Trinity Place Shelter

We would use the money to expand our mission. Presently, it takes all we have to maintain our work of sheltering and supporting LGBTQIA+ young people thrust into homelessness. When we opened in 2006, our hours began each evening and ended each morning. During the day, the youth engaged in activities elsewhere- school, internships, jobs or various day programs. When COVID raged through New York City, everything the youth did during the day shut down. We made the risky decision to open 24/7 to keep them safe and healthy and remain open 24/7. 

Generous donors and foundations giving money specifically because of the pandemic helped, but that has now stopped. During this time, we’ve also seen the value in offering more opportunities for our residents. If we had the Elevate funding, we could fulfill three dreams.

1.      Expand our hours for the sake of our present number of residents.

2.      Increase the numbers of young people we engage by opening a day program to include non-residents.

3.      Identify and partner to fit out a building for next step housing.

ELEVATE could also help increase our visibility to find and engage new partners who share our vision and hopes.  

I have been a pastor for 30 years. A decade ago, I discovered my paternal German Jewish roots. I learned that my grandfather was murdered in the Shoah, along with many other relatives. At that time, we had already opened Trinity Place Shelter for homeless queer youth. It galled me that the church played a central role in the dehumanization and demonization of those who arrived here, often kicked to the streets by their families for religious reasons. I believe that churches need to stand against such hatred, work for change and address the pain they have perpetrated. That is what sparked my vision to open Trinity Place in the church I serve (although TPS is non-sectarian and separately incorporated) and it was joined by others.  The discovery of my family history has only fueled my passion. I could not hear the cries of my murdered kin, but they cry out through the voices I can hear- including queer youth scorched by hate. We work to change that, to repair the world, one life at a time. In the future, we hope to reach more, to change more stories of trauma and suffering into stories of hope and joy.

It is estimated that there are between 4000-5000 unsheltered youth in New York City annually; at least 40% are LGBTQIA+. Nationally, the number increases to 400,000. In many parts of the world, criminalization and murder exacerbates the vulnerability of these youth, although such atrocities also exist here. 90% of the youth we see are Latino or African American. Some are rejected by families elsewhere and come to NYC seeking greater acceptance, others are local. Some are refugees fleeing for their lives. All are at high risk of HIV/AIDS, violence and suicide. 40% state they have considered suicide in the past year, rising to 85% of transgender youth.

Trinity Place is a transitional shelter providing a caring, safe place for these youth, at a critical developmental time, with opportunities and resources to heal from their trauma and develop skills needed to secure employment and build a secure and meaningful future for themselves. We offer: 10 beds in a safe, healthy space, nourishing meals, a place to shower and groom, storage space, laundry, Metrocard for transportation, one-on-one guidance from  social worker staff, workshops on legal rights, financial literacy, cooking, art, tutoring help and a family atmosphere with milestone, birthday and holiday celebrations.

One thing that makes Trinity Place unique is time. Other shelters have a 30 or 90 day limit. It is absurd to imagine that queer youth who are often deeply traumatized survivors having faced years of rejection, life on the streets, hunger, assault, abuse and illness will be on their feet in 1-3 months. Significantly more time is needed to begin a process of healing and undertaking the many steps needed to move out of homelessness. Transgender youth face even greater discrimination which increases the length of their job search. Trinity Place residents can stay up to 18 months, allowing time to disrupt a cycle of moving from shelter to shelter, or back to the streets. Another unique aspect of our work is scale. We are small, but our small size enables us to have a big impact and we've served over 600 youth 10 beds at a time. 83% of our residents secure permanent housing upon leaving, an exceptional number. This is due to the caring, family atmosphere with the intensive one-on-one staff support the youth receive due to our size. Most importantly, ALL staff are social work professionals trained in trauma informed care. They make all the difference.

On the last Transgender Day of Remembrance, our director gave each resident a flashlight with a quote from Maya Angelou:"Let nothing dim the light that shines from within." That is the impact we hope to have on humanity- that the sacred light within each person shines through the forces of hate and dehumanization, thereby making our world a more radiant, beautiful place for all. In order to shine, people need safety, shelter, food, health care, education and work. People also need a loving, caring community to guide them, believe in them, support them and cheer them on. Trinity Place strives to offer all of that as described in answers above. I believe that the combination of what we offer directly (stable, clean and safe shelter, food, guidance to prepare for and find work, to enter and succeed at school including computers and internet access), what we offer  indirectly (collaborations that offer health care and further psychiatric counseling along with a range of things from on-site hair cuts to legal support) and last but not least, loving community with social workers who offer the direction, support and warmth every person needs and deserves, especially those who have been denied it. 

35 presently (limited during part of the year due to COVID)

100+ anticipated

We seek to overcome poverty, hunger and discrimination and violence targeting young people based on sexual orientation and gender by helping youth move from homelessness into stable housing and securing a safe present and future with economic opportunities and promise. We do this by providing a safe living space with access to nourishing food, intensive support, job training and access to appropriate healthcare including mental healthcare. We also seek to positively impact how people understand the injustices experienced by these young people, including legislative changes.We literally seek to save the lives of youth targeted for death in some of their home countries and increasingly for Black transgender women in the US.  We primarily measure progress by tracking what happens with the young people we work with to the extent possible. 

Barriers include 1. a competitive funding environment, especially related to pandemic impact 2. systemic barriers such as inadequate minimum wage, lack of affordable housing and lack of supportive housing, restrictive immigration laws, religious bigotry that increases the trauma of the population we serve 3. Our low visibility due to the need for staff to focus primarily on direct service. 

We are presently diversifying our funding resources by building a new advisory board specifically charged with fundraising, reaching into their networks- social, philanthropic and work-based, to leverage new funding. We have deepened relationships with our community board, city council and state assembly to work for legislative change. We have a new work readiness program with paid internships that better equips young people to enter the work force. I have written two books that in part seek to address religious bigotry and I am a speaker on the subject. 

Honestly, this amplification is something we desperately need but have not had the human or financial capital to pursue in a serious way. We have tried to do this through part-time internships but we have not had the skills, focus and other resources to be effective. We have been able to develop more and more connections with people who are interested and supportive of our vision and work and who, I believe, could all be galvanized to share our platform and lift up our brand. I believe that the support of Elevate would enable us to provide the fan base we have with resources to share their enthusiasm more effectively as well as to reach many new people. This larger audience would help us both educate more people about the injustices we address and would enable us to connect with new funders that would give us enough resources to focus on growing in new directions. One such direction is establishing a day program that would reach young people beyond those who live here. 

We work on building and deepening relationships with those who express interest through volunteering, donating (both money and in kind items), connections with those showing commitment to the same population we work with. Hiring people from the same communities as our residents- the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color and people who have experienced housing insecurity. Seeking out those same identities among those on our board and including inviting former residents to membership on our board. 

Our staff are all professional licensed social workers and mental health providers trained in trauma-informed approaches or models of care and resilience. Many of them hold a second job in which they work with similar populations and gain further experiences. I have supervised over 50 students during the past several decades who have taught me how to support and encourage the varied and diverse gifts of present and future leaders. 

When COVID hit NYC, our shelter was operating in the evenings and overnight. Very quickly, everything the young people did during the day shut down. They had no safe place to go. It was urgent to figure out a way to reduce the chances of our residents and staff contracting the virus and how to address any infection. I met with our director and we decided to open  24/7 with the best health practices we knew at the time. We asked residents to agree to very limited forays outside the building during the worst of the pandemic. In the many months before the city made arrangements for people in need of isolation to stay in hotels, we made our own such arrangements were it to become necessary. We took these steps as a risk not knowing if we could sustain them, since we decided on this course from one day to the next, not knowing if we would have the funding, but it seemed like a life-and-death situation, and we needed to do everything possible for the sake of the vulnerable young people here. I am proud of the way all residents and staff handled this extra stressful time,

abc.com/shows/good-morning-america/video/vdka7173234

The funding will free up some of our creative time to work on new hopes such as expanding to include a day program. We would like to hire a very part-time financial secretary to assist our very hardworking pro-bono treasurer. We anticipate five to six thousand dollars for this position. We would also like to hire a clinical supervisor for our social work staff so that our director can devote more time to networking and deepening a wider set of relationships for the sake of the shelter. Expanding to a day program would require increased social work staff and therefore supervision. 

The main organizations we partner with are the Ali Forney Center, StreetWorks, Covenant House and The Door. They refer clients to us and we also refer clients to them for some services like drop centers, currently still closed because of COVID.

NYLAG for pro bono legal services.

Protect Stay for culturally affirming medical services.