Jared Arader
Jared Arader, a Hudson
Valley native, is a
Brooklyn-based attorney
and advocate
and president of the Lambda
Independent Democrats of
Brooklyn (LID), the borough’s
only LGBTQ political
organization.
When Jared joined
LID in 2015, he observed
that, at 30, he
was one of the youngest
members of Brooklyn’s
LGBTQ community
active in local politics.
Since his election as president
last year, Jared, with
the support of LID’s leadership
team, has rebranded
the club’s image, drawing from
his own rolodex of younger, diverse,
and well-connected LGBTQ
Brooklynites.
The result: the club’s membership
has ballooned, particularly
among young Democrats. This
year, the club organized heavily
around out LGBTQ district leader
candidates Jesse Pierce and Samy
Nemir Olivares, helping elect both
of them.
In 2019, during a LID panel,
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric
Gonzalez publicly supported the
decriminalization of sex work, becoming
the first of the city’s five
district attorneys to do so. Jared
is also an advocate for the inclusion
of non-binary people on
the Brooklyn Democratic Party’s
County Committee, where they
are currently excluded due to the
requirement that candidates run
for either a male position or a
female position. He is an appointee
to a panel formed
to examine how to reform
the rules to cure the exclusion
of non-binary
Brooklynites.
Last year, he was
honored by City and
State magazine as a “40
under 40” rising star,
and has been named to
City and State’s LGBTQ
Power 100 list in 2019 and
2020.
Jared is noted for a risk-averse
approach to politics, but his personal
style has helped him build
strategic relationships across
Brooklyn’s diverse political community.
Being risk-averse does not
mean he isn’t persistently pressuring
politicians, policymakers,
and other Democratic clubs to be
more inclusive of LGBTQ people
and their concerns.
Jared is also a member of the
Stonewall Democratic Club of New
York City and the Jim Owles Liberal
Democratic Club.
Jared first got involved in political
issues as an intern reporter for
the Legislative Gazette, Albany’s
in-house newspaper, in 2007. He
also covered politics for the Purchase
College Dispatch.
Jared has practiced as a litigator
and worked for the Jewish
Council for Public Affairs,
UJA-Federation of New York, and
the New York Office of Management
and Budget. He is currently
an in-house attorney for the city’s
Department of Education.
Jared lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant
with his partner David and
their cat Gracie.
Kate Barnhart
Kate Barnhart, executive
director of New
Alternatives for LGBT
Homeless Youth, has
a long history of activism, arrested
multiple times for civil disobedience
– as part of ACT UP/ NY
and on healthcare issues generally,
police brutality, immigration
rights, and as a member of the anti
Trump resistance.
Kate has worked with at-risk
youth since 1994 – for six years
with young felons at CASES, an
alternative-to-incarceration program
that serves vulnerable populations.
Since 2001, Kate has devoted
her career to working with
LGBTQ youth, for five years directing
Sylvia’s Place, an emergency
shelter for homeless queer youth
based out of the Metropolitan
Community Church of New York.
In 2008, she helped found New
Alternatives. The group works to
increase LGBTQ homeless youth’s
self-sufficiency by helping them
transition out of the shelter system
and build stable adult lives. The
group provides long-term support
through weekly case management,
education services, life skills
training, recreation and opportunities
for self-expression, and programs
tailored for those who are
HIV-positive.
New Alternatives’ staff is
small, but the group is nimble.
When the COVID-19
crisis shuttered many
meals providers across
the city, New Alternatives
stepped up – increasing
its hot meals program
from one weekday plus
Sunday to a daily effort.
Kate worked to put out other
fires brought on by the pandemic.
President,
Lambda
Independent
Democrats
In addition to providing
masks and hygiene supplies to the
group’s clients, she was pressing
the city’s Department of Homeless
Services, which typically does not
serve non-adults, to get six New Alternatives
clients with coronavirus
symptoms into isolation beds.
In 2017, New Alternatives was
recognized as one of five organizations
out of 500 applicants selected
for a “Renewal Award” for social
innovation from The Atlantic
magazine and Allstate.
“Twenty-thousand dollars
makes a tremendous difference
to us as we operate on
a modest budget and are
mostly driven by volunteers
committed to the under
served LGBT homeless
youth of New York,” Kate
told The Atlantic at the time.
As she explained, most
case management of homeless
youth is tied to the housing
non-profit groups provide
their clients. With many homeless
youth – often with histories of
trauma – experiencing short-term
stays, Kate said, they suffer a “lack
of consistent long-term case-management
services.”
“Well, I can do something here,”
she said about the importance of
the ongoing case management
New Alternatives provides it vulnerable
clients.
In her free time, Kate rescues
and rehabilitates stray cats.
Executive
Director,
New Alternatives
for LGBT
Homeless
Youth
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