Polish city funds LGBT shelter despite government hostility

WARSAW, Poland – Authorities in the Polish city of Krakow have become the first to include financial support for an LGBT shelter in a country where the community has faced hostility from the government.

The shelter offers temporary accommodation and psychological counselling for up to 12 homeless LGBT people. It has been run by a charitable foundation, The Voice of the Heart, since 2016, but has struggled financially.

The city is giving some some 184,000 zlotys ($50,000) to give stability and a general boost to the shelter over the next two years.

The decision comes at a time when Poland’s right-wing government is using rhetoric that is hostile to those who identify as other than heterosexual, and some local communities have declared themselves “free of LGBT ideology.”

Nationwide gestures of support for LGBT communities have also been forthcoming, however.

City money is also to be offered soon to a shelter in the capital, Warsaw, where Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski signed a declaration of support for the LGBT community in 2019. That declaration drew a backlash from the conservative government.

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