Thanks to your generous support, dear taxpayer, Affirmations LGBTQ+ Community Center in Ferndale was able to add a queer billiards group, a fantasy book club, and a fiber arts group to its list of services last year.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services provided over $6 billion to nonprofits in 2024, including Affirmations, according to a Freedom of Information Act Request.
Affirmations’ mission is to provide “a welcoming space where people of all sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and cultures can find support and unconditional acceptance, and where they can learn, grow, socialize, and feel safe.”
According to their most recent annual report, 52% of their funding comes from “government funding”—your tax dollars. A large grant was made available by U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens through the Community Project Funding Federal Program.
Past and current events include gender name-change clinics and a queer finance workshop. Middle-schoolers can attend a Queer Utopia Creativity and Expression Lab. The group offers a Rainbow Reading Program for kids in grades 4-8.
Last week, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel was granted a temporary restraining order in her efforts to block the Trump administrations termination of $379 million in grant funding to Michigan Health and Human Services.
Nessel says: “This is our money. This is money that we paid to the federal government that came back to us in the form of grants.”
It might be our money, but using it to fund LGBTQ programs for youth isn’t appropriate.
Other highlights of nonprofit spending by MDHHS included:
- Nearly $1.4 million to the Ruth Ellis Center, a Highland Park LGBTQ+ Youth Center committed to affirming gender-confused youth
- $358,000 to Kalamazoo-based ERACCE (Eliminating Racism and Creating/Celebrating Equality)
- Nearly $60,000 to Migrant Legal Aide Inc., a nonprofit committed to protecting legal rights of migrant workers
Read the FOIA here.
Anna Hoffman is a hockey mom of three living in Ann Arbor. Follow her on X @shoesonplease.
