As a teenager, Ceyenne Doroshow, the founder and now-executive director of Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society (G.L.I.T.S), said she was rejected by her family because she identified as a woman.

Things got so tough that, at one point, she said she thought about ending her own life to stop "the discrimination and pain."

Eventually, Doroshow said her family's rejection of her gender identity left her with no choice but to run away from home and live a life of homelessness.

"I found more peace in the streets than I could ever find at home," she said. "As a teenager, where would that leave me? It would leave me open to all the elements of the world, people that were not good for me."

Doroshow is not alone in her struggles.

One in five transgender people have experienced homelessness during their lives, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality, and more than one in 10 transgender people have been evicted from their homes because of their gender identity.

A 2018 Human Rights Campaign report revealed that 41% of Black transgender respondents reported experiencing homelessness at some point in their lives, a rate five times higher than that of the general U.S. population.

Multiple factors contribute to the elevated rates of homelessness in the LGBTQ community, including family rejection, violence and ongoing discrimination.

Black women advocates for the transgender community, like Doroshow and Kayla Gore, have set forth on a mission to fight housing insecurity by providing safe homes for LGBTQ youth.

Building tiny homes

Gore, who identifies as a Black transgender woman, is the co-founder of My Sistah's House, a grassroots organization dedicated to providing emergency housing and resources to transgender people in need.

Gore, who partnered with her friend Illyahnna C. Wattshall to start the organization in 2016, said that seeing many transgender adults face discrimination when seeking help from homeless shelters led her to create a new housing option.

Goodmorningamerica