How the Head of a Shelter for Young L.G.B.T.Q. Adults Spends Sundays
Wendy Kaplan is the director of Trinity Place Shelter, which houses up to 10 young people at any given time — most of them transgender men and women of color — and steers them toward permanent housing, as well as professional or educational goals they set for themselves.
The shelter, an independent nonprofit, was originally a pilot project of Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan, and still occupies its basement on the Upper West Side.
It lets residents stay up to a year and half and welcomes individuals over the age of 21, a typical age cutoff for many youth shelters.
A social worker, Ms. Kaplan described her job as “the opposite of a 9 to 5” since the shelter’s hours of operation are at night and she does at least some work seven days a week.
