The drop-in facilities of the Ali Forney Center, a center for homeless LGBT youth, were utterly destroyed by the superstorm Sandy, and now officials for the Center are scrambling to get it up and running again.

According to interviews with the Washington Blade, the Center’s executive director says the space filled with four feet of water, wrecking everything from furniture to computers to the refrigerator and rendering the space uninhabitable. 

However, the organization’s lease at that location was going to be up at the end of January, Siciliano toldThe Advocate, and a new drop-in center space is under renovation in Harlem. It will likely be ready in a few months, he said. The Ali Forney Center housing facilities in Brooklyn and Queens were unharmed, as was its administrative office in midtown Manhattan and another drop-in center in Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn center serves young people already in the Ali Forney Center’s system, while the Chelsea one largely served newly homeless, particularly vulnerable ones, he told The Advocate. He elaborated to the Blade, “The kids that come into that space are like our most vulnerable kids. They’re the ones who are out on the streets with nowhere to go. And that program’s really a lifeline for them. They get food and clothing and showers and bathroom facilities, medical care [and] HIV testing. It’s kind of our triage place in the city for kids who are chucked out on the streets.”

The Ali Forney Center is taking donations via their website. Please donate if you can. This center helps so many homeless LGBT youth who have nowhere else to go, and it’s truly a vital establishment to these communities. They have helped so many people — now it’s our turn to help them.