Transgender rights advocate Iya Dammons, the founder and executive director of Baltimore Safe Haven, an organization that provides emergency housing and other services for the LGBTQ community with a special outreach to the transgender community, says she plans to open a similar group in D.C.
later this year to provide services that D.C.’s Casa Ruby provided before its shut down last week. Dammons, who is originally from D.C.
and has longstanding ties to D.C., said she was not prepared to comment on the issues surrounding the closing of Casa Ruby other than to say she knew Casa Ruby founder and CEO Ruby Corado and Corado’s years of work carrying out Casa Ruby’s mission.
Among other things, Casa Ruby operated as an LGBTQ community services center that provided transitional housing services for homeless LGBTQ youth and adults and support for LGBTQ immigrants.