AUGUST 23, 2025

Virtual and In-person in Fresno, California

Morning Session

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Morning Session *

  • Start your summit experience with ease. Upon arrival, head to the Welcome Desk to check in, pick up your badge, and grab a program guide. Our team will be there to greet you, answer questions, and help you get oriented.

    Whether you're pre-registered or signing up on-site, we’ve streamlined the process so you can dive right into the day’s offerings.

    Pro tip: Arrive early to enjoy coffee, connect with fellow attendees, and settle in before sessions begin.

  • Kick off the Queer Housing Summit in true Fresno fashion—with a dazzling welcome from local legend and ‘Queen’ superstar Lucy Yale! She’ll bring the energy, the sparkle, and the heart as we gather together in community and celebration.

    Expect bold beauty, fierce joy, and a reminder that this space was made for you.

  • Start with Us, Grounded in Care before we build, we root. Join our opening Grounding Session — a collective pause to breathe, reflect, and settle in. Through guided prompts and shared intention, we begin the summit in connection, not just conversation.

    💫 Center yourself. 💬 Connect with others. 🌱 Prepare to co-create.

    • South Tower CLT Update: South Tower CLT Update: Past, Present, Future Come learn what South Tower CLT has accomplished so far, what we’re building right now, and what’s on the horizon.

    • Queer Community College ‘Homelessness’: Through intergenerational storytelling and collective dreaming, we’ll cultivate connective tissue across campuses, communities, and chosen families. Because thriving queer futures demand it—like our lives depend on it.

    • A New Social Housing Model in the Central Valley: What if housing wasn’t just about shelter—but about connection, care, and collective thriving? Together, we’ll ask: How do we dismantle the walls capitalism built around us—and build homes where joy, justice, and interdependence flourish?

    • “Now I Can See a Future”: Queer Shelters in Italy and the Power of Self-Determination. How do queer shelters in Italy support unhoused LGBTQ+ people not just in surviving—but in imagining and building futures rooted in dignity, care, and autonomy? We’ll reflect on what it means to create shelter that heals, empowers, and affirms queer lives.

  • Stay tuned for announcement of Keynote Presenters…

10:50-11:50 AM

Session 1:

  • What if joy was the foundation of our neighborhoods, our housing, and our movements? This workshop invites participants to explore The Joy Access Framework as a radical tool for resistance. We’ll ground in the politics of joy, how systems of oppression have denied us rest, safety, and pleasure, and how reclaiming them fuels our collective survival.

  • Explore the roots of housing policy, tenant movements, and renters’ rights in this interactive session. Learn how to take action and advocate for housing justice in your own community.

  • This panel brings 2SLGBTQIA+ leaders in housing into conversation. The discussion will cover the challenges, barriers, and successes experienced by queer professionals in their fields. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions. The panel aims to highlight the queer spaces created within and outside organizations, reflect on past changes, and look forward to future opportunities for 2SLGTBQIA+ professionals, ultimately emphasizing that ‘You’ are not alone and can bring your authentic self to work.

  • A sacred space. A radical mission. A panel you won’t want to miss.

    Join board members from Quest House Community Healing as they share how this grassroots sanctuary supports transmasculine folks recovering from phalloplasty & metoidioplasty—free from stigma, fear, or judgment.

    ✨Intergenerational joy & connection ✨Personal stories of comfort, care & transformation ✨ Dreams for the future

  • Who gets to call a place home? This panel unpacks how housing injustice for queer and trans people is rooted in property norms, family structures, and societal gatekeeping.

    Let’s reimagine home—not as a reward for conformity, but as a right.

  • This Fresno-based initiative is building generational wealth through: 🔑 Bilingual homebuyer education & counseling 💰 Up to $30K in down payment & closing cost grants 🏦 Flexible mortgage options, including ITIN-based financing 🤝 Support for immigrant families ✊ A mission to close the racial wealth gap

    Together, we’re opening doors to equity, stability, and community power.

Noon Session

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Noon Session *

  • This moving tribute to Yemaya channels the ocean’s life-giving force—fertility, protection, and deep emotional power.

    Through dance, performers tell a story of grounding, resistance, and self-discovery. It’s a struggle between self and society, and ultimately, a journey inward to reclaim identity and truth.

    🌊Let the waves carry you.

  • From Compton’s Cafeteria to GiGi’s Place to COVID-era mutual aid, trans communities have long organized through abandonment. This intergenerational plenary explores how we build just trans housing futures—through mutual aid, political education, and rural-urban solidarity amid rising attacks and government retrenchment.

  • While you grab lunch or wait to meet the authors at our book signing, take a moment to explore the virtual art gallery and connect with a few of the featured artists. It’s a chance to nourish yourself, celebrate queer creativity, and reflect on the stories that shape our movements.

  • 🍽️📚 Lunch + Book Signing Refuel your body and spirit with a community lunch followed by a special book signing featuring authors whose work uplifts queer and trans housing justice. Break bread, share stories, and leave with inspiration you can hold in your hands.

  • While you pause for lunch, swing by the Resource Fair & Consultations to connect with local organizations, housing advocates, and support services. Whether you're seeking guidance, tools, or just good conversation, this is your chance to tap into community wisdom and walk away with something tangible.

    Come curious, leave empowered.

2:30 - 3:20 PM

Session 2:

  • In a time of bans and backlash, Queer stories remain lifelines and liberation tools. Join writers and educators as we celebrate radical texts, uplift new voices, and share ways to protect Queer books today.

  • Curious about unions but not sure where to start? This session offers a beginner-friendly dive into what unions are, what they’ve accomplished, and how you can begin organizing in your own community.

    Learn the power of radically horizontal organizing and how transformative solidarity can lead to real wins. Whether your union-curious or ready to mobilize, this workshop is your launchpad.

  • What if naming our dreams was the first step toward making them real? Join us in a brave (enough) space to share, witness, and co-create dreams that spark autonomous collective action. Participants receive the Peer Exchange Toolkit, and all notes + emerging practices will be shared freely in the Culture Tending Commons to inspire future joy-making.

  • Despite a housing system built to exclude us, queer communities have long imagined and built alternatives. This workshop explores radical models of safety and belonging—from STAR House and the ballroom scene to today’s queer housing collectives. Learn from new RWJF-supported research on queer and trans community-owned spaces and discover the organizing and financing strategies turning vision into reality.

  • This roundtable invites prospective college students to reflect on how leaving home for higher education shapes our understanding of home, belonging, and responsibility. Drawing from lived experience, the presenters explore the tension between growing academic privilege and staying rooted in our communities of origin—especially amid ongoing gentrification and displacement. Through shared consejos (advice) and practical tools, they offer strategies for sustaining identity, resisting assimilation, and honoring home while navigating new spaces. Participants will leave with frameworks to build bridges between academic growth and community care.

  • Federal and state laws are designed to protect people from discrimination—but too often, those rights go unrecognized or underutilized. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to identify discriminatory behavior, understand your legal protections, and take action to safeguard yourself and your community.

Afternoon Session

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Afternoon Session *

  • Stay tuned for announcement of Keynote Presenters…

4:30-5:20 PM

Session 3:

  • We will explore why LGBTQ+ young adults face disproportionate challenges when securing housing and employment.

    The workshop isn’t just about identifying problems—it’s designed as a solution-focused space that equips both agencies and individuals with tools and strategies to support LGBTQ+ youth in navigating these critical issues.

    Engage in discussions and solution mapping alongside practitioners, youth advocates, and community organizers.

  • Join us to workshop the Sustainable Economies Law Center’s policy proposal to remove barriers to queer housing. By queer housing, we mean housing for non-nuclear families and for nuclear families living non-privately. We’ll focus on undoing the prejudice-ridden legal history that distinguishes between group housing and dwelling units.

  • How do we co-create radical connection? This roundtable dives into what it takes to build brave community spaces for dialogue, creativity, and care. Participants receive the Peer Exchange Toolkit — plus all notes and practices will live free in the Culture Tending Commons for others to use and grow.

  • Explore how tools from the world of Agile can transform the way we live, organize, and resist.

    In this hands-on session, you’ll learn simple yet powerful methods to navigate shared living, build mutual aid networks, and take collective action—like organizing to buy your building. Whether you're cohabiting with roommates or building a movement, these tools will help you collaborate with clarity, care, and joy.

    Come ready to learn, connect, and take action.

  • Join California’s own uxo architects, a worker-owned cooperative, as they share insights from designing queer-affirming housing — from youth support projects to a 30+ unit build for 2SLGBTQ+ residents. Dive into their ongoing research on non-nuclear housing models in Humboldt County and take part in a facilitated discussion on lessons learned, radical design, and co-created community spaces.

  • Join Housing Now! Executive Director Francisco Dueñas for a deep dive into California’s bold legislative push to protect renters and expand permanently affordable housing. From banning junk fees and strengthening anti-rent gouging laws to securing $500 million for community-led housing preservation, this campaign connects urgent tenant protections with long-term investment strategies. Learn how you can help build a statewide movement for housing justice—because keeping families housed isn’t just policy, it’s power.

Summit Finale

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Summit Finale *

  • To close out the Queer Housing Summit in true celebratory fashion, join us for a dazzling performance by a lineup of fierce local Drag Queens who bring joy, resistance, and radical self-expression to the stage. Expect bold looks, powerful storytelling, and unapologetic artistry as these performers transform the space into a living archive of Queer resilience.

    From camp to couture, protest to pageantry—this is more than a show. It’s a tribute to the communities that make housing justice possible, and a reminder that celebration is part of the revolution.

  • To close the Queer Housing Summit, poet Juan Luis Guzmán offers a final reflection—an invocation of memory, movement, and possibility.

    It’s not just a farewell, but a call to action—a reminder that our stories are blueprints for liberation.

    Let Juan Luis Guzmán words guide us forward with tenderness, clarity, and resolve. The summit ends, but the work—and the dreaming—continue.