A new emergency shelter opened in Houston last Monday to support unhoused LGBTQ+ youth. Asia’s House will give young people ages 15 to 17 a place to sleep, filling a gap as the city’s first temporary emergency shelter specifically for queer and trans youth, Chron reported.
Courtney Sellers, Executive Director of Grace Place, a nonprofit supporting homeless queer youth that partnered with the city’s LGBTQ+ community center to establish Asia’s House, said the shelter also provides a safe space for teens who are too old for standard youth shelters yet still too young for adult shelters. Sellers reportedly explained at a press conference that until now, the city had no emergency shelters “where someone under 18 could present on their own to receive emergency overnight service.”
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“This is for somebody that has nowhere else to go,” Sellers added, explaining that the shelter will also help youth find connections to other support programs and safe spaces.
Asia’s House can accommodate six youth at a time, each with their own bedroom. The goal, Sellers said, is for young people to stay approximately three to six nights while employees work to reunite them with their families if it is safe to do so.
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The name Asia’s House honors the late Asia Foster, a Black trans woman who was a dedicated member of the Grace Place community before she was murdered at 22 years old.
Foster was found dead on Friday, November 20, 2020, which was also the Transgender Day of Remembrance. “It saddens and pisses us off that we’re making another post about a [Grace Place] youth taken from us by anti-trans violence,” said a statement from Grace Place at the time. “Asia was outgoing, funny, and she could put together a read that left everyone around her scrambling to pick up their jaws.”
At the shelter opening, Sellers said Foster “often talked about a desire to advocate for other youth in the area. She wanted to use her experience to advocate for better services for youth, especially shelter and more safe places to be.”
Avery Belyeu, CEO of the Montrose Center (the city’s LGBTQ+ community center), said the organization will also provide programs to teens at Asia’s House with the goal of “wrap-around care.”
“How do we help that family that they’re being reunified with to then learn how to be affirming, work through any barriers they have about how to support that young person?” Belyeu explained. “It’s a real opportunity for collaboration and helping to keep that young person both stably housed but also to increase the affirmation they’re receiving from their family.”
Spaces like Asia’s House are especially critical in states like Texas, where political leaders are working overtime to strip trans youth and adults of their essential rights. Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has made his crusade against trans rights a centerpiece of both his tenure as attorney general and his campaign for the Senate. The Movement Advancement Project gives the state a score of -6.75/49 on overall LGBTQ+ policy and a -8/26 on gender identity policy.
Beyond that, LGBTQ+ youth make up as much as 40% of all homeless youth in the country, even though they are only 9.5% of the population, according to the National Network for Youth. LGBTQ+ youth are also over 120% more likely to experience homelessness than non-LGBTQ+ youth, making resources like Asia’s House extremely important.
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