A Place To Go

St. Andrews Chapel at Carmen’s Place.

Transgender Street Teens Find A Home

By Matt Hampton

Carmen’s Place on Steinway Street is located in a small apartment with just a handful of rooms – the kitchen and bathroom on one side, the living quarters and makeshift chapel on the other. The two halves of the apartment are united by a narrow hallway, adorned with framed artwork, unframed paintings on paper, and a crucifix.

It is cluttered and cramped, but the staff and those who reside there are thankful for what they have.

Carmen’s Place is a shelter for transgender youth, the only one of its kind in the world, according to shelter director Father Louis Braxton. He, along with a handful of volunteers, runs a shelter that provides food, housing and educational counseling for between six and eight young people, all of whom identify as transgender. Carmen’s Place currently houses only young males who identify themselves as female, though in the past they’ve had others, sometimes both at the same time.

“The youth that we serve are not the easiest to get along with,” Braxton said, sitting in a folding chair in the modest chapel. The room is sponge-painted yellow to match the gold candleholders, standards, statues and plaques in the room. “Kids who come to our shelter, the real reason is mental illness,” he continued. Braxton added that Carmen’s Place is a last resort for all of the youth that they counsel, adding that their clients are taken directly off the streets.

According to Braxton, and the last New York City census, there are between 4,000 and 6,000 homeless youths in New York alone and many estimates go well over 10,000. It’s been estimated, he added, that 60-percent of all homeless youths are gay or transgender. Taking that into account, it’s hard to believe that Carmen’s Place is the only shelter that takes in exclusively transgender teens.

As a result of this specialty, the shelter takes in donations from all over the world. Places as varied as New Zealand, South Korea, the Netherlands, Portugal and many other nations, donate money through the shelter’s Web site in an effort to keep Carmen’s Place afloat. It’s the money, Braxton said, that is the constant problem, and has been since the inception of the shelter.

Originally, Carmen’s Place was under the auspices of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, not far from its current location. The shelter, through donations from congregants and the use of church resources, was able to take in transgender youth and counsel them. But as the neighborhood around St. Andrew’s changed, the 100-plus-year-old church started to lose money rapidly and was forced to close its doors Jan. 1 of this year.

“Suddenly, the homeless shelter itself was homeless,” Braxton said.

To make matters worse, the shelter had lost its source of income, and now had to find a new home. It wasn’t easy to find a new landlord willing to take in a homeless shelter for transgender youth, but Carmen’s Place was able to put down new roots on Steinway Street.

“Of course, now we’re penniless,” Braxton added. “We have zippo, zero, nada. We depend on volunteers….We survive, sometimes we have literally no food to eat, and then someone will come along with $150 [donation] and the pantries are full again.”

Despite their upcoming establishment as an official non-profit organization, Carmen’s Place is in a constant financial struggle. Braxton also said that local politicians have been helpful, but only rarely with funds.

The homeless mentality of the youth in their care contributes to that, as teenagers at the shelter often will eat anything and everything in the house, a mechanism developed from living on the streets.

Despite having to live on the razor’s edge, Carmen’s Place doesn’t seem desperate. In fact, the atmosphere in the shelter is one of family unity, where judgment of others gives way to understanding and encouragement, and most of all, love.

“I love them like they’re my own,” said Kathleen Davis, a volunteer who works six days a week at the shelter for no pay. “I couldn’t understand their lifestyle at first; I was very sheltered growing up.” Now, Davis keeps the books and monitors the ins and outs of life at the shelter.

Braxton said that by showing unconditional love to the teens in his care, he’s trying to teach that anyone can love and be loved, even if their past has shown them the opposite, or worse.

“Most of these kids have been sexually molested,” Braxton added. “Sexually abused kids tend to be over sexualized, so I’m continually striving to get them to cover up.”

As Braxton spoke, Michelle, a current resident of the shelter, entered the chapel in a short jean skirt and baby doll t-shirt, mid-riff exposed. Braxton tugged the corner of her shirt down, in an effort to encourage her to expose a little less skin. As he did this, Michelle slapped his hand away and ran to Davis, who has teenagers of her own and understands the temptation to dress provocatively.

“Don’t touch my shirt,” Michelle said, as she walked away. The whole scene is reminiscent of a family. Older adults and teenagers, clashing over clothes, food, time in front of the bathroom mirror. Mirror-time, Braxton said, dominates the thoughts and intentions of all of the youths that Carmen’s Place shelters, a result of their constantly present body-image and representation issues.

Ultimately, Braxton said, Carmen’s Place is about taking homeless transgender youths and helping steer them back into functional society.

“Our goal is to reconnect them to the city. Some of these kids have not even been in school since the seventh grade,” he added. The encouraging signs, the things Braxton looks for, is evidence that the youths in his care are thinking about the future. Its then, he said, that he knows they’ve turned a corner.

“I like to see that they buy their own MetroCard,” he said. “I received such a wonderful compliment the other day and she didn’t even know she was saying it. ‘Y’know, I buy my own MetroCard,’ she said. ‘Thank you. I can take care of myself.’ It was so wonderful to hear that.”