life true to themselves, surviving the many threats of a world hostile to them and unwilling to even try to understand, surviving their own fear and loneliness. Berg does an effective and heart wrenching job of telling their stories, of giving them a voice. I was moved by the stories -- although at times it felt like an unrelenting glaring light on them. I kept waiting for glimmers of hope -- an LGBTQ who reached some sort of emotional, financial, social success. But there were few of those successes, if any. There were times, too, when I wished Berg would give us more of a look inside his own transformation. How did this experience impact him? Again, there were small glimpses into Berg's own life, but this experience must have had some profound influence on him -- and we don't get a very vivid look at that. I felt like since he was taking such an unflinching look at the teens and young adults in these homes, he could have been as equally introspective of this experience on his own life.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up ahead of an event I'll be attending where Berg is speaking. Admittedly, I'm not well-versed in the plight of LGBTQ homeless youth, outside of the statistics that to so many -- me included -- become background noise to the multitude of issues we're presented with each day.

But the reality is, we're failing an entire population of high-risk children and teens, mostly of color, over and over again. "House" was the first time I was presented with vivid stories of broken systems, squandered second chances and, still, the optimism of caseworker and client to want to succeed.

Berg is a gifted writer, but this is a frustrating story. I need to do more. We must do more. The individuals profiled in the story, and the thousands more never given a voice, deserve it.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well written piece of work with great insights into a wide range of LGBTQ youth. While not incredibly eye-opening in the struggles faced by this population, giving faces to the various identities is what makes this read real. Too often, books like this can read as preachy and a cry for help, but Ryan Berg does a wonderful job of laying it out just how it is. I also appreciated that very rarely did Berg talk about how he felt, and gave more focus to the struggle and turmoil of the youth he is caring for. It would be very easy to make write a novel that read as a "white guy's foray into this specific subculture," and Berg rarely, if ever, did that.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Below discusses sexual assault.

Pros: the stories of the youth Berg worked with/refusal of the book to simplify the lives of people who cope with enormous difficulty from every direction. I would love to give more stars just for THEM.

Cons: What made the author think he needed to imagine and then write down the exact scenarios of his clients' childhood rape traumas? Just tell me the kid was abused. Do not put in two-page italic horror flashbacks and descriptions of "meaty hands." DO NOT DO THAT. IT IS GROSS ON SO MANY LEVELS. AND: GET SOME BOUNDARIES TRAINING.

[Coleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Berg is a great writer with a story that needs to be told. He leaves all dry scholarly style to another author- (Thank you!) and presents a compelling story about Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) youth of color in America's foster system. As a retired high school teacher I read this - and I saw many of my former students. Berg's students show the same hurt and hopelessness tendered by the bravado that helps them to survive.

This book should be required reading for high school educators and school counselors- anyone who is involved with LGBTQ youth.

[DFZ · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was awful, written by someone with a privileged, biased, and judgmental frame of mind. I couldn't read more than a few pages and felt genuinely horrified that this clueless person was working with youth who needed an adult who "got" them. These stories need to be told about the epidemic of homelessness for queer youth, but I don't think this person was the right person to tell these stories.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most powerful books I have read this year. It is an account of his work with homeless, abused, and drug dependent LGBTQ kids. It is heartbreaking, eye-opening, and painful. I consider it a must read for ANYONE who comes in contact with LGBTQ youth.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read on the struggles of LGBT youth as they pass through the foster care and group home systems. Shows the truly human side in both those who are caring for youth as well as the youth themselves - the good and the bad. Highly recommend.

[Maria Regina Paiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is heartbreaking and eye-opening. A caseworker in a group home for black and latin LGBTQ youth, Ryan Berg tells some of the stories of the kids he supervised and cared for. The stories are real, and through the book one catches a glimpse of the struggles they face, such as discrimination and violence, homelessness, lack of education, prostitution, addiction, and AIDS, among others. The list of their shortcomings and problems is endless. Kids such as these "are rarely participants in the construction of their own narratives," writes Berg. "My hope is that by writing their stories they'll gain a greater sense of agency."

Caseworkers like Berg are hired with little or no preparation or training, and although many do the best they can, they soon feel the weight of the responsibility they carry, in addition to helplessness, for not being able to make a substantial difference in their lives. The system fails most of the kids in homes such as the one Berg was assigned to. Bureocracy and flawed laws don't help, either:

"The foster care system is so afraid of lawsuits and accusations of child endangerment that residential counselors are left with little recourse when addressing maladaptive behavior."

No one cares about these kids. They rarely make the news. At one point in the book, Berg refers to Christina, a 16-year-old transgender latina, who disappears and is presumably murdered. At the same time, the world was following the story of American Natalee Holloway, who went missing in Aruba, with a million efforts carried out to find her or her body. But no one cared to look for Christina, and the police turned a blind eye because this sort of kid usually means trouble.

Many things are surprising in this book: that caseworkers like Berg are hired with barely any experience or training, that so many LGBTQ kids are taken away from their parents for abuse or neglect, that LGBTQ foster kids are usually bounced around and further discriminated or abused in foster homes, and that the percentage of LGBTQ homeless teens is so staggeringly high. These are human beings that grow up seeing abuse as normal, and who have little understanding of how to channel their anger and frustration.

"One study suggests nearly half of New York City's homeless have gone through the foster care system at one time or another and 40 percent of homeless youth in New York City identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. After aging out of the system, over half of the youth remain unemployed. Debilitating depression, anxiety, and addiction affects one-third of this population."

Berg's book is easy to read and powerful in creating awareness: hopefully a precursor of change.

[CTEP]

I chose to read “No House to Call Home” by Ryan Berg this month. This compilation of narratives about homeless LGBTQ+ youth in New York City is told from the perspective of a former counselor and caseworker, Ryan Berg, who is now continuing similar work here in Minneapolis.



I read about this book in the HCL Staff Recommendations section on the library website, and decided to read it after offering computer support during a library program intended for young people who are experiencing or have experienced homelessness. While reading “No House to Call Home”, I was able to draw several connections to my service. Keeping in mind that libraries are often day-time places of refuge for people with no place else to go, LGBTQ+ individuals, especially youth, experience homelessness on a level disproportionate to their heterosexual and gender-conforming counterparts. Therefore, the accounts of these youth, as told by Ryan, should not be separated from the larger discussion surrounding homelessness. These narratives reiterated the importance of keeping a trauma-informed perspective to my service work. Throughout the book, the author also addresses and struggles with his inability to fully understand what his residents are going through, on account of both his race and upbringing. I often feel this way, and this book served as a reminder to be proactive about approaching this changing dynamic.



I would recommend this book to anyone looking to better understand the struggles unique to LGBTQ+ homeless youth, the effects of trauma on youth, or how to build a relationship with a group of people as an outsider.

[Brodie · Rating 1 out of 5]

i spent so long trying to give this book a chance - picking it up, getting frustrated, putting it down for months, and then trying again. in the end i got about 120 pages in and had to give up. couldn't get past the overly flowery bit about one of the boys going cruising in the park that was like i imagine him doing this, feeling this, because of this, hoping it will make him feel whole. i imagine that kid being written about like that and feeling a bit gross.

this book was so well intentioned and i do obvs think it's an important issue that needs more public awareness. but this felt like it was trying to really ham up the grittiness and struggle, using heaps of overly floral language for contrast, etc. a lot of conjecture too. some of it felt a bit stigmatising tbh, and I know it's a few years old now but some of the language rang alarm bells for me.

there's so much more work now on the nuances of the relationship between family relationships and LGBTIQ+ homelessness (e.g., castellanos 2016, robinson 2018, wheeler et al 2017, spruce 2022) that this book doesn't really pick up on (maybe it does in the parts i didn't read...). a shame, because it would've been a good opportunity to talk about systemic and policy issues, but it seemed much more individual focused to me. as is much of the american literature on homelessness - hates to talk about the (non-existant) welfare state and inadequate social security net.

[NCHS Library]

From Follett: 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.

[Jimschofield · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty straightforward look at the lives of trans kids in foster care group homes. Well-written enough but it doesn't add anything to the inner city immersive journalism narrative. Read "Random Family" before or instead of this. Beyond making the struggles of trans kids more personal, I didn't feel like it offered much in the way of hope or practical solutions to how to help these kids.

Spoiler alert:

Goddamn, no happy endings here. And while I felt the authors heart was in the right place, the trying to find purpose in my own life by working in a group home narrative felt a little shallow. I tried to do it for two years and couldn't hang but I learned a lot so I want to write a book about it? Nah.

[Shaina · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's no happy ending here. It's story after story of traumatized pasts & bleak futures - with a few success stories tossed in so we don't entirely give up hope on our broken system of foster care. I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed and unprepared to do whatever needs done to improve the system. Ryan Berg does spend a few pages gleaning over what needs to change - but how? It was especially discouraging to read this amidst the current political climate which is seen slashing funds and retracting LGBT rights across the nation. Four stars even though it was a heartbreaking read - because more people should be aware of the situations of marginalized groups.