A transgender man is suing the National United Methodist Church and Friendship Place, a homeless services provider, claiming he was discriminated against when he was denied housing in a men’s shelter.
Seth Canada, a participant in Friendship Place’s AimHire program, a job placement program that helps participants obtain housing, lived for months in a crowded shelter where he endured “physical and emotional harm” from the conditions, according to the complaint filed late last week in D.C. Superior Court.
Canada claims he asked to be moved to a small all-men’s shelter St. Luke’s, a Friendship Place program partner that is run by NUMC. He wanted to move there because it has individual rooms, and was told there were some available to program participants. But Canada claims that NUMC said that it had “never worked with someone who is transgender,” and refused to communicate with Friendship Place about his placement.
In an emailed statement to DCist, Friendship Place said it has a “long and successful track record of serving the LGBTQ+ community” and “states unequivocally that we did not discriminate against Mr. Canada.”
Friendship Place also disputes some of the other facts in the complaint. “Our AimHire Job Placement program does not help people obtain housing. Our housing programs do,” said Yimka Odebode, the organization’s assistant director of communications, over email.
Friendship Place “is represented by counsel to defend the claims currently pending in D.C. Superior Court,” per the organization’s statement.
Canada claims that following NUMC’s refusal, Friendship Place failed to place him in other “comparable, cost-free housing” the way it usually would for other participants. Left at the shelter where he had been living, Canada says he contracted COVID-19.
The church allegedly denied Canada housing, “depriving him of an alternative to the crowded, unhealthy shelter conditions he sought to leave,” according to a press release from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, which is representing Canada.
“I qualified for the full range of resources, including housing, that these organizations provided to cisgender individuals,” Canada said in the press release. “Dehumanization of a transgender person and discriminatory treatment perpetrated at the hands of those motivated by internalized or overt prejudice shouldn’t be left to slide by. I speak out against the rights of the majority being asserted at the sacrifice of a gender identity minority, like myself, because such practice hinders achieving housing justice and equality for all.”
Canada alleges that their actions violated his right to equal housing opportunity, and constitute gender identity discrimination in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act of 1977.
“Our transgender neighbors face oppressive discrimination in their daily lives that can have devastating, and sometimes deadly, consequences,” Catherine Cone, an attorney with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil rights and Urban Affairs, said in the release.
“Homelessness compounds this vulnerability,” she added. “Mr. Canada was making remarkable efforts to change his circumstances for the better, but the National United Methodist Church’s inability to provide compassionate, and safe housing, has now compromised our client’s health and well-being.”
NUMC did not immediately respond to WAMU/DCist’s request for comment on the lawsuit.
This story has been updated to include a statement from Friendship Place and to reflect that its definition of AimHire differs from the one in the complaint.
