When We Formed
Our Core Team started meeting in the summer of 2020! 😀 Kristen Godfrey originally brought the idea of initiating a Host Homes program to us. Then we started chatting about creating a permanent house for a while (which is still a future vision and goal!). And finally, we circled back to Kristen’s original Host Home idea, feeling that this was an essential and humble place to start. We are so excited to start this journey and work with community members to demonstrate what housing support can look like, grounded in mutual aid and the Housing First model.
Why We Formed
Our Core Team has experience directly working with TGNC community members most impacted by the discriminatory systems and institutions that plague our city, including housing discrimination from landlords and shelters. Housing for LGBTQ+ people in Tucson has not attempted to be prioritized until recently. Furthermore, these recent attempts are LGBTQ+ affirming but must be open to all to comply with Fair Housing laws even though these laws came about due to the hard work of Black and Indigenous TQ women. Therefore, in direct response to the lack of transitional housing prioritized for TGNC young adults, we have formed Thompson House.
Why We Aren’t a Non-Profit
Though a 501(c)3 status may have its advantages, we have decided not to become a nonprofit. We believe that in order to form a radical grassroots group committed to trans justice and anti-oppression work, we must go back to the roots of what revolutionary organizing looks like. We believe that nonprofits are not the answer and inherently feed into the neoliberal goals of privatizing, co-opting, and white-washing anti-oppression efforts. We believe that the gatekeeping obstacles and relationships of nonprofits and the nonprofit industrial complex limits our ability to envision new possibilities and be in community with our comrades. It is imperative to us that our organizing work reflects those we are aiming to support and stays grounded in community needs and leadership.
Our Core Team has experience working with TGNC BIPOC in the nonprofit world and thus can attest to the frustrating respectability politics, toxic tokenism, and gatekeeping of funds. We reject this in favor of building and centering community. Our Core Team also has experience with grassroots organizing, and we aim to align with those methods of organizing, which centers the work of fighting anti-Blackness and white supremacist structures, and thus is abolitionist in nature.
Thompson House 