Abstract
This study aims to explore that having personal experience or connection to the Lesbian Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) homeless youth community can influence California state assembly members and senators legislative action regarding that population. Members of the California Legislature take on the responsibility of ensuring the safety and well-being of their constituents. Yet, the rates of youths experiencing homelessness that self-identify within LGBT community are continuing to increase year after year. Despite the increase in numbers, California legislative members’ have failed to ameliorate this by neglecting to fund, appropriately alter, or pilot programs that are tailored to unique needs of this marginalized population. This is a secondary data analysis using existing public records. This study accesses public records from The California Research Bureau (http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/), California State Legislation Information (Legislative Counsel), U.S. census 2010, Human Rights Campaign (www.hrc.org), relevant literature, current studies, and research provided by The California Homeless Youth Project. The legislative documents data collection was inputted in an excel format to gather common information from the data sources. This form was also used as the basic foundation for the study’s Legislative Report Cards. The findings presented from this project demonstrate that California state assembly members and senators legislative activity is influenced by being personally connected to an issue. The outcomes of this project present that those legislators who identify within or are connected to the LGBT community, advocate for the interests of this population. As a result of this, this study presents a path of political action for legislation that benefits LGBT homeless youth. By bringing policy recommendations to legislators who have a known personal connection to this population, the probability of the recommendations translating into legislative action is much higher.