The first LGBT adoption agency in Canada has been set up by this couple
The first adoption agency for LGBT children has opened up in Canada.
Lucas Medina and his husband Chad Craig have opened up Five/Fourteen, a service that finds LGBT foster children welcoming homes.
The agency, based in Ontario, has 30 young people on it’s list who are waiting to be place with families.
The group also has 140 applications from potential foster families across Toronto, Windsor, London and Ottawa.
Medina was compelled to start the organisation following his own battle within the system.
“It’s just amazing to me that we’ve failed these youth to this degree,” he says. “I just needed to do something because nobody else was actually doing anything about it.”
The couple failed to start up in Toronto due to strict licensing, but later moved to Windsor where they were able to get a license. Now, they are hoping to expand their team across the country.
“We’re actually going to be opening homes in all of those cities by the end of this year,” Craig says.
The movement has a great deal of support from the LGBT community who contributed to the months of fundraising.
Now they’re in a stronger position than ever, with the provincial government pledging to provide funding.
“A lot of people who were members of our community who heard about us and heard the story, came forward and said that this is what I was looking for,” Craig says.
The couple were approached during the Pride parade in Windsor this year by a teenager in the foster care system.
“He walked right up to us and said, ‘You’re the guys from the paper.’ And he started crying and he just hugged us. He said, ‘I’m in a group home, how I can I get your service?’”
The couple don’t doubt the support they’ve received, but feel the LGBT community must continue to stand up for vulnerable youth.
“We feel pretty strongly that unless we, as part of our communities, take up that role, the government and the public discourse is going to continue to erase us,” he said.
