In a new campaign, civic leaders are connecting two of San Francisco’s most visible populations to alleviate the hardships of what they say is a neglected group of LGBTQ and homeless communities.

According to San Francisco’s 2013 Point-In-Time Count, 29 percent of the homeless population in San Francisco identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, and city leaders say that number is growing.

San Francisco isn’t the only place where homelessness in the LGBTQ — “Q” standing for queer in variations of the description — community is gaining attention. Across the Bay Area, young leaders are pushing for more public recognition of this homeless subset.

“There’s an astronomical amount of LGBT youth that are homeless,” said AJ, a 21 year-old transgender staff member at the LGBTQ Youth Space in San Jose, who asked not to be fully named out of privacy concerns. “Most resources that are there for people that are homeless are for people that have a healthy family environment or need such things like that. Those aren’t catered specifically to LGBTQ people.”

AJ says LGBTQ homeless youth should be given more resources, such as accessible shelters with experienced staff, more accessible mental health services for people who don’t have insurance, and more job placement especially for transgender youth, who often find themselves isolated in the LGBTQ community.

Kate Calimquim, program manager for the Castro Youth Housing Initiative, a program of Larkin Street Youth Services in San Francisco, says she believes homeless youth will be able to grow into successful young adults by being provided with more education and health services.

“I find that they’re incredibly resilient,” Calimquim says. “Having a space to stay where their identities are supported, nurtured and cared for, they can blossom to branch out in other goals.”

The city of San Francisco is tackling the issue with a plan to reduce LGBTQ homelessness by 50 percent within the next five years. City officials are already allocating funding and resources, and will collect statistics to measure their progress.

Bevan Dufty, director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing Opportunity, Partnerships & Engagement in San Francisco, says he was inspired to bring up the issue after conducting a survey last October at the LGBTQ Connect, an event where homeless residents were offered help in the form of dental care, hygiene kits and food packages.

Dufty says 29 percent of the homeless residents who received supplies identified as LGBTQ, adding that represents a huge challenge in the San Francisco community.

HOPE held an LGBTQ Homelessness Policy Forum on June 16 at the LGBTQ Community Center in San Francisco where panelists and speakers, including elected officials, community leaders, and LGBTQ community members, argued for more culturally friendly policies and resources for education, nutrition and housing.

Other plans to reduce LGBTQ homelessness in the San Francisco area include providing more social services to address substance abuse, sexual health, education, and unemployment.

District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, who serves on the Budget & Finance Committee of San Francisco, says he supports strengthening displacement protections in the city to provide more stable living conditions.

“The San Francisco LGBT community is among the most resourceful and effective communities in the world,” Wiener says in a statement. “We have successfully faced some of those most difficult challenges imaginable, whether the continuing HIV epidemic, attacks on our civil rights, or bullying of our young people. Working together, we can successfully face this housing crisis as well.”