Ruby Corado, the founder and executive director of the D.C. LGBTQ community services center Casa Ruby, announced in a Facebook live video message that she had resigned from her position as leader of Casa Ruby effective on Friday.

Joining Corado in the Facebook broadcast was Casa Ruby Government Affairs Director Alexis Blackmon, who Corado said would immediately assume the position of interim executive director until the completion of a search for a permanent director.

Last year, Corado disclosed she planned to step down as Casa Ruby’s executive director sometime in 2022 to work full time on an LGBTQ-related consulting practice that she said she had begun part-time while continuing her role as Casa Ruby executive director.

In her Facebook announcement, Corado said she decided to step down at this time in response to an ongoing dispute with the D.C. government which resulted in a decision last week by the D.C. Department of Human Services to discontinue its $850,000 annual grant that has funded Casa Ruby’s emergency “low barrier” shelter for homeless LGBTQ youth and adults.

DHS has declined to disclose its reason for terminating the Casa Ruby grant, saying only that it will continue its full funding for services for LGBTQ youth who experience homelessness through grants to other organizations.

DHS informed Corado of its decision to discontinue the grant less than a week before the end of the fiscal year, with the funding set to stop on Sept. 30. At Corado’s initiative, Casa Ruby launched a GoFundMe fundraising campaign that had raised just over $100,000 as of Friday, a development that Corado says highlights the community’s support for Casa Ruby and its numerous programs, many of which support transgender people and LGBTQ immigrants.

Corado stated in her Facebook announcement that officials at the DHS, who she did not identify, were attempting to use her as a “distraction” to divert attention from the harm Corado said would come from the city agency’s decision to defund the Casa Ruby homeless services program.

Earlier this week, Corado said she believes the defunding of the Casa Ruby homeless program allegedly came in retaliation for a Casa Ruby complaint filed against the DHS by Casa Ruby earlier this year. The complaint charges that a DHS official had acted in a hostile and abusive way toward Corado and Casa Ruby staffers who were operating the homeless shelter.

Corado said she also believes the defunding may be in response to her refusal to agree to a DHS request that she move the Casa Ruby homeless facility to a location in Northeast D.C. that Corado believed to be an unsafe neighborhood for her clients, especially those who are trans. DHS declined a request from the Washington Blade for comment on the Casa Ruby complaint, saying it was under investigation.

In response to a question from the Blade at an Oct. 4 press conference on an unrelated subject, Mayor Muriel Bowser said she would “make the Department of Human Services available” to address the Blade’s question of why Casa Ruby’s funding was not renewed for its LGBTQ shelter program.

“We do business with organizations all the time,” the mayor said. “And sometimes we continue our relationship and other times we don’t. Largely it is based on an evaluation of the effectiveness of the program. So, I can say that.”

“And I can also say there are opportunities all the time for organizations to work with us,” Bowser continued. “And in some rounds or contract rounds it doesn’t work out and in subsequent rounds it might. And that may be the case with Casa Ruby.”

A DHS spokesperson did not respond to a Blade follow-up question this week asking for the reason the agency terminated the Casa Ruby funding.

Corado couldn’t immediately be reached on Friday to determine whether Casa Ruby had raised enough private funds to keep its main shelter open that has operated out of its headquarters building at 7530 Georgia Ave., N.W. In its GoFundMe appeal, Corado said the shelter might be forced to close on Friday.

Blackmon, an African American trans woman, recently received a degree from Georgetown University in the field of nonprofit management, according to Corado, who called Blackmon a highly committed and knowledgeable Casa Ruby team member “who everybody loves.”

Corado also stated in her Facebook broadcast that she will take a three-month sabbatical after which she will return to develop a stepped up private fundraising program for Casa Ruby so that the organization will no longer be dependent on D.C. government funding.

On the same day Corado announced her resignation, the local nonprofit homeless services organization Covenant House Greater Washington announced it was opening on Friday a homeless facility for LGBTQ youth in the city’s Deanwood neighborhood in Ward 7.

“Covenant House Greater Washington is pleased to announce SHINE — a new safe space initiative created for LGBTQ+ populations,” the group said in a statement. “The program will provide emergency shelter, crisis stabilization and short-term housing options to young people in the greater Washington region.”

The statement says the facility, a three-story building, consists of 24 beds, case management services, and “an array of support from various community-based organizations currently working with LGBTQ+ youth.”

The new Covenant House facility adds to the LGBTQ youth homeless facilities currently being operated by Casa Ruby and two other LGBTQ organizations for more than a decade — the Wanda Alston Foundation and SMYAL, the D.C. LGBTQ youth advocacy and services organization.

The Washington Post reports that the DHS awarded Covenant House a $648,000 grant to create and operate its new LGBTQ youth homeless facility.

In its statement announcing the opening of the new facility, Covenant House said the facility will be led by its newly hired program director, Taylor Chandler Walker, a trans woman who has been involved with local LGBTQ organizations; including Capital Pride Alliance, Us Helping Us, and the LGBT Budget Coalition.