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Loading ...‘These kids are invisible’: An LGBT youth shelter in words and pictures
Photos by Lucky S. Michaels
It’s a gorgeous mid-September Tuesday evening in New York City and the setting sun warmly glows over the streets of Midtown. Chelsea, New York’s gayest enclave, shifts into party mode just a few blocks south. To the northeast, the world is starting to queue up for Broadway hits. Meanwhile, commuters rush to the comforts of home.
But for thousands of gay youth in Gotham, there will be no partying, no theater, no playing tonight.And once again, no home.
Estimates say that a staggering 20,000 young people are homeless every night in the city, – anywhere from a quarter to a third of those are LGBTQ kids. A lucky fraction of that number has found its way to Sylvia’s Place, tucked here on the city’s far west side, so near and so far from so much wealth.
Sylvia’s Place is the subject of a new documentary shot in 2006 which followed seven LGBT teens who frequented the shelter. To see what Sylvia’s place is like now, I step into this surreal and humbling world to meet with Kate Barnhart, director of Sylvia’s Place since 2004.
Tonight, like every Tuesday evening, dinner is being served by a small team of volunteers from the adjacent Metropolitan Community Church of New York. I take a seat on a metal folding chair next to Kate’s desk, not quite sure where to put my manpurse amidst the overflowing boxes, plastic bags, and just plain stuff that’s everywhere. She motions for me to throw it into the area behind her, with a dozen other backpacks and handbags.
“Behind my body is the safest place, so everyone stashes their stuff back here,” she says.
Sylvia’s takes its name from Sylvia Mae Rivera, a veteran of the 1969 Stonewall uprising who just a year later co-founded STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), an assistance group for the city’s young homeless trans community.
In the late 1990s Rev. Pat Bumgardner, senior pastor of the MCC, hired Rivera to run the church’s food pantry, only to be amazed by the crowds of young queer folk in need drawn by the charismatic activist. On Rivera’s deathbed (from liver cancer in 2002), Bumgardner promised that the church would create a safe space and night shelter for desperate LGBTQ youth who had nowhere else to go.
And so Sylvia’s Place was born in early 2003, and has ever since provided disenfranchised young gay people aged 16 to 23 with such simple necessities as dinner, bathroom facilities, somewhere to sleep for the night, breakfast in the morning, and – perhaps most important – a listening ear and an encouraging voice.
They do all this on a ridiculously small budget, with a shoestring staff of mostly volunteers, in one 2,500-square foot room, despite the (quite understandable) unpredictability of the clientele.
NEXT PAGE: ‘We take people until we can’t fit anymore.’
Wow, that was a powerful story…I had to hold back tears. The youth of today need that kind of love and support from all adults…I am just speechless to think of anything else to say.
Oh Dear!
I want to help these kids, I want to help the TG people find shoes to fit. I want to ship a printer all the way from Canada.
Here is the problem, when I google “MCCNY”, I see links that say “reconnect with God ” and “join a community of faith”. These links provide more than enough evidence to me that my donations are going the wrong way.
Please find a way to keep God and Faith out of it and the international queer community will give.
I have been hurt way too many times by those of faith to give to an organization who promotes it.
Good luck to you, I want to give but will not support any organization based in faith.
I just can’t give to LGBT’s with “Faith” on their side and I feel bad, I want to help those kids.
Be good, I will help you when religion is not part of the equation.
Brad, although I’m an agnostic who has also been “burned” by religious folks, I’m not going to punish these kids in need.
MCC is one of the most liberal, gay-friendly churches out there. You should read a bit more about them.
My rule is, if the work they are doing is good, and no one else is doing it, I don’t care if it’s a religious group or not.
Not person of faith is an enemy of the queer community, Brad, and it doesn’t help our cause (GLBT equality), nor does it help these kids in need, for us to continue to treat all people of faith as the enemy.
So, go ahead and help these kids anyway, regardless of the group doing the helping. You can even include a note with your donation, saying it is coming from someone who is not a person of faith, but that you still understand the work they are doing is good.
Great story!
These are our kids people and why every successful gay man or lesbian out there isn’t donating is beyond me.
Why are shelters like “Sylvia’s Place” struggling?
Even though I don’t have any money, I’m making a donation now. I hope everyone else who has read the article does the same.
I would have to disagree with that comment Mike in Boston: If you want to help someone why do you need to acknowledge GOD? Im an atheist and found that the religious bible thumpers have ruined the whole bunch and left an awful nasty taste in mouth. Religion needs to get pushed back into the closet and not stop telling people how to live. That goes for Catholic/Muslim/Evangelical….etc
The book “Shelter” can also be obtained by calling MCCNY at 212-629-7440… 100% of the proceeds go directly to MCCNY Homeless Youth Services to benefit our shelter program.
Brad, and others in the queer community who share his view ~
Your willingness to help the kids at Homeless Youth Services and Sylvia’s Place is admirable. And, the aversion you express toward MCCNY and all things god/faith-related is an understandable one for anyone in the queer community who has faced the kind of persecution we have from religious folk.
However, the reality on the ground here in New York City, and frankly around the globe, is that mainstream (straight) society doesn’t care about these kids (as this article points out) and the non-faith-based queer community isn’t doing much of anything to address their considerable needs. The additional reality is that it’s the queer people who attend MCCNY (like Lucky, like me) and our allies – both queer and straight, people of faith and atheists, agnostics and secular humanists – that are making a difference in these kids’ lives through the valuable work that Homeless Youth Services does.
No one at MCCNY proselytizes these kids. Ever. Instead, the services there provide them food, clothing, shelter and refuge from a world that’s largely hostile to them.
Brad, you and others, might also be interested to know that one of the biggest barriers we face to fund-raising is the anti-faith sentiments of the queer community. I hope you won’t let that stand in the way of helping these kids.
Peace,
~ Jessie
We’re getting involved and we have no intent on pushing religion. This isn’t a faith issue, it is a humanity issue. We’re shipping out 500 toothbrushes today. More support will follow.
Archbishop Simpson
Benedictine Order of St. John the Beloved
Thank you for this story. It makes me want to go right there and help raise money. If I’d come out as trans as a youth, this could easily have been me.
Sonam Ben
I’m am almost 30 now, but I was homeless when I was 19 because of family issues. I cried so much reading this article. Luckily, do to my own strength and a local church that helped me, I have turned my life around. I finished community college, now have an AA degree in graphic design, my own apartment, and a wonderful boyfriend. I will be sending a donation to help out as much as I can for the next person who needs it.
I agree with brad – no way i would ever consider giving money to an organization affiliated with “god” or “jesus” regardless of who they are trying to help. They do too much damage in the process by spreading their religious ideology to others like a disease. No money from me – I only donate to secular organizations.
Hubs has like 50 pairs of size 13 mens shoes, so some of those are going. Some other stuff, if I can find anything useful in the garage.
The ONLY reason I’m giving is because these kids are working and in school.
Gay, straight, or whatever…I have no deep abiding need to help people just sitting on their butts whining.
You besurprised what org. support & don’t support, in some way gay org.As Salvation army doesn’t.I sure most don’t know this.Is as some who work there.But some still help reguardless of orders of the ignoranting laws.
I appreciate your comments on not wanting to be involved with religous groups. I was raised in a fundamental type church that seperated me from my family for decades. I know the damage they can do to the average LGBT child (person) however please understand that according to this hart breaking article it is MCC Metropolitan Community Church
founded by the GAY REV Troy Perry. I have met him on a number of occations, and use to attend his first church in L.A
when I lived in California.
This is not your run of the mill evangelical type church. This was the first church that was founded for gays primarily. I remember how nice it was to be able to go some where and be a part of something that was not a bar or park or a bath to meet other gay folks. The message was and still is very positive and very embelishing to the gay community and their needs.
This is the last place that would do anything to harm the community.
My point is if you can donate to this so needed cause, please do so and know that any item or money you donate will make life a little bit more tolarable in a world that is still so crule in many ways.
In this case I deeply hope you reconsider.
i would like to take in the kids who r homeless because they r gay. i am gay but when i told my parents they accepted me and they told me they will always love me no matter wat i am. i feel sorry for these kids and it makes me want to cry!!!!