[This article appears in the May/June 2022 issue of Boston Spirit magazine. Subscribe for free today.]
Connor Schoen decided early on that he wanted a career in public service. What he couldn’t anticipate was how following that path would so greatly serve him, too.
As a Harvard undergrad, Schoen studied applied mathematics with an eye toward using data to solve social and economic problems. The Westborough, Mass. native was also active in volunteerism growing up, so it came naturally to him to start working at Y2Y Harvard Square, a student-run shelter for homeless youth. There he met young adults who were enduring extraordinary hardship, many having lost family support because they were gay, trans or queer (about one quarter of Y2Y guests identify as LGBTQ+). Their courage in the face of such tremendous challenges put things in perspective for Schoen, who had been struggling internally with his own identity, and inspired him to finally come to terms—and come out—as himself.
“I was working with young people who, despite everything going on in their life, were so true and authentic to who they are,” says Schoen, who is pansexual. “I was avoiding confronting the reality of my sexuality and struggling to figure out how to tell my family. Meanwhile at the shelter, I was leading young people who were navigating these challenges on a much, much higher level, because they didn’t have a dorm room to go back to at night. They showed me that what’s most important is being yourself.”
Happier than ever and with a supportive family behind him, Schoen redoubled his commitment to supporting those who didn’t have the same privilege. And so, together with Harvard peer Tony Shu, Schoen cofounded Breaktime, a Boston-based nonprofit that works to end youth homelessness by providing paid pathways to sustainable employment—the key, Schoen says, to attaining reliably secure housing. Breaktime collaborates with a network of transitional housing providers to identify cohorts of homeless young adults, provides them with financial training and helps them develop their workplace skills, and then connects them to paid employment with the American Heart Association, the YMCA, Community Servings and other partners.
In only a few short years, Schoen, 23, has turned the young organization into a major force: He and Shu were even honored by Forbes on its “30 Under 30” list of movers and shakers. On top of that, he’s been proactive in addressing the profound disparity that 40 percent of young people experiencing homelessness identify as LGBTQ, according to the True Colors Fund. That about matches up to the demographics at Breaktime, says Schoen, who adds that the rigid gender-based arrangements at most shelters can make them particularly unwelcoming—even dangerous—for trans and nonbinary youth.
That’s why, in addition to helping homeless young people find the pathways to employment they need right now, Schoen is also focused on addressing systemic problems impacting LGBTQ+ young people, in particular. For instance, he has worked with Pride in Our Workplace to host panel discussions dedicated to fostering inclusivity on the job, and Breaktime has entered the policy arena, too. On the state level, Breaktime has been advocating for a bill that would limit the up-front costs landlords can charge for rental units, as well as legislation that would make it easier for young people experiencing homelessness to obtain state IDs (something especially important to LGBTQ folks who, if estranged from family, may have difficulty obtaining proof of residency or a birth certificate). The organization is working on a “homeless bill of rights” to enshrine certain legal protections, Schoen adds, and in collaboration with the pioneering LGBTQ youth org BAGLY—whose executive director, Grace Sterling Stowell, serves as treasurer of Breaktime—pushes for expanded state funding to support queer young people across Massachusetts.
In fact, going Bay State-wide is the next step for Breaktime itself, says Schoen, who wants to be working with homeless youth across the Commonwealth by 2024. It’s all part of his plan to repay the debt he owes to a shelter community that changed the direction of his own life for the better.
“I see housing as a basic human right, but unfortunately it’s not treated that way in our society,” Schoen says. “A lot of LGBTQ folks I’ve known over the years have had to take extraordinary risks just to have a place to sleep at night. A lot of people get caught in a cycle of homelessness because they don’t have the housing security they need to hold down a job, which means they don’t have the financial security they need to sustain housing. It perpetuates itself, and we’re here to break that cycle.”
More: breaktime.org
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