Original subtitles

- [Danielle] A lot of times I feel like

people wanna fill their void.

They want to feel like, they want to feel whole.

So whatever you gotta put in you to fill your void,

that's what they're out here trying to do.

(gentle music)

- [Giovanno] If the world was unified, if we can be

on the same level as everyone else,

I don't think I would have ended up in the situation

that I ended up to begin with

because I felt like I was outcasted.

- [Benaiah] When I first got here it was very scary.

It was pouring rain that night so I had to buy

trash bags to cover my stuff in.

I had come to accept myself for who I was,

but I didn't understand why they couldn't.

- [Noel] All my friends (mumbles), they know everything.

Well, mostly everything.

There's some things that I keep to myself.

- [Benjamin] I came to the city naive, really.

It's not easy being who you want to be.

As a gay person you just have to go out there,

you have to find yourself.

- [Carl] Everything was failing these kids.

These kids having nowhere to go

put their lives in extreme risk.

I felt like I had to become like a warrior

and start to fight, to change the situation.

- It is pretty cold tonight so I'm not sure how many

youth we'll see but I was pretty surprised

to learn that young people are out on the street

pretty much year round.

If they're actively homeless then they really have

nowhere else to be.

Here, do you want to just take a couple of these?

Can I tell you really quickly about our services?

Just real quick.

Just tell your friends.

We work for the Ali Forney Center,

we're doing outreach tonight and we primarily

provide housing and other services

to LGBTQ youth, a lot of times when young people

come out to their parents, their parents

kick them out of the house

so if y'all have any friends or know of anybody

who is in that situation if you could just

let them know that who we are?

We're just doing some outreach.

We work for the Ali Forney Center.

They estimate that as many as 40%

of homeless youth are LGBT.

- I know a lot of (mumbles) on 42nd Street now,

that's where I'm about to go.

- Oh really?

- Yeah.

- Like near Times Square?

- Yeah.

- 42nd Street (mumbles).

- Oh, good to know.

Yeah, the hope is that we can become

familiar faces who young people see

and maybe learn to trust.

(chattering)

- Welcome to sex talk.

(cheering)

- If you were going to date yourself,

what would your pick up line be?

(laughing)

- I'm Katie, I prefer she or they.

I don't have a specific line but I like to be

wooed with words so anyone who tries to get me talking

is probably gonna have a good chance.

- My name is Benaiah, you can call me Ben,

PGP he/him always, and I don't really have a pick up line

that I'd like to hear.

I guess same thing, I just like people to talk to me.

Compliment my eyes, that's something I like.

Anyway, I don't admit it usually.

Well you see my dad's a Baptist pastor.

As far as the Baptist, like the spectrum goes for churches,

he's more strict versus other churches

and very strong religious beliefs.

No tolerance for homosexuality

and in their eyes it's a sin and with God's help

or through prayer you can be helped of it.

When I was nine I was playing with some kids

at the park, the kid called me gay for whatever reason,

he was just throwing the word out there.

I went home and I asked Mom because that was a word

we never used in the house, I had never heard it before,

my parents were very careful to isolate those type

of words from the house and so I asked him like

what does that mean, and she told me those are

little boys who like little boys or men who like men,

those are people that are sinners, they don't follow God,

they go to hell, and the moment she said that I knew

for myself like that's me.

I hated myself, I prayed to God every night that he

would help me, make me better, because I thought

it was something wrong with me.

I knew I needed to go somewhere so I started going online,

trying to find LGBT shelters, LGBT homes, anything.

And all in all in the end AFC seemed like

the safest one or my best bet.

One of my friends came and picked me up,

I put the clothes in her car and we went

down to the bus station.

I got on the bus and immediately once I sat down

when the bus started moving I felt a sense of relief.

- Well the first time Ben came we had to notify ACS

since he was under 18.

We were both really worried that maybe the police

were gonna show up or something like that.

- I remember sitting in the back office with Lisa

and she's on the phone and I was like petrified,

I thought I was gonna have an anxiety attack or something,

I was freaking out.

- But fortunately we got it all squared away

and it's been great to see him relax a lot

over the last few months.

- When I first got here it was very scary.

I knew where I was gonna sleep that night,

I knew where I was gonna go the next morning, AFC,

but I had no idea what would happen from there.

Where I'd go on my journey.

- My name is Noel, I'm 20.

I came out in November of last year as transgender

to my parents and it didn't go well.

I had like three suicide attempts.

I spent the winter break with my parents

and one day I just went to my friend's house,

she stays at FIT, and we just had like a girl's night

and I had put on makeup and stuff

and I had forgotten to wash it all off the next day

and I went back home to Long Island and as soon as

I walked through the door my dad noticed

the eyeliner on my eye and he was like

this is the last straw, we gave you a warning

if you ever did something like this again

we were gonna kick you out.

So he threatened to call the cops and forced me to leave.

And so I looked up Ali Forney on Google

and they had a bed open for me right away.

I got really lucky.

While I was still living with my parents

I secretly came over to (mumbles), the hormone place,

and they were like there's a meeting today for trans girls

if you're interested in going.

And I was like yes because I've never even met one

and then I went and that's when I saw my first trans girl.

I just was so happy 'cause she was so pretty

and I was like oh my God, that's something to look

forward to.

Coming here was the hardest thing for me

because I left everything behind

and started from scratch just to be myself.

With the support of everyone that I have now

and my sis, stuff like that, life is just so much better

when you get to be yourself.

And I couldn't do that at home.

(soft music)

- This thing is not sturdy.

My name is Giovanno Marone.

I haven't seen my mother in a while.

We have a very broken relationship.

She was scared every time I would go out

because she saw on camera once the things that I did

and it was literally me jumping a 10 story building gap

to another building and it got to the point

where she just told me to leave one day.

The first week we were spray painting, tagging everything.

And we came across this Domino sugar factory

that was shut down because of asbestos poisoning

and someone had the smart idea of getting on top of it.

We managed to get up there and when we did,

it was beautiful.

Huge view of the entire Manhattan in front of us,

turn around, huge view of Brooklyn and we literally

set up camp.

We would walk into any supermarket and we would buy

maybe $20 worth of food and walk out

with about $120 worth of food.

People get up every morning, they go to work,

and they come back with a paycheck.

We get up every evening and we would go out

and come back with whatever we wanted.

We were almost like anarchist.

We didn't believe in conforming.

That's pretty much what inspired me

to stop going to school 'cause I felt controlled.

I did a lot of volunteer work at the gay pride day

and they told me about this place and at first

I was completely opposed to it.

After a while I did change my views and I gave it a shot

and they are helping me.

And I am actually trying to get back into school.

(soft music)

I want to prove to myself that I can excel

in being a part of society as well as

being on top of it.

- I'm Benjamin Samantha.

I'm 20 years old and I currently reside at a shelter

called Trinity.

When I came here I was like alright,

so I have to buy my own food and everything

and when she showed me the kitchen she's like oh,

we bring food for you guys I was like oh,

there goes that.

You know it's definitely a stable environment.

A few things happen here and there but I mean

that's a shelter, what can you expect?

I mean don't get me wrong you have a place

to lay your head at and I'm grateful for that indefinitely

but at the same time it's not a place

you would want to stay in.

Yeah, this isn't permanent for me.

- The shelter started seven years ago.

It was a particularly harsh winter and the church

realized this is something they can do.

One of the beautiful tenets behind it is that in some

regards the church has been responsible for generating

so much homophobia that it was almost incumbent upon them

to do this, to be part of the healing.

- As I told my mother, I didn't choose this.

I didn't wake up one day and decide to be gay.

At first actually it was no issue.

I came out and she accepted.

It wasn't until later on, I guess she thought

I would come to terms that I really preferred

female over men which was not the case

and still isn't to this day so I guess she couldn't accept

it and it started becoming a habit for her

to call me faggot.

It was an issue at home.

I took matters into my own hands into leaving.

I was kicked out but I had the option of coming back

and I chose not to come back.

I'm throwing myself into school, I want to do

computer engineering, I could go back home,

be dependent on Mom, or I could just be that 20 year old

who wants to make it in life

and that's what I intend to do.

(soft music)

- I'm Danielle Wardlaw, I'm 22.

Right now I'm living in Jamaica in the women's shelter.

When you look on the outside it looks like a prison.

It's not like Ali Forney Center, it's not homey,

it's depressing, but it's also very motivating

because I know I'm not gonna be there forever.

I always thought I could suppress the feeling

so it was just like a lot of time I knew that I was gay,

I just couldn't say it out loud.

I thought I was gay in ballet class.

We used to take off our tutus and hit each other with it

and that was my favorite part of class.

I don't know why but that was my favorite part of class.

I know I probably don't look like I'm an attractive female

but I'm my father's youngest child, I always dressed up

so I didn't come out of the closet until I was about

maybe 17, 16.

He didn't want to talk to me, didn't want me in the house,

after a while we argued so much and fought

that I just left.

So I had to find other ways to support myself.

I'm gonna show you where I used to sell drugs.

Percoset, weed, even beer at one time,

just anything to make ends meet, to have somewhere

to stay for the night.

So this is where it begins.

Right here you got the Chinese restaurant.

If you got to meet somebody in the Vill,

maybe they'll meet me at the Chinese restaurant

next to the bodega, this is it,

this is the meeting spot.

The hardest thing about selling drugs is giving the person

what they need to kill themselves.

My mother was a crack addict, a crack cocaine addict,

and she was a prostitute and it's like I knew

since I was six years old that there was something

wrong with her.

Somebody gave her the means to kill herself,

she died of an opiate overdose.

So yeah.

I've had nowhere to go, just sat there for hours.

And then I get up and go to school the next day.

I find trials and tribulations everywhere I go,

but school is my safe haven.

Really it always has been.

I gotta be honest.

Even when things weren't going right at home

when I was smaller, school was always the place

that I was okay and that's pretty much what it is now.

Even though I'm not okay like in my living situation,

I'm always okay 'cause I got school

and that's like the only thing I have.

(laughing)

- Me and my mother have never had a great relationship.

She's kicked me out several times and I've always come back.

But this time when she kicked me out she said

don't come back, you don't have a bed here so yeah,

I went to my aunt's house for probably like

less than a week, my aunt got tired of me,

and she kicked me out and I didn't have nowhere to stay.

A friend brought me to AFC and that same day

I was sent to Sunset.

It is stressful not knowing where you're gonna

sleep at night, I'm not gonna lie,

but you just gotta be a strong person,

you gotta like really have your goals

and what you wanna do, I wanna go into

the entertainment business.

Singing, performing, an artist.

My goals are to do better than anyone in my family.

- I have been working with homeless youth since 1994.

I became the director of a program called Safe Space

in New York City and it was a drop in center

for homeless youth and it wasn't LGBT specific,

but about a third of the young people that would

come to us were LGBT.

There were thousands of homeless youth in New York City

and there was one shelter and the LGBT kids in specific

had nowhere safe to go and they were just

out on the streets.

Almost all of them survived through prostitution,

almost all of them became addicted to drugs,

but the most horrifying thing for me

was every couple of months one of our young people

would get murdered on the streets and Ali Forney

was one of the young people that I knew very, very well

who had been coming to my program every day

for several years who was murdered

and that experience really galvanized me to start

the Ali Forney Center.

We're in this cultural moment where younger people

are feeling emboldened to come out

and nobody is more at risk.

Nobody faces more catastrophic harm from homophobia

than these young people do.

This is Raymond, my husband.

Isn't this amazing?

- This is fantastic.

- I mean this is bigger than the entire day center,

just this one room.

- I love it.

- Oh my God, Ally Sheedy's here.

Hey Ally.

- Oh, oh my God.

- So it's 6:40, you wanna start at 7 on the dot,

turn the music down, turn the lights down.

- Yeah my guess is people are still gonna be

wandering in for the next 10 or 15 minutes,

don't you think?

(applause)

This is such a milestone in the life of the

Ali Forney Center and I thank all of you for making

this happen.

Now we didn't plan to be here yet.

We thought we still had some months to work

on renovations and raise some of the funds we needed

for the renovations and the hurricane destroying

our drop-in center on 22nd Street kind of forced the issue.

So you've come in to like stage A.

We did an initial cosmetic renovation just to get this

up and running as quickly as humanly possible.

From the day that we first opened our doors

10 years ago, we were turning away about 100 kids a night.

And it's only gotten worse.

By a year ago we were turning away 200 kids a night.

And we started doing drop-in programming

because we wanted to be able to work with the young people

that were on the streets waiting to get into beds.

The really remarkable accomplishment here is not just

that we've moved into a huge space,

but that we will, within a few months,

be able to be the first drop-in center that's open

24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Many years ago I used to be a monk.

And we would pray seven times a day.

And at night before we'd go to bed we had a prayer

called complin and I remember we would sing

this ancient hymn where we would ask to be protected

from the dangers and the terrors of the night.

To be out there by yourself in the cold, in the dark,

that's when you face your demons

harder than any other time.

That's when you feel hardest being abandoned by your family.

You know when I was a teenager,

I was tormented by something that Ally Sheedy said.

Which was when you grow up your heart just dies.

Your heart just dies when you grow up.

And this is a room full of people who prove that

when Ally was young she was wrong, or her character

was wrong.

(laughing)

Her character was wrong.

Because you all are people whose hearts are alive

and the goodness of your hearts, collectively,

are going to enable us to so much better protect

young people in the day and in the night.

So thank you from the bottom of my hopefully alive heart.

(applause)

When I was young-er--

- You still are young.

- When I was younger, I used to fantasize about sex.

And now I fantasize about--

- [Raymond] Sleep.

- Sleep and high carbs.

(laughing)

You know, my heaven right now to me would be

to lay in bed with a pizza.

I'll drive home at night, I have this long drive home

at night and I'm just so often thinking about the fact

that there are these other kids who are in

abandoned buildings or riding subway trains

and it makes me miserable.

I don't feel like my work is done as long as there are kids

who don't have beds at night.

- Funding that we got from the Administration

of Children's Services, it's giving our youth

work experience, which a lot of them don't necessarily

have the opportunity to have.

- [Noel] Okay I'm taking the chair.

- No.

- [Noel] There's no other chair.

- It's nervewracking to go out and apply for a job

if you aren't able to really present

the way that you'd like to present,

so being able to offer an opportunity for them

to be getting work experience in an environment

where they're gonna feel safe and be able

to bring their full selves is really exciting.

- Some days they teach us what to do like out in

the field, other days it's like making the safer sex kits,

and then all the rest of the time we're doing outreach.

I'm thinking about the stipend I'm getting

from this internship and what I'm gonna do.

I want more electrolysis and some money aside for savings.

Have you guys heard of the Ali Forney Center?

- No.

- Okay so it's a program for LGBT youth but

specifically for LGBT youth but we outreach to all youth

but yeah if you guys ever need it.

- Not that I have to worry about getting

anyone pregnant, but I appreciate it.

- That's not the only reason people use condoms,

it's for safer sex.

Have you heard of the Ali Forney Center?

You have?

When I first came to AFC it was hard for people

to call me she and her because I was dressed as a boy.

The time period to start hormones from when you ask

to be on them to when you actually start

is like a long time, like four to five months.

I started a month ago.

I was happy, obviously, but I was like okay

this is like the actual start.

Before it was just like getting dressed up,

putting makeup on.

But people are telling me they've seen a lot of changes

already.

Hi, would you like some free condoms?

- Condoms?

- Condoms.

- (mumbles)

- How old are you?

- I'm 23.

- 23?

Have you heard of the Ali Forney Center?

- About what?

- Ali Forney.

- [Man] Ali Forney?

- The Ali Forney Center.

It's an LGBT housing place, it's for homeless kids

from the ages of 16 to 24.

So you still fit that category.

- Thank you.

- And we provide housing and case management

and a whole bunch of services.

- [Woman] Are you over 25?

- He's 23.

- [Woman] Okay, you have to go to intake

at the drop-in center

then can kind of go from there.

Do you want to do that?

- [Man] Yeah, I'll check it out.

- [Woman] Okay so this card there

it has our address on there.

Cool.

- Thanks.

- No problem.

- I want your number.

- So come to the day center then.

- Oh (mumbles).

- No, no that was the guy over there.

- He was like I won't take it unless I have sex with you

and she was like.

- No I said what?

That's a reason not to take condoms,

'cause you wanna have sex with me?

Oh my God he was so cute.

(soft music)

I'm not flirting, it's not me.

Free condoms?

Free condoms.

Just take them, free condoms.

I'm planning on going to cosmetology school.

I know a lot of girls who have done it.

But that's not what I want to do,

that's just to have like a little trade on the side.

I want to go to school for psychology.

I just always have been able to connect with people

and I like listening to people talk.

I got hired as a resident assistant at my college

and the reason they told me that they hired me

was because I'm so open to talking to people.

I don't know, everyone likes talking to me I guess.

Woo!

- High fives all around, word, ha ha ha!

- Peace.

- Brief slide on language 101.

We were pretty certain that most people working

at Ali Forney are comfortable with the language

surrounding cis and trans.

- I'm Katie Moeller, I'm the clinical coordinator

which means I oversee all of the mental health services

that we have here and then I have a small case load

of my own.

The trauma that most of them are coming in with

and the experience of being homeless in and of itself

more often than not there are some mental health needs

there and then it's just kind of a matter of

whether a young person is willing to engage in that

and then also what resources we have available

at the time.

- I'm Joey Lopez, I'm an outreach specialist here

at the Ali Forney Center.

I've been clean 17 years, as long as I've been working

for Carl, I've been clean.

Carl didn't want to hire me 'cause he thought

I was still too fresh from the street.

I'm definitely not the same person I was 16 years ago.

I was the oldest brother and I ended up getting

caught up in street life

and selling drugs and then becoming addicted

to the drugs that I was using which then led me

to becoming homeless.

I was eating out of garbage cans at one time in my life.

And I didn't die on the street and for me that was like,

it was like there's a purpose for you and that's not it.

Due to the life that I lived on the street

I became infected with HIV, I'm HIV positive.

I do this work because I love to do this work.

And in a weird way interacting with the young people

helps keep me alive.

It just, there's something that happens inside

every time I come to work that it just does.

I just want the young people to realize that

though they're in a situation that they're in now,

that situation doesn't have to define them

for the rest of their life.

I get a little emotional talking about it.

'Cause I never would have thought I'd be here

and I should be dead, I really should.

I did a lot of crazy stuff out there.

And I just don't want that to happen

to any of our kids, that's all.

- Oh you smell so good.

- Had an interview with these people, got that job

and it was really good.

They have coaches and depending on what we want to do

for our life like what goals do I have,

what do I want to accomplish and from there

they pick a coach that's gonna match me

so I'm getting the best I can out of it

and as they are too then I work under them

for the whole time and at the end they decide

where they're gonna place me

as far as in the company itself.

- Do you have a piano at the new house?

- No.

- You should take it 'cause no one uses it here.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- I would take it, I have the adapter you gave me still.

- Cool.

(singing)

I mean I'm inspired every day and Ben's one person

in a huge 77 bed organization and every other person

in our beds has a different story with an amazing drive.

I think it's easy for humans to feel defeated

and not want to work at what they want or need

or just kind of give up and crumble into yourself

and it's not that we don't see that here but

they want something better for themselves

and they don't want to be where they were.

- I'm kinda in a stuck position but at the same time

I'm working on a few things.

I want a business where I can,

not promote the black community but to get the community

where they once were.

That's like in complete opposite of what I want to do

in college which is computer engineering

and cyber security so.

I love productivity and that's what I wanted to do

in my entire life, stay busy, so that's where I am.

- Okay, we're gonna start on chapter 11.

Why do you think it's important to develop a new product?

For any company?

- I go to Briarcliffe College.

I'm studying business management theory.

I'm getting my associate's degree so I need

six classes plus an online class that they let me take

for free.

It's a private school, very expensive, like for me,

so I get complete financial aid.

It's just been a blessing I can even pay for it.

I think other companies send spies, you know.

- Oh that happens a lot.

- Right, so if I was a company I'd think the smartest thing

I would do was to send one of my workers

to be employed at all the other companies,

my major competition.

So every time something goes off we right there,

we all let me tell you what happened, you know

what I'm saying?

I started working with a company called CutCo,

I don't know if you've heard of it, Vechtel Marketing.

It's like the worst direct sale company

I ever worked for.

But I worked for them for a while

and I made like 3,000 in like two weeks

so I realized like I can really sell things.

Hold on, I need to take a.

'Cause I get emotional.

I'm just good at it.

I look at a person, I know what type of customer you are,

I know what you like, and I just need to know

the ins and outs of it.

Oh my God.

Oh, okay, it's not that bad.

The way he gave it to me I was scared.

- [Professor] I always fold it.

- I know, but it always makes me nervous.

I think every day the hardest thing about going to school

is getting there.

Right now I'm living in Jamaica but it's not

a set in stone thing.

It can change at any moment.

I was living in the Bronx last semester so I was already

up at 4:30, by 5 was at the house,

and then I have a 45 minute train ride

to an hour and a half bus ride to another 30 minute

train ride.

I don't own my own computer.

I have papers that sometimes 10, 15 pages.

I'm in libraries, I'm in AFC, so it's like,

it's a struggle, but I know that I need to be here.

I need to be here for real.

(soft music)

- Which one do I go to?

I'm not sure which one to go to.

- [Woman] Um, the thick one?

The thick one?

- Thick one?

- [Woman] Yeah.

No.

Stop.

- It's dead.

- [Woman] Great, you're climbing a dead tree?

- No, just that part was sick.

I could go higher.

- [Woman] Please don't.

- No, okay, okay, unstable, unstable footing.

I did it.

(laughs)

Did I beat it?

Okay.

Everything is getting better, slowly, gradually,

and with a lot of effort everything is getting better.

I got the job from talking to an old friend of mine

who was working there for about a week

and he said that someone just got fired.

He asked me if I needed a job and I said I was

job searching right now actually so he said to come in

the next day when as soon as I walked in they gave me

the job.

The majority of the work that I do is downstairs,

outside of the kitchen, but when the rush comes in

then I have to go upstairs in the kitchen

and I've been working there for three days now

and I'm exhausted.

Because I work from 7 to closing, 7 in the afternoon,

I can still go to school so I definitely plan

on doing that.

(playing piano)

- I feel like we were talking about looking at college?

- [Benjamin] Yes.

- You're looking at CUNYs.

- And then I have a new job at Ali's.

- Are you still working at was it Game Stop

you were working at?

- No, well Game Stop they were just too inconsistent.

- Okay.

- I just dropped them.

And then Pie Face became an issue and then recently

I dropped them.

And I'm looking for like interns, I mean

this is just a thought that jumped into my head earlier

but interns for business and everything so I can

get my feet wet with that.

They don't have anything for that here, right?

For business or anything?

- Internships in business?

Not that I know of.

But I mean City College will probably have--

- [Benjamin] Most likely.

- They'll probably have a list of resources

in which like other people have gotten internships.

Do you know if internships are necessary

or is that something you just want to do.

- [Benjamin] No that's me personally,

I want to get the experience.

- Okay.

Okay, a good place to go would be idealist, idealist.org,

do you want me to write that down

or do you already know it?

Okay.

- Definitely be good because over the course of schooling,

by the time I graduate I definitely want to have

a lot of hands-on, definitely a lot of experience

with business.

So yeah.

(laughs)

But that's good.

I now know, 'cause I was only sure for a good minute

as to what I wanted to major in.

'Cause for the longest time, even before somebody

mentioned it to me I was thinking about business

but I wasn't sure but it's definitely the way

for me to go, so yeah.

- Is there anything specifically in business

you're looking at?

I know you said like accounting, economics.

- Honestly specifically no because my idea is to

dip and dive into different things and not just to

oh, do this one thing and then go into something else.

It's like, at the end they're gonna all circle each other,

it's gonna, I'm gonna have a part in each and everything.

So I'm definitely, definitely, yeah,

I definitely have some thoughts running through my head

at the moment.

But business I think is the way for me to go.

- If you need me to write a letter at some point

for any of the schools you're applying to in regards

to maybe getting fees waived.

- I may have to get something from you also

for being homeless because of financial aid so we'll see.

- [Caseworker] Alright.

- So.

(soft music)

- I moved like a month ago and it's amazing.

You have a lot more freedom and curfew is later

and you can cook your own food.

I speak to them on the phone occasionally

but I don't know, I don't know how I feel about it

'cause my mom has like gone crazy.

The last time I spoke to her she told me

that she folds and washes my clothes every week

since I left in hopes that I'm coming home.

And my dad keeps telling me that I've been

possessed by the devil.

He says, he was like this is crazy, the devil is so strong

and it took a child away from their mother,

stuff like that.

I was like okay, took me away from you too.

I have a lot of guilt going on in me,

but people are telling me to look past that,

like you didn't do anything wrong, but at the end

of the day I still feel like I did something wrong.

I feel guilty because my family has been torn apart.

Like my parents, they don't talk to each other,

they're angry, my brother, he's just in school,

he's in his senior year and he just doesn't care.

I don't know, it's weird.

And we were all we had in this country.

The rest of our family is all in India

so it was us four, now it's them three and me.

We went to church every Sunday.

I'm a spiritual person as well but I don't believe in like

the bible tells you so.

I just like having something to rely on

when there's nothing else to rely on.

(soft music)

- I'll walk by like the Upper West Side

and the Upper East Side and I see these beautiful

buildings and I see the cars and I see the people,

how they look, the business suits,

and I see the kids coming from private school

and all that bothers me.

I feel like crying just thinking about this.

It really bothers me that I'm so poor,

it really does and I know that that's gonna allow me

to just reach better things.

I'm gonna do a lot of big things, you're gonna see

my face places, I'm telling you.

It's just, there's no other way.

My father always gave me the best,

he always showed me the right way to go,

it's something inside me that I know

I'm not gonna be like this forever.

- One of the biggest things that come up a lot

in the work that I do here in our therapeutic

relationships is the shame and the low self-esteem that

I feel from a lot of them.

I think based on a lot of their experiences of trauma

and systemic oppression and feedback about

whether it's their sexual orientation or other

identities that they have that are marginalized

in our society, they carry a lot, I experience many of them

as carrying just a lot of really deep shame and sort of

this deep core idea that they did something wrong.

That inherently that their experiences must reflect,

because they've had such difficult, challenging

experiences and encountered so many barriers

that the conclusion must be in a really deep way

I am defective, I am broken, I brought this on myself.

- When I think about what it means for a young person

to be homeless, I think one of the hardest things

is just this feeling that you're out there on your own

and that nobody loves you, or that nobody cares enough

about you to get you out of this horrible situation.

And I feel like all of us as human beings, we need that.

We need to be loved.

(chickens clucking)

Here you go, Sophie.

So Raymond had this dream that when he turned 50

he would move to the country and raise chickens.

And so the year that Raymond turned 50,

we started looking and this was actually the first house

we looked at.

I mean we looked at some others but I don't know,

I just felt like I was in heaven when I was here.

It felt like home.

I grew up for the first eight years of my life

in a town called Bronxville outside of New York City.

Then we moved to Connecticut for a few years,

then Kansas City for a few years,

and then Connecticut again.

My mother and my father got divorced when I was four.

And my father raised us, my mother kind of vanished.

I had very little contact with my mother from the time

I was four, my little brother and I were pretty much

abandoned in a lot of ways.

My father was not the most affectionate or connected person

to his kids so I remember feeling very desolate

and lonely and confused when I was a little kid.

(soft music)

I had a transformative experience when I was 15 years old.

We had just moved to Darien, Connecticut

and I had decided I wanted to, after dinner,

walk to a candy store and buy myself some candy.

And I stopped at this convent that was along

the side of the road.

This convent had a mosaic of an Italian nun

surrounded by poor children.

It was lit up at night.

I stopped and suddenly it was like I was transported

out of myself.

I became aware of the universe as being held in love,

like everything seemed like love.

I didn't know how to understand it,

I didn't know how to explain it to myself,

but that night to me was like the most

critical night of my life.

It just sort of shifted everything inside of me.

Initially I had been very opposed to the idea

of organized religion but I was really looking for ways

to understand this love that I'd experienced,

looking for ways to connect to it, looking for ways

that other people in life had done it and so

I think that that was sort of what pushed me

towards Catholicism.

So this is our bedroom, and this is Milo and Sweetie,

my two beloved parrots.

Do you want to come out and say hello, Milo?

The priest I was seeing for spiritual direction

suggested that I start volunteering at this soup kitchen,

the Good Shepard House of Hospitality.

This was influenced both by Thomas Merton and by

Dorothy Day and the catholic worker,

and it just blew me away.

To be with other people that were motivated

by the same desire to put love in practice as I was.

And so I'm always thinking like how do I bring love

to these kids?

(soft music)

I think that when you're a small child

and your mother leaves you,

it's really hard to understand.

It's, you know, you think there's something wrong

with yourself.

I think that I have spent my life trying to prove

to myself that I'm a decent person and worthy

of being loved, that I'm worthy of being on this planet.

(upbeat music)

(laughing)

(chattering)

- I think it's really awesome to have a day

where we can all come together as clients, as staff,

a day where we can remember that we're all kids at heart,

we can all have a good time.

We thank you very much, thanks everyone for keeping it cool,

let's have some dessert and then let's play

some gay-ass games.

(cheering)

- Go!

(shouting)

(cheering)

- That was amazing!

- I just finished getting all my paperwork.

I'm going back to school, I'm gonna finish the last

of my credits, I'm dedicated.

I'm no longer in Sunset, I actually got kicked out

because I was working nights and they weren't really

too friendly with night schedules.

I expected it but still it was disappointing.

But I just kept moving after that.

I don't like to let things slow me down.

- What are you doing?

- I literally just did one pull, stretched and everything.

You should stretch.

We haven't really told many people about this

but we're training for something.

A program called the New York Initiative

and it's pretty much people who want to make a difference

in the world and who want to help other people

and you have to be physically able to protect yourself

to the fullest extent to be able to protect

other people.

Turn your head away so I don't kick you in the head.

(laughing)

Things are great now.

I've got back in touch with my family.

I just decided to call them.

She had the same number and I called and we spoke

to each other, she missed me, I missed her,

I told her what was going on.

I told her I got kicked out.

And she needed help 'cause she wasn't making the rent

and I told her I'm working and she's looking after me

and I'm looking after her.

We're like a team.

(soft music)

- Come on in.

(singing)

(playing piano)

- [Zaykeem] I still go to

Brooklyn Academy of Science and Environment.

- I was the music teacher and also

I did the attendance so I had to look for students

that were missing and I had a knack to find them

and to find out why they were absent from school.

- And it would be some days where I'd be missing

from school and I would get called into the office,

he would ask me why, and then I wouldn't tell him,

and that would be some of our first encounters.

And then during lunch I would sit and listen to him

teach the students sing and then occasionally

I would join in.

(singing and playing piano)

We had heard that he was in a car accident.

- It was really very painful because I got a grant

for instruments for the kids and then the accident happened.

And he was really depressed and he goes

I just want to sing and you're not in school

and we don't have this time and I said well come

to the house, I'll give you a lesson.

(singing scales)

The one thing I noticed, if he didn't come to visit,

he'd be on the street.

Try it again, la la la for me.

I have other friends too that come and help

so I was not alone, I have a lot of role models,

I mean, he's met authors, doctors,

other professionals who are just like him, just older.

I have to do a balancing act as a teacher,

I'm not his parent.

The thing I'm doing now is a stop-gap measure

til he eventually gets reunited with his family.

So you're looking crazy, that's not gonna help.

So try it again, whenever you're ready,

I know about your breath.

♫ Fly me to the moon

♫ Let me play among the stars

Breathe.

♫ Let me see what spring is like on

Breathe.

♫ Jupiter and Mars

♫ In other words

♫ Hold my hand

♫ In other words

♫ Darling kiss me

Now believe me that that was more convincing.

We just got this new voice.

That's a big voice.

It's going to be a magnificent voice.

(soft music)

(chattering)

- Rawr!

You bitches ready?

Let's talk let's talk.

(sing-shouting)

Tens across the board.

Do a little runway, do a little runway,

do a little runway pop.

Do a little runway, do a little runway, do a little runway.

(mumbles)

(sing-shouting)

- I don't know if you heard but a trans girl died in Harlem.

And I had seen her before and that stuff just like

freaks me out because that could have been

any of my friends or even me.

I can tell what people are thinking by the way they look

and the way they stare and I catch people like on the train

looking at me through the reflection in the window

of the train.

I always think the worst is gonna happen

because people are not tolerant of it in society

and the price of me being myself is death

because just like Islan Nettles, she just wanted

to be herself.

And you see what they did to her.

- So do you guys have personal limits for yourself though?

If you guys are in a relationship with somebody

and you are fighting a lot or they say something

super hurtful or they put their hands on you,

how do you guys know what your own limit is in it?

- The last person I was in a relationship with

that put their hands on me they ended up in the hospital

on vicodin the next day.

- He punch you in your face, you punch him right back,

or pick up what's next to you and hit him.

- Giselle, I need you to go.

(mumbling)

Giselle, I need you to go for the day, you're done.

- [Giselle] It wasn't even a threat, we were joking.

- [Woman] You just said you were gonna throw chairs

(mumbles) so I need you to go.

- I'm not going nowhere.

- It's time to go.

- I'm not going nowhere.

No it's not time for me to go,

it's time for you to get out of my face.

- It's time to go.

- It's time for you to get out of my face.

(mumbles)

So bye, bye, bye!

- Excuse me, excuse me folks, this is really important

information, as of tomorrow I've had to lay off

Shayla and Mariah.

I no longer have money to pay for them.

The money for homeless programs gets put on the chopping

block every year, it's getting tighter and tighter,

there's less and less money all the time.

So that comes down to us, that floats down to us

and so we've lost a number of contracts.

Astoria has lost all of its funding.

Unfortunately we don't have enough money

to keep Astoria open the way that we've been

keeping Astoria open.

It used to be that Saturdays and Sundays folks

who were in Astoria could stay in that space,

they can't anymore.

In addition to that, we're only gonna be providing

services here at the drop-in center from 9am until 7pm.

I realize that that impacts a lot of folks

who are in our housing.

Where am I supposed to go?

What am I supposed to do, my house doesn't open yet?

I know that it's cold outside and I wish that I could

provide y'all with a place to be where it's gonna be

nice and warm, but unfortunately I have to start

restricting our hours.

- I will tell you from first hand experience

from working with Carl for over 15 years,

keeping Astoria open is a major priority for him

and Carl is doing everything in his power

to keep those beds open.

There are staff people that worked here

that kinda know what you guys are going through

and have experience and are willing,

everyone is here, we don't get paid a lot of money,

we love what we do, and we care about you guys.

Though we're going through a rough time right now,

you know what?

We're going through it together.

Somewhat like a family and when tough times happen,

families buckle up, they do what they gotta do

to get to the other side.

Alright, thank you guys.

(soft music)

- Why, why, why?

You can't say why people suffer.

Who can know?

But to respond to suffering by easing somebody's pain,

that made sense.

This community ran the soup kitchen,

the Good Shepard House, where I first started

working with homeless people.

For me it was like the first time

I met real Christians and they told me about the service

and I would hitchhike up on Sundays when I was like

17 years old.

Father John has this extraordinary vision of God's beauty.

Which was real important to me as a kid.

When I became 18 I couldn't wait to get out of Wilton

and I spent a year in Washington DC at the

Catholic Worker House there

and it was a very violent, intense experience

and I think I was kind of ravaged by it and needed

to calm my soul down afterwards and I was here

for about six months trying to see

if I wanted to be a monk but I wasn't meant to be a monk.

- Loving and merciful God, by shedding his blood

for us our brother Jesus established the pascal mystery.

In your goodness, make us holy, watch over us always,

Jesus the Christ.

(holy choral singing)

♫ Have mercy oh lord

♫ Have mercy on us

♫ Have mercy oh lord

♫ Have mercy on us

Saving and compassionate God, your spirit guides

the church and makes it holy.

Smile with mercy on all church leaders.

Call their administrative procedures into question,

and if they cannot build for truth, peace,

justice and equality, let them at least not deceive,

not support discrimination.

♫ For those who serve in public office

♫ Let God who is holy wisdom guide their minds and hearts

♫ So that all persons may life in true peace and freedom

♫ We pray you oh lord

♫ Oh lord have mercy

Loving God, you know the longing in our hearts.

Redouble our cry for justice and grant to us

that stand before you peace of heart

so that we may spend our lives in love and patience.

- [All] Amen.

(soft music)

- I walk a lot, yes.

As a kid from upstate you get used to being

driven around everywhere and now in the city

I adapt very quickly to walking.

I was a very troublesome child.

Stuff that any kid would do but to a much higher level.

Constantly in trouble.

I was that child that parents told their child

to stay away from.

As it happens I am adopted.

My biological mother was seen unfit to raise me.

Drugs, alcohol, that took over her life.

So I was taken away and put into another household.

That's who I refer to as my mother.

People don't realize, they come to the city,

they have this plan, but you get distracted very easily.

It's the percentage that procrastinates,

it's the percentage that gets distracted,

and it's the percentage that constantly engulfs me

and believe it or not the bigger percentage,

the part that wants to succeed is never there.

I shouldn't say never but it's not there often enough.

And when it's there, it comes in those little spurts.

It's little moments and then I get, you know,

I get excited, I get motivated, and then it's gone.

And then I'm suddenly back to being the procrastinator,

the distracted kid, the kid that can't stay on track

and everything.

And that's the part I hate.

I see it, I notice it, and I'm like, I go to AFC

every day I'm like I'm never gonna be these people

but on a day to day basis I find myself back

at that same place, back at the same starting point.

And it's not a crossroads because, although other options

are considered crossroads but I mean I know

what my options are and I know where I need to go.

I just allow myself to fail.

And that's not cool.

My biological mother, she says to this day

that she regrets it but yet she's still

making the same mistakes.

And it's crazy because that's my mother

and the traits that I see in her I see in myself

and that scares me.

- I'm on my roof right now.

And I've just been feeling down lately,

stressed mostly.

And I'm not completely sure why.

I want to say that I'm stressed, got a lot of pressure

on me right now, I'm graduating, trying to get a job.

When summer comes I have no choice but to make progress

but I don't think that's what's stressing me.

I think it's something else entirely, honestly.

But I've no idea what it is.

- So I got suspended for three days

and it was because I didn't do my chore

and that was my third write up episode.

I got suspended and I went to the village, to the pier,

and I met my gay parents there and we hung out.

It is Miguel.

Hey.

What you doing?

One of my gay mothers, she took me to a hotel room

'cause this guy who's her friend really like

liked me or something and he said since you don't have

anywhere to go, let's just go to the hotel room.

And I went to the hotel room and I did not enjoy it.

Because we were up like the whole night

and they were doing drugs and stuff and getting crazy

and then he was getting really aggressive

and I guess he expected something from me

because he let me stay there but I didn't do anything.

And my gay mother was there the whole time

like if you feel uncomfortable we can leave at any time,

if he tries something with you,

'cause there was one point when she wasn't in the room

'cause she had gone to take a shower and I was

alone in there with him and he like pulled me on the bed

and tried touching me and stuff but I don't know,

it wasn't anything like that super serious.

I need to get over my internalized transphobia.

Because I haven't reached that point yet.

Even though I am not religious anymore

I'm still like if there is a god, why did this happen to me?

Like why did you make me transgender?

You put my parents through shit,

you put me through shit on a daily basis,

and it's just irritating,

I just want to live my life like normally

like everyone else.

(chanting)

- [Crowd] Not one more!

Not one more!

- When I'm standing here at this protest

abut the murder of Islan Nettles, it makes me think.

Ali was 22 when he got murdered.

Kiki was 24 when she was murdered.

Dionne was 23 when she was murdered.

It's like there's so little support for kids

in that age group, they're just really vulnerable,

they're really at risk.

- Use this moment to come together and make this (mumbles)

our community to demand justice and housing and healthcare!

- Astoria was funded by HOPWA which is

Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS

and it was the only funding stream that we had

that supported our kids who are between the ages

of 21 and 24.

The contract that we had ended and was not available anymore

so we are struggling to keep the shelter open.

Kids who stay there wait for up to six months

on a waiting list.

We right now have about 170 kids on the waiting list

to get into that shelter, and I would sooner cut my arm off

than shut that shelter down and put the kids out.

These beds are like life and death to them.

It's a shame that they're so desperately needed

but they are, they're desperately needed.

- [Crowd] No justice, no peace!

No justice, no peace!

- The grant that covered my salary ended

and was not renewed.

We've been struggling financially as an organization,

this year has been particularly challenging,

we lost a lot of funding.

So that's been a part of my leaving AFC.

All of my family is in Chicago so it's long been

a plan of mine to move back to Chicago at some point.

I think it was really exciting to get to meet

young people at the very beginning and then

to get to see some of their trajectories

which I've gotten to do and felt really fortunate

to get to see so that's been really special.

- Why am I leaving?

I started to think about this about a year ago.

I mean I think the move up to Harlem was a really

intense time.

I gave six weeks of notice to my clients

and so I've had six weeks of sessions to be able to

terminate and wrap up those relationships.

I hope that it's going to be a different kind

of ending for them, that there is a way to

sever attachment that isn't traumatic,

that doesn't reenact like those bad experiences,

the experiences of rejection or of abandonment

so again, giving a certain amount of notice

and showing up really consistently for

these final six sessions has been one way

that I felt like I could be responsible to them

in the process of letting go

'cause loss is a part of life, right?

(soft music)

- In the last year I've been able to get a job,

work full time, so it's really helped me to realize

that anything is possible.

I went from standing in the middle of the rain

down on Broadway Lafeyette, staring up

at New York City holding my bags to having a full-time job

and knowing where I'm gonna be,

knowing what's going on.

So that's a picture of my brother and my dad.

My mom sent me that, it's on my brother's birthday.

When I graduated from my internship

I invited my parents to come down

and they actually did come down.

We didn't mention anything about me leaving,

anything about me being gay, nothing at all that whole day

and then the next morning I went to say goodbye

and my dad goes we need to talk.

And I could tell he was getting very emotional

and his eyes were starting to water.

And my mom, she asked him, she said

do you need to go upstairs, do you want me to go upstairs?

He's like no, I want the family here, us three here,

we need to talk.

And I remember he started crying which is,

my dad's definitely a very emotional man,

but he doesn't cry very often.

And when he does, it's the same with me,

when he does it's 'cause he's feeling a deep emotion.

And we were just, we were talking and that was one thing,

that was probably the biggest moment where

I knew without a doubt that they love me, they do.

He said something to me that I don't think

I'll ever forget, I really, I just, I won't.

He told me that the last six months have been

really hard for him, not talking to me, not seeing me,

and it had been for me too.

I mean I miss them dearly.

And then he just, he hugged me and he cried

and he told me he was sorry that he ever let

anything get between his love for me.

And I think that's the biggest thing that people

need to realize is whether it be the child or the parent,

the parent or the child, is in the end it's,

we can only be responsible for ourselves.

I still love them, of course I do.

I even love my brother, he hasn't talked to me

for almost two years now and I even love him.

But I think it's also a very thin line

keeping things fully together.

I want to be able to talk to my mom about things

that are going on in my life, but I can't.

(soft music)

Benaiah was one of David's mighty men.

Benaiah was known for his bravery and Benaiah means

Jehovah hath built, peaceful son, and son of sorrow.

- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, the class of 2014

Briarcliffe College!

(cheering and applause)

("Pomp and Circumstance")

Next we have our associate's degrees.

(cheering)

- Melissa (mumbles).

Lisa (mumbles).

Vanessa Lopez.

Danielle Wardlaw.

(mumbles)

Janelle (mumbles).

(knocking)

(soft music)

- Welcome to our humble abode.

This is the bunk that I'll be occupying

for the next three months.

This is all me, all me.

You can't really do anything with

an associate's degree in business marketing, you know?

You need a bachelor's so my plan is to stay

at Briarcliffe, finish my bachelor's, two more years.

Alright guys, I'll be back.

- This is my teacher, Mr. Wu,

my most favorite teacher in the world.

- Hey what's up Giovanno?

I am privileged to be your teacher.

- I'm graduating because of him.

- No, what?

- Yeah, he did all my work for me.

(laughing)

Cheated and I paid him.

- I needed the money, teaching is a poorly paid occupation.

- But seriously, this is Mr. Wu.

Thank you Mr. Wu for everything.

I couldn't have done it without you.

- My pleasure Giovanno, my pleasure.

It really was.

- [Giovanno] I appreciate it, thank you.

- Not at all.

- Welcome to the Harvey Milk High School 2014 graduation.

(cheering and applause)

- [Giovanno] My long range plan is to go to college.

It's not how long you live but how you live.

I want to be remembered as someone.

I want to make a difference.

- To understand the kind of hope that I would have now

you have to understand the devastation that I've come from.

I just feel that if we, day in and day out,

continue to push and push and push

as we hit one obstacle after another after another,

the power of our love will overcome and we will prevail.

(cheering and applause)

Thank you all so much for being here with us tonight.

I can't tell you how grateful I am.

We're here for our homeless LGBT youth.

But we're also here for ourselves

as an LGBT community.

The LGBT community is considered different

because of how we love.

There's something remarkable about that.

When those street kids fought during the Stonewall Riots,

it was an act of love.

When people rose up during the worst years

of the AIDS crisis, and when we nursed one another

and cared for one another, and buried one another,

and fought for one another in the streets,

that was love.

(cheering and applause)

We are a people of love.

We are a people defined by love,

and we have to rise up as a people and demand,

demand that our movement be what our kids need us to be.

Everybody deserves a bed.

It's so simple.

I want to ask you to be with us.

Everybody deserves a bed.

There's no place like home.

(murmuring)

- Ladies and gentlemen I would like to welcome you all

to the fourth annual Ali Forney talent show.

Where you and sometimes me are the star.

(giggles)

We're gonna have a really good time tonight.

Do you like my dress?

(cheering)

You like it?

- [Katie] AFC is like a dysfunctional family in its own way

but it's a functioning dysfunctional family

and I worry a little bit about moving on from here.

♫ Of shower

♫ Of blessings

♫ Thou art scattering

♫ Full and free

♫ Showers the first

We come into this world believing that we're okay.

We learn that we're not okay from the messages

that we get.

If there's one thing that I'm always trying to do,

it's just to communicate, I see someone

and then everything that they show me about themselves,

like none of it is gonna make me reject them.

(applause)

You have to start from that basic sense of it's okay.

You're actually not broken or damaged or wrong in some way.

- Thank you very much.

Now I'd like to bring to the stage the Ali Forney

staff and intern.

♫ I get crazy when these clients try to shame me

♫ You been twerking

♫ (mumbles) I want you

♫ Chicken on rice, chicken on rice

♫ Feel like an animal with this staff all in my grill

♫ Stopping fights, stopping fights

♫ I want sriracha racha racha baby I do too

♫ Na na

♫ Can't keep your eyes off partition wishing I was you

♫ Na na

♫ AFC

♫ (mumbles)

♫ Baby I see

♫ We'll be alright

♫ Hey

♫ (mumbles)

♫ AFC

♫ We'll be alright

(moves to soft music)