Actress Bea Arthur donated $300,000 to the Ali Forney Center in New York. (Photo by S. Buckley; courtesy Bigstock)

NEW YORK — A New York organization that serves homeless LGBT youth is scheduled to break ground on July 20 on a new facility that will be named in honor of Bea Arthur.

Ali Forney Center Executive Director Carl Siciliano will join several local elected officials at the groundbreaking of the Bea Arthur Residence for Homeless LGBT Youth on East 13th Street in Manhattan’s East Village. The facility — which is slated to open next year — will have 18 beds for homeless LGBT youth.

Arthur, who died in 2009, bequeathed $300,000 to the Ali Forney Center in her will. The New York City Council and the Manhattan Borough President in 2012 approved $3,300,000 to renovate the building in which the residential facility will be located.

“It meant the world to me that a star of the magnitude of Bea Arthur would do so much to help the Ali Forney Center in our work of housing homeless LGBT youths,” said Siciliano in a press release. “I am very grateful that we will now be able to honor Bea and continue to keep her compassion alive through the establishment of the Bea Arthur Residence for Homeless LGBT Youth.”