Carmen's Place shelter has new home

One month after they were told to vacate the St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Astoria, Carmen's Place, a homeless shelter for gay and transgender youth, has found a new home in the same neighborhood.
Thanks to donations made on the shelter's MySpace page from around the world, the shelter was able to raise $40,000 in a month, which will be used to pay for rent in their new two-bedroom apartment along with food and MetroCards, which are given to the kids to travel back and forth to work. However, the shelter will need to keep raising money to pay for the space once these funds run out.
Although other churches had offered to give the shelter free space in Brooklyn, Carmen's Place organizers wanted to stay in Astoria, where they feel the neighbors have already become accustomed to, and are welcoming towards the kids.
&#8220Astoria and Woodside are becoming gay-friendly areas,” said Michael Dropp, who serves on the shelter's board of directors and has been the church's warden for the past 17 years. &#8220I'm straight so I don't have personal experience in these issues, but I see what these kids go through, and I think it's important that they are loved just like everyone else.”
Born out of a conversation on the number of transgender youth in the neighborhood, Carmen's Place was founded a year ago by Father Louis Braxton with the aim of taking in several of the estimated 12,000 transgender young people in the city. Currently it is in the only shelter in the city geared towards homeless Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) youth.
At times, the number of kids and young adults, whose ages range from 17 to 24, staying in the two-room church basement was as high as 15, but organizers said they've had to cap the number of kids because of space and financial constraints.
&#8220I turn away two, three people who call for placement everyday,” Braxton said, explaining that they try not to turn away the kids most in need.
One of the shelter's 11 residents, &#8220Michelle,” has been staying at the shelter for almost a year after running away from Georgia because of problems at school and within her family.
&#8220I know deep down that I am a woman, and no one can tell me differently,” she said.
Michelle said that in another city shelter she was mistreated because she is transgender.
&#8220The staff there, they called us names - retards, idiots, freaks, it,” she said, explaining how she remembered an advertisement she had seen about Carmen's Place before coming to New York. &#8220After a crying phone call to Father Braxton, I ended up here.”
At Carmen's Place, Michelle, now 19, has taken GED classes and plans to take the test next month. She wants go to beauty school and practices the craft on her housemates and Dropp's daughter, Nina.
&#8220This feels like home to me,” Michelle said.