Trans Rescue Action was once located in the heart of Los Angeles County’s “gayborhood” of West Hollywood. During our 3 year commitment there, we were able to provide over a dozen trans folx a temporary place of refuge and permanency if they chose to stay as long as they preferred. Now that Trans Rescue Action has moved operations to northern New Jersey, we find ourselves in a new effort to establish another headquarters in Jersey City.
Trans Rescue Action is fund raising to pay for a new apartment with multiple rooms, and is asking for your assistance. Our last headquarters was a single room studio apartment where, at one point, an upwards of 6 people shared beds and on additional mattresses on the floor. This time, we would like our refugees to have more privacy and a larger space to cook and commune.
We started in West Hollywood, CA. At first, I was contacted by a friend to help find an organizer a safe place to crash after experiencing violence. Instead of continuing the task, I immediately suggested they can crash at my place - a one bedroom studio with a full kitchen. I wasn’t working at the time, but that didn’t matter as a sibling needed relocation assistance.
From there, we started considering what it'd look like to use my spot as a crash landing for others who at least need a place to land until they could find their next place to go, or they could stay as long as they needed/liked. We never charged rent, we never expected anything in return. The only thing they needed to focus on was their own healing.
Trans Rescue Action became a formal group by the end of 2023 after assisting over a dozen trans folx escape their violent situation and get to their next place of safety. We searched for others who would also open their homes to trans refugees. That was proven to be much more difficult in southern CA as the mentality of scarcity is quite rampant. All in all, we were able to find some who would temporarily house trans refugees.
We also assisted in which ever goal they had for a mutual aid event such as cooking and handing out hot meals to unhoused folx in Plummer Park next door, gathering and distributing harm reduction supplies, acquiring test strips for drugs like fetynol, pregnancy tests, COVID tests, non-emergency medial kits, roadside car equipment for our unhoused folx in vehicles as shelter, and so much more.
Our goal now is to have at least a 3 bedroom apartment in close proximity to NJ Transit hubs as well as grocery stores within walking distance. The average cost of a 3 bedroom apartment in Jersey City is about $3500, and we will need a security deposit of about $5250 totaling our initial move-in expenses as $8750. To provide us with additional funds and security for furnishing the apartment, we are requesting a total of $15,000.
This amount will help us with utilities expenses, an additional month’s rent for breathing room, furnishing the apartment with basic necessities, and most importantly to help trans refugees in their efforts to escape their violent situation.