Casa Ruby’s founder, Ruby Corado, says the organization has to move out of its Shepherd Park location.

Ted Eytan / Flickr

Casa Ruby, the iconic Shepherd Park nonprofit serving LGBT youth in D.C., is searching for a new location.

After four years at its center on Georgia Avenue—where the organization works to provide housing, sexual health, and emergency services to the city’s LGBT residents—the nonprofit is now in a dispute with the building’s landlord and needs to move out, per a GoFundMe set up by the group’s founder Ruby Corado.

“In my wildest dreams I [never] thought that we would be homeless again but we are, our story is no different than the one lived by LGBTQ people everyday and that is why we are asking for your help,” Corado wrote in the GoFundMe.

Corado, a prominent trans activist in the city, declined to speak on the record about Casa Ruby’s dispute with the landlord, the Mentiki Group.

But according to the GoFundMe, the issue involves unresolved repairs from an electrical fire last year. Corado writes that the landlord never made necessary repairs to the space and has “refused to work” with the group.

In a statement to DCist, a spokesperson for the Menkiti Group writes that they are in fact working with the organization to resolve the conflict.

“For nearly 4 years we’ve had a productive and valuable relationship with Casa Ruby, and we continue to be open to working with them,” reads the statement. “It’s important to clarify that Casa Ruby is currently inhabiting the property and we have taken no action to evict them.”

But Corado says she has been asked continuously to turn in the keys to the space, and plans to move out as early as this weekend.

Just last month, Casa Ruby’s wellness center in Southeast D.C. was burglarized, with computers, files, and other items totaling around $1,500 stolen from the facility. Last year, the nonprofit underwent a budget cut from D.C.’s Human Services department of about $83,000 — a part of the city’s larger funding cuts to homelessness nonprofits during the pandemic.

Within just a day, the GoFundMe page has raised more than $67,000 to help Casa Ruby find a new location.

“We built so many memories, that’s the hardest part,” Corado tells DCist. “I’m not giving up yet, I’m hoping for a miracle.”