Up to 40% of homeless teens are LGBTQ. Soon, Indianapolis will have a home for them.

While less than 10 percent of teens identify as LGBTQ, as many as 40 percent of youth who experience homelessness do. But there are few services to help these teens and few safe places for them to live.

This summer the state’s first transitional housing for homeless LGBTQ youth will open in the Mapleton Fall Creek area. Called Trinity Haven, the home initially will have room for 10 youths and, eventually, capacity for as many as 15. Still, that will come nowhere near to stanching the need, said Chris Paulsen, executive director of the Indiana Youth Group, which offers programming for the LGBTQ youth population.

“I would say we could easily fill 10 Trinity Havens today,” said Paulsen, an ex officio member of the home’s board. “Actually, we could fill 20 Trinity Havens.”

1 in 4 youths who come out to family know homelessness

About 1 in 4 youths who come out as LGBTQ to their families finds themselves at least temporarily homeless, statistics show. While some of those do reunite with their families after the initial shock, others do not and must scramble to put a roof over their heads. Some exchange sex for shelter.

Trinity Haven will step into that gap and offer up to two years of housing for its residents, who will be between the ages of 16 and 21. The home, which will be staffed around the clock, will help residents learn how to eventually become self-sufficient, said Jenni White, the home’s founding executive director.

“The goal of Trinity Haven is to intervene before young people experience the trauma of chronic homelessness and then help them pursue the skills they need to thrive in the world,” said Leigh Ann Hirschman, Trinity Haven board chair.

Residents must be at least 16 so they are old enough to sign a lease when their stint in the home concludes, she said.

LGBTQ home grew out of church mission

Trinity Haven grew out of Trinity Episcopal Church’s long tradition of incubating projects with a mission. Decades ago, St. Richard’s Episcopal School grew out of this impetus as did Project Home Indy, which provides transitional housing for teen mothers. More recently, the church opened St. Nicholas Early Learning, an affordable day care center in the neighborhood.

Just as the church started looking for its next project, the Rev. Julia Whitworth arrived as the pastor from New York City, where she had become aware of the pervasiveness of homelessness among LGBTQ youth in that city. She started asking about local services available for this population and found the answer was, not much.

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Then the Indiana Youth Group moved to a new, bigger headquarters in the neighborhood, and the church’s idea for its next big project coalesced. The church had already purchased the home for another project but realized it would be the ideal space for Trinity Haven, Whitworth said. A previous owner renovated it for use as an Airbnb and put in 13 bathrooms, most with shower or bath.

Indiana Youth Group, which offers a program for youths during the day, will contract with Trinity Haven to provide programming for the home.

One might not think of a church as the most obvious impetus for services for the LGBTQ population but that’s precisely the point, said Whitworth, who is aware that others may discriminate against teens in the name of Christianity.

“As a progressive faith institution we have a particular call to be agents of healing and to show a different image of Christianity to LGBTQ people,” she said. “I would love for this to be a model for other progressive faith communities.”

Here's the layout of the home for LGBTQ youths

Residents of the home will eat together in the first-floor dining room, and the original living room, with its fireplace, will be a common gathering area. Two rooms off the living room will serve as staff offices.

Eventually, the home will have two kitchens to store enough food to feed hungry teens, White said. The residents will do the cooking along with the staff.

All the bedrooms sit on the second floor. Some residents may double or even triple up, while the smallest rooms will be singles, most likely with one of the older residents, White said.

The third floor will have additional space for the teens to study, hang out or watch television. The basement will have a game room and storage.

At all times at least two staff members will be awake to handle any crises that arise.

School-age students will be able to attend the high school of their choice.

Trinity House plans to contract with the Indiana Department of Child Services for some of the beds, White said.

DCS spokesperson Noelle Russell declined in an email to comment on the project, saying that the home has not yet submitted its application for a license.

How will residents be grouped? It may not be simple.

Starting a program like this raises some thorny questions, such as how to form rooming groups. The answer may not be as simple as placing boys in one room and girls in another, White said. She and staff are still working out what best practices in this situation are.

“We will have to figure this out together,” she said.

Applicants will have to go through a screening process to ensure that the home has a mix of personalities that mesh together, Hirschman said.

While Trinity Episcopal Church has been instrumental in the creation of the home, there will be no religious requirements or expectations that residents worship there, Hirschman said.

Still, she said, the home grows out of a recognition that religion has contributed to the problem of homeless LGBTQ youth.

“The church understands that it has an essential obligation to heal some of the damage that religious malpractice has caused some of these youth, that’s one of the reasons that we started this home,” she said.

Contact IndyStar reporter Shari Rudavsky at 317-444-6354 or  shari.rudavsky@indystar.com. Follow her on  Facebook and on Twitter: @srudavsky.