Keshet and the Hebrew Free Loan Society are partnering to offer interest-free loans of up to $10,000 for individuals and families to support relocation costs to another state because of anti-LGBTQ+ laws, policies, and climate in their current state of residence.
Applicants do not have to be Jewish and can be moving from any state in the U.S. to any state in the U.S. (but not outside of the country).
To qualify, applicants must meet the following requirements:
Applicants may still be considered for approval if they have current employment but no guarantor, or if they have a qualified guarantor but are not currently employed, provided there is sufficient overall ability to support repayment.
Initial funding for this program is provided by the Jewish LGBTQ Donor Network.
To begin the application process, fill out this screening form. HFLS staff will reply within a few days.
To learn more details about the terms of the loan, visit HFLS’s site.
If you have additional questions, reach out to Eddie Ramos-Kleinman at [email protected].
If you’d like to donate to the Move to Thrive program, you can do so here.
If you are looking for additional resources, check out this list from the Human Rights Campaign.
“From Inauguration Day on, we have received so many calls and emails and texts from trans people and from people with trans kids who suddenly feared not being able to access the health care that they know they need for themselves or their kids to stay alive. There were lots of panicked calls, particularly from parents,” [Idit] Klein said. “David [Rosen] and I reconvened and quickly agreed, ‘We have to make this happen.’”
“Ci and her family were able to relocate from Alabama with the help of Move to Thrive… Ci found a job in finance at the local Conservative synagogue, which she says embraces all kinds of diversity. ‘I think the saving point really has been finding this position within our local shul, and being able to experience that love and that connection within our own people, that we had wanted for so long, but had no access whatsoever,’ she said.”
“Many of our own families have relocated at different times throughout history to different locations because our safety was undermined, and right now, those same sort of alarm bells of our shared history, of our collective memory, are certainly ringing right now because of the vast number of LGBTQ+ individuals, including LGBTQ+ Jews, who are feeling forced to relocate to a different state for the sake of their own and their family’s safety,” [Jaimie] Krass said.
James Glick, who used a Move to Thrive loan to relocate from Texas to Minnesota with his wife, told JTA that the loan had brought him “life changing relief” after he watched anti-trans policies intensify at the Dallas school where he taught.
“I remember when we got the confirmation email, like we both just sat and cried and hugged each other,” they said. “It was just so difficult to move across the country, but it would not have been possible without that help.”
“To have a Jewish organization recognizing that something like this was happening to the trans community, when so many people around me were saying, ‘It’s not that big of a deal, you need to calm down, like you’re going to be fine, why are you freaking out?’ – it was like, oh, no, people do acknowledge and understand that,” Glick said.
“It was also just a signal out to the world that the Jewish community sees that this is going on, cares about this issue and is moving to do something about it, that two organizations who don’t normally do things together, would figure out a way to collaborate to make this happen,” Rosenn said. “It is not just something that is to the benefit of borrowers, it’s also a message about what the Jewish community is trying to accomplish in the world.”
“Move to Thrive came from one organization, Keshet, not a big organization, and another, Hebrew Free Loan Society. We’re not talking about the Gates Foundation or Mackenzie Scott. I read this and I thought: “Why are we not seeing more of this from bigger players”?”
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