Wendy Kaplan

Original Air Date: August 27, 2023

Wendy kaplan heads the Trinity Place Shelter in NYC, for homeless LGBTQ youth

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Sunsteen Sessions on iHeartRadio,Conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Gracie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to Wendy Kaplan. She's thedirector of Trinity Place Shelter, which houses
up to ten young people at anygiven time, most of them transgender men

(00:22):
and women of color. And Ifound Wendy because I faithfully read The New
York Times every single Sunday, andI saved the Metropolitan section for next to
last. I saved the styles forlast, but my second favorite is the
Metropolitan section because on page two wemeet a New Yorker and find out their

(00:49):
routine for a Sunday morning. Andthere was Wendy Kaplan, and I had
never heard of her good work,and so I reached out to her and
here she is. So tell us, Wenday, how Trinity Play Shelter came
to be. Okay, First,I just want to say thank you so
much for having me here today andto speak about Trinity Place Shelter and shine

(01:15):
a light on some of the issuesimpacting LGBTQ youth and youth homelessness. So
thank you so Trinity Place shelter.Actually, it's origin stories is pretty wonderful
and inspiring. So originally the shelterstarted it was a passion project, a

(01:38):
pilot project. The folks in thechurch were very aware of the dire need
impacting LGBTQ youth. I'm not sureif you're aware, but over forty percent
of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ,so it's quite disproportionate. General population shelters

(02:06):
are not safe for young people whoidentify as LGBTQ. I can't tell you
how many horrible stories I've heard ofyoung people facing verbal abuse, physical abuse,
sexual abuse, and general population shelters. So the folks who started Trinity

(02:27):
Place were aware of this and awarethat they needed to create a safe place.
In fact, it was the foundingexecutive director who is also the pastor
of Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan.In her words, she said, the
church has propagated so much hate andit is in part responsible for this issue

(02:51):
that it's incommon upon the church nowto be part of the healing. So
those are some of the tenants onwhich Trinity Place Shelter was formed. So
originally it started more as a cristiousshelter, and just a bunch of activists
and advocates came together to open thechurch in the evenings to young LGBTQ people

(03:15):
needing a safe place to sleep atnight. And the project was so successful
that they decided to make it permanent, and that's how Trinity Place Shelter was
born sixteen years ago, and sadly, there's still a dire need in Trinity
Places here today. We have folkspeople ask who lives at Trinity Place Shelters.

(03:43):
So we have young people who arecoming from all over the Tri state
area, rejected by their family,coming with multiple layers of trauma. But
we also have young people really refugeesfrom other part parts of the United States,
in particular a lot of Southern states. We tend to see escaping not

(04:06):
only families, but communities that arehostile to who they are. And we
also house folks coming from all partsof the world, again, escaping communities
that are often violent and it's notsafe when for them to live, so

(04:27):
they come to the United States,they come to New York, they come
to Trinity Place seeking refuge. Soour young people vary an age range from
eighteen to twenty four and that's quiteunique. Most use shelters, folks are

(04:48):
discharged the day before their twenty firstbirthday. Often when you're taking money city
policies and funding from the city,the deaf and of youth and Youth shelter
is up to the age of twentyone. So we've designed our program at
Trinity Place a little more strategically sowe can take young people up to the

(05:12):
age of twenty four. So oftenwe're getting people arriving the day of their
birthday, a few days before theirbirthday. It's very bittersweet, but we
greet them with a big birthday cakeand celebrate them and that's just the beginning.
It's a little bit of what wedo at Trinity Places. We celebrate

(05:33):
the young people who live here,their identities, their full selves, and
it's a very it's a very specialplace. How do you differ from Covenant
House, Because when I have spokento Covenant House, they too mentioned how

(05:53):
large the LGBTQ community is among homelessyouth. Yes, so, gosh,
Covenant House does fantastic work and they'rehousing over two hundred young people right so
it's quite a different operation. Wehave established a very homelike environment. We

(06:19):
have ten beds. Okay, soten young people and all of our residents
are LGBTQ identified, unlike Covenant House, which is for all young people.
Right. What's also very unique isthat again Covenant House folks have to be

(06:43):
discharged before their twenty first birthday,and we expanded the age range. So
what's also different is the amount oftime we allow young people to stay at
Trinity Place. So most you shallit's say thirty to ninety days at Trinity

(07:05):
Place. We really have designer programvery strategically, we want to disrupt the
cycle of homelessness. Thirty to ninetydays is not giving young people enough time
to heal from multiple layers of trauma, get all the resources they need in
place, the services they need inplace, and the permanent housing they need

(07:28):
in place. So folks at TrinityPlace can stay up to a year and
a half and that is very uniquein this environment and in my opinion,
vital I want Trinity Place to bethe last stop on this journey and for
people to leave Trinity with stable housing. And I'm very proud to say that

(07:55):
over eighty percent of our young peopledo achieve that, and that's a fun
all statistic that certainly is. I'mspeaking with Wendy Kaplan. She's a director
of Trinity Place shelter, which housesup to ten young people at any given
time, most of them transgender menand women of color, And as Wendy
just mentioned, they can stay forup to a year and a half and

(08:18):
they take between the ages of eighteenand twenty four, unlike other shelters.
For you, do you do youtry to get these young people to reconcile
with their parents? What do youdo about that whole issue, because in
large part, I mean, wouldn'tyou say the most common reason for the

(08:41):
homelessness is that they were kicked outof their house or they just felt so
as strange from their parents that theyfelt they had to leave. Absolutely,
that is the number one reason isrejection from family of origin. And unfortunately,

(09:01):
the majority of young folks who cometo Trinity Place that reconciliation that work
is not feasible at this time.What we do encourage we don't ourselves have
the capacity to be digging in anddoing that work directly, but we utilize
all the community based resources around us. So that includes mental health counseling and

(09:30):
counseling and therapy is often really abeautiful and right place in which to start
to work on those issues and healand often bring in family, work on
communication skills, right find a placeto come to understanding. Trinity Place Shelter
is staffed by primarily social workers andfolks with a master's degree who are trained

(09:58):
in trauma and for care and workwith our residents on some of these issues,
how to speak to their parents.We don't actually ourselves get in and
broke are those relationships? We don'thave the capacity to do that at this
time, but it's always a verymuch alive topic where people are at with

(10:20):
their families and how to heal fromthat. From some people it's just not
safe. Other people, there iswork to be done, so it's different
for each person, but it isa really vital place of healing and repair
that I think when we think abouthow to end youth home, Oh you

(10:45):
just froze, hopefully you come backto us too. They're just that and
that I think are young in ourschools, right, Wendy, How do
you find out that you even exist? Do you have to do outreached or
how do people know that you're there? I wouldn't have known had it not

(11:07):
been for the New York Times.Yeah, So we don't do outreach.
We work very closely with community basedorganization also serving homeless youth, homeless LGBTQU
youth, and they are aware ofour services. There's just not enough beds
in the city. So we allknow each other and work very closely.

(11:33):
And so these other agencies will referthey're young people to us. So that's
how we do it. We don'ttake self referrals. We ask that referrals
are made by a social worker,by a case manager, a school counselor,
and believe it. Yeah, folksfind us sadly, we don't need

(11:54):
to do outreach. There's okay,But if a kid is listening now and
saying I need help, where dothey go so that they can possibly end
up at Trinity Place shelter if theyneed to be sure, So I would
recommend There's a number of sort oflarger agencies and drop in programs that serve

(12:15):
homeless youth onless LGBTQUTH. One ofthem in the city is called the Ali
Forni Center. They have a dropin program, they have case management,
they have crisis overnight and because Trinityplace shelter is not a crisis shelter,
right, Folks can stay for ayear and a half, So it becomes

(12:37):
the next step in the application process. There's okay, I'm going to throw
a curveball your way because this issomething I've been thinking about a lot.
We just moved to Midtown. Weonly have it like two minutes left.
I just moved to Midtown, soI've noticed that Midtown is basically deserted most
days of the week, certainly onFriday, it's like it goes town and

(13:00):
I look across my offices and yousee the Burlington House and you see floor
after floor after floor unoccupied. Iknow it would take a lot, but
in terms of reimagining these office spaces, they could be retrofitted to become low
income housing. Are you doing anywork along those lines. I love your

(13:26):
beautiful vision, and you are absolutelyright. There are so many empty spaces
in the city that could could reallyhelp move the housing issue forwards. So
we don't have the capacity to bedoing advocacy work. So what we do
instead is we partner with critical agencies, vital vital agencies doing that work.

(13:52):
One of them, in particular iscalled Coalition or homeless youth and they do
beautiful, important work advocating for allagencies serving this population. And what do
you need in a minute or lessfrom our listeners, Oh, thank you
for asking. So first of all, it's important to know that Trinity Place

(14:16):
Shelter is a brick and operation.Right during the pandemic, we could not
go virtual. So we are payingfor space, we are paying for heat,
we are paying for the beds forour young people to sleep on.
So having funding to do that wedon't take funding from the city is critical.
So your donations really are key tosustaining this vital work. Secondly,

(14:43):
I invite you when you think aboutvoting, find out what the platforms are
of the people you're voting for.Are they considering homeless people, homeless youth
right? Know who you're voting forthat matters, right, and this can
help direct our dollars to supporting theyoung people who are in desperate need.

(15:03):
Okay, And all you have todo if you want to help out or
you need more information, you cangoogle Trinity Play Shelter. Thank you so
much, Wendy Kaplan, Thank youso much really for giving us this platform.
If thank you have a great Rightnow, you've been listening to Sunsteen
sessions on iHeartRadio, a production ofNew York's classic rock Q one oh four point three