Carmen's Place

After a very long road Carmen’s Place has been able to keep its doors open to the, transgender, gay, lesbian youth which it shelters. All the residents are primarily from the ages of 17 – 24 years old. The shelter began in a small Episcopal mission congregation that took seriously the call of the Gospel… "“Anyone who welcomes one of these young ones in my name welcomes me...”Mark 9:37".

The shelter was located in the basement of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church until it was decided that the church should close on January 1st 2007. The closing meant the shelter was homeless and the residents had nowhere to live. With the help of many generous donors Carmen’s has moved down the street from its former location to one located in Astoria Queens, close to subway, bus, shopping and the Rainbow center.

Our aim at Carmen’s Place is to transform these young lives from the chaos, ignorance, and the brutality of performing sexual acts for money, food or shelter and living in the streets, to stable adults contributing to society with a self reliance that meets the best of each individual’s abilities, free of shame.

Without Carmen’s Place to shelter them, these young people would have a number of choices to make each night. There’s the street, a shelter where being beaten up or raped is the reward for being too different or bartering sexual favors for a place to sleep. Procuring a job outside of prostitution, finishing high school, enrolling in college, getting necessary physical and mental attention, or finding stable housing, are just a handful of the things that are nearly impossible without help. Overcoming the terror of filling out an application, or of going to an interview and finding something appropriate amongst merger possessions, are all much harder than changing into something provocative in the ladies room at a McDonalds and going back out again and doing the only thing they feel they are good for, Prostitution.