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"Teenagers without a place to sleep is a growing problem in Milwaukee.According to Pathfinders of Milwaukee, on any given night in the city, almost 600 young people are without a place to stay and a quarter of those young people are homeless because they are gay or lesbian -- thrown out or made to feel unwelcome -- by their families.\"Youth homelessness is an extremely invisible population,\" Pathfinders Communications Director Genise Linder said.\"You drive by, and you really don't think about it,\" Q-Blok Program Director Craig Leren said.\"It seemed like no one understood what I was going through,\" said McKenzie Corbitt of Milwaukee.Corbitt, 23, knows what it's like to be one of those invisible homeless.\"I was 13 years old. I was having some personal issues, and I was acting out at home,\" Corbitt said.He took WISN 12 News to the house he shared with his mother and younger brother before it stopped feeling like home.\"I was dealing with my sexuality,\" Corbitt said. \"I couldn't really talk to anyone.\"Not even those closest to him.\"Mainly my mom,\" he said.\"How did she react?\" WISN 12 News reporter Toni Valliere said.\"She's not so happy. Let's just put it that way,\" Corbitt said.Opening up about being gay caused great tension between Corbitt and his mother, and her lack of acceptance led him to Pathfinders' emergency shelter in Milwaukee.\"Think about a child who throughout their entire life is coddled by their parent or guardian, really respects that person as their trusting, soft, place to fall,\" Lindner said. \"That young person goes to that loving family member to share that they are lesbian, gay or transgender and that family rejects them and then thrown out of the home because of it. That's a throw-away.\"After a two-week stay, Corbitt returned home, but after three years of trying to repair his relationship with his mother, he left home for good at the age of 16.\"I was kind of place to place, friend's house, different day, different night, different friend,\" Corbitt said.They call it couch-hopping, and Corbitt lived that way while trying to attend Riverside University High School.\"It's not safe by any stretch of the imagination,\" Lindner said. \"That population is at a higher risk for sexual exploitation out on the street, and what might have to happen in order for them to have a place to sleep at night or possibly get something to eat.\"Corbitt stayed safe, but school suffered.\"Being mobile, transient, and kind of all over the place, hopping around, I left this school,\" Corbitt said.He left behind his daytime safe haven and tried for seven years to make it on his own.\"I've had multiple jobs since I was 15, but of course, without stable housing, it was a little hard,\" Corbitt said.Corbitt admits it was a life he made harder with some of his own poor choices.Now, thanks to a one of a kind Pathfinders housing program, it's gotten easier.\"Q-Blok is a transitional living program specifically designed for LGBT young adults ages 18-25, Leren said.\"At the time I was unemployed, and I was just like, 'There's no way I'm gonna find a job,\" Corbitt said.But he did.\"It's going awesome. I love it,\" he said.\"I'll be riding the bus to my own house where I have keys to, and I can turn the light on, walk in and lie in my bed,\" Corbitt said.He's no longer a couch hopper, no longer a throw-away.Corbitt works at a local restaurant. He told Valliere his relationship with his mom is better than it's ever been.He gets his Q-Blok housing for a year and will gradually become responsible for its rent. He will still get access to group and individual counseling as he needs it.Corbitt wants to be a social worker and help other teens facing similar situations.Valliere spent time with many staff members at Pathfinders. They told her the biggest change they've seen in the past three to four years is a doubling of the number of teens in need of their services.\"Who wants to think about what our youth have to do to survive on a daily basis?\" Lindner said. \"One in four kids are living underneath the poverty level.\"She said with so many parents losing their jobs and struggling to pay their bills, it's not uncommon for multiple families to be living under one roof.\"Imagine yourself in a home that has two bedrooms, one bath, and you may have 12-15 people living underneath that roof. Your 15-year-old will turn around and say, 'Hey, I'm out of here,'\" Lindner said.In other cases, teens are aging out of the foster care system.\"I honestly think that's our newest generation of homelessness in our city,\" Lindner said. \"That young adult who just turned 18, and they're thrown away, so the programs that Pathfinders provides, offers those resources for them to find stability and find safety.\"It starts with their mobile outreach program, Street Beat, created in the 1990s.\"You're meeting them right where they are, their vulnerability, their everything, whatever is going on with that person, you're touching the head on it,\" said Darlene Dyson of the Street Beat team.They find teens on the street and provide them with daily necessities and an invitation to their drop-in center.\"We opened up our drop-in center for exploited youth and that works with individuals who are runaway, throw-away homeless,\" Lindner said.It also offers them a place to clean up, get food and clothing and search for a job.\"Every day, I have the opportunity to look into the eyes of the youth that we serve and sometimes I see fear, anger, tears, but in time you see hope,\" Lindner said.Pathfinders serves nearly 7,000 teens each year. It operates on a $1.3 million budget with help from the United Way and federal grants, but each year, the need for its services increases and its funding is cut back.If anyone in interesting in donating to or volunteer with Pathfinders, go to http://pathfindersmke.org/."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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