She worked for the now defunct In Power program with Howard Brown Health. It provided specialized services for queer people facing violence.“The hardest part about it is not even being laid off — it’s that the program doesn’t exist anymore and there’s not another program like it,” Garback said. “The Venn diagram of queer people and people who have experienced violence is a circle.”
“It’s important to have these pockets of safety where people can go,” Garback said. “They’re already so worried in the aftermath of being assaulted.”Getting those 61 workers back on the job has been part of the fight for Howard Brown Workers United. In January,And now the union, represented by the Illinois Nurses Association, is currently negotiating its first contract. The union has been bargaining since November.They said the layoffs were due to a $12 million budget gap.
Howard Brown said it saw an increase of 5,000 patients last year — 5% of that being out-of-state patients seeking gender-affirming care.