Henry Love (Point Source Youth): Personal loss and housing instability
Dr. Henry Love shares personal stories of losing his best friend Cordell and partner Devon to housing instability-related deaths, both before age 30. He describes how housing instability raises suicide attempts 3.7 times and disrupts HIV treatment for the 20% of homeless youth living with HIV.
Hello.
I'm a child of Stonewall, a child of Marsha and Sylvia.
My name is Dr.
Henry Love, and many of you know me from my time at Wynn, Women in Need, but today I'm here for something a little different.
I now lead the Targeted Housing Instances Program at Point Source Youth, a national organization focused on ending LGBT youth homelessness.
As a queer black man and a person living with HIV, an unfathomable trauma.
I've done the decorum, I have done the degrees, I've done the politeness.
Today I'm going to be real, I'm going to apologize if it makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable, but that's the point.
I'm here as living proof of what happens when support arrives on time.
This testimony is for the ones who did not have that opportunity.
Earlier, the young people spoke about the data and the stats, the deaths.
And in our community, we have a saying, we survived Atlanta.
It marks who made it and it memorializes those of us who didn't make it.
Cordell Fowler is my best friend.
In 2016, his funeral was in Detroit.
He was the it girl of Atlanta, magnetic, brilliant.
And in our last conversation at the Alof Hotel in Harlem, he spoke about how he wanted to move here and be a part of this city.
He was surviving through sex work, begging for help, and was turned away.
And he ultimately died in 2016 in a drug-related accident.
But don't call it a drug-related accident.
It was related to housing instability, and that's ultimately what led to his death.
In 2017, Devon Way passed away, and his funeral was in Houston.
Devon was my partner, my soulmate, my safe place in an unsafe world.
He was from the deep south, and he made it out to Columbia University.
One month from completing his PhD, he was taken too soon from us.
When I found out about Cordell's death, Devon carried me, and weeks later when I received my HIV diagnosis, Devon carried me.
And then he was gone.
Sorry, I'm almost done.
He was killed by someone who was housing unstable, untreated,
And one month from that finish line, Frank in Arkansas, James in Virginia, Jeremy Delano from Detroit, people I saw every Thursday at Trappie Hall in Harlem.
I made it out, but so many didn't.