Three girls crowd around the huge mirror in the dining room of Carmen’s Place to touch up their make-up and perfect each other's wigs, preparing for a Thursday night out. Father Louis Braxton sits down in the chair next to them and challenges them to a fight over bangs once again.

"You want to know what the bang fight was about. I think they wear them to hide behind their bangs. To hide yourself. I think that women come with different hair lengths, but they all want long hair. They all want to look like Beyonce," Braxton said.

He has been running the Astoria homeless shelter that primarily supports transgender and gay youth for about five years.

"Father, of course we want to look like Beyonce. We're young," one resident named Michelle said as she brushed another resident’s wig.

The shelter’s focus is to house young adults who have no home and identify as transgender or gay.

In the next room a resident name Carolina stirs dinner, and more young residents pour inside. It is difficult to imagine that many of these young residents have only known each other for a few weeks or even a few days. But what's more difficult is the familiar feeling that they all might be put back out in the cold when the shelter's lease expires in two weeks. Braxton said he still has no housing prospects in sight.

"I'm a priest of the altar. I didn't go out and look for anybody. They just came. Suddenly we had six people sleeping in the church basement," Braxton said.

He was the priest at St. Andrews Church in Astoria from 1999 right up until it was closed last year. Instead of abandoning Carmen's Place, which was op­erating out of the church basement, Braxton found the residents a new home.

"We have no resources. This city is not helping us," he said.

The shelter signed a lease on a small apartment in Astoria with funding received through private donations last year. When Braxton talked to the landlord about renewing the lease, the landlord wanted Braxton to take in only four people at a time. The shelter currently houses 10.

"So, we're up against a wall now. We're looking for a house," Braxton said. "We're moving on faith. The space is just too small. The office is in the kitchen. The plumbing is inadequate. There's no room to counsel someone privately without everyone in the shelter knowing, because many of these kids have serious problems. But the real reason is, I turn away so many kids."

Most of the young adults arrive at the shelter after they no longer qualify for foster care. They are generally between the ages of 17 to 24.

"They typically come to us with bleeding feet because what happens is, they're teenagers growing and nobody's getting them new shoes. The first thing I have to do is take them out and buy them new shoes," he said.

In exchange for shelter and food, residents help with the cooking and cleaning. Residents are also required to attend one of the two Sunday sermons that Braxton chaplains every week if they are in the building.

"I don't force them to have faith," Braxton said. "I just make them leave the building if a service is going on."

The young people also have an 11 p.m. curfew during the week and a 2 a.m. curfew on the weekends.

"We only have one person still working the streets,” Braxton said.

"When we first started, almost all of the kids came from the street and from sex work."

If the residents miss curfew, they will not be let back in until 8 a.m. the next morning, but Carmen's Place will not kick them out.

Douglas Rivera has been staying at the shelter for two weeks. His mother threw him out of her house when he was 15 because he told her he was gay. Now 20, he finds himself between jobs, unable to pay rent and with nowhere to turn but Carmen's Place.

"I was really skeptical because I heard all these horror stories about shelters, but when I walked in, I felt at home," Rivera said. "It's a step. I got a job today."

Resident Nicole Haymes, 21, has been living at the shelter for about two months. She came out as transfeminine when she turned 18. Haymes said she also battles mental illness.

"I’ve had bipolar and schizophrenia since was 5 years old," Haymes said.

"The family thinks they're just a bad kid, but really it is just untreated bipolar disorder. About a third of the kids we have, that's the real problem," Braxton said.

"Many of the kids in the shelter have had blunt trauma to the head, so if you give them a glass of juice, they'll spill it," the priest said. "Many of them suffered from extreme physical abuse long before they came here. A sixth of the kids that we have would be considered developmentally disabled."

Perhaps the shelter's most famous graduate is Terry, also known as "Sexy Techno Boy." He appeared on the television show "America's Got Talent" last summer.

"I took Terry to the airport and put him on the plane, and he said, 'I don't want to go,'" Braxton said about sending him off to the filming. "I used to wake the kids up with this," he adds as he blasts Terry's music while moving to the rhythm in his chair.

Terry moved out of Carmen's Place in April and currently lives in an apartment in the Bronx and holds down a job. Braxton reminisces over the days leading up to Terry's departure.

"My favorite moment is when they get to the point where they have that look in their eyes that says, 'Old man, I don't want to listen to another thing you have to say,' and they pack their bags and say, 'I'm outta here,'" he said. "That is when I feel really proud."