CEO Kelsey Louie on Asian American and Pacific Islander Month

We are so thrilled and grateful to our partners at the Supportive Housing Network of New York  for featuring The Door CEO Kelsey Louie for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.

As part of their AAPI Heritage Month social media series, Kelsey spoke with a representative at the Network about his Asian identity and heritage and why destigmatizing homelessness is so important:

QUESTION: What does this month mean to you, and what motivates you to serve those in the supportive housing community?

ANSWER from The Door CEO Kelsey Louie:

It’s important to be able to embrace all aspects of our identities while also feeling like we belong. For me, whether it’s AAPI month, Pride month, or any other month of the year, that means being proud to be an out gay Asian-American man, the son of Chinese immigrants, and a native New Yorker. Like many people of color, I have spent different parts of my life ricocheting between feeling “not Asian enough” or feeling conspicuously “too Asian.” I’m not fluent in Chinese; I was born in Brooklyn and don’t have an accent. At the same time, I eat with chopsticks any chance I get, and I love playing mah-johngg on the weekends with my aunts. 

In truth, being Asian is a significant part of who I am, along with other equally essential aspects of identity. Above all, it’s critical for me to live and move in the world with pride and openness about all that I am. I’m also very aware that others—young people especially—benefit from seeing community leaders embrace all their various identities with joy and pride. 

At The Door, we take that same approach to how we connect all the young people we serve. That’s what we mean when we say, “Everyone is welcome here at The Door.” Whatever your identities, we offer a warm, safe, inclusive space. That includes destigmatizing homelessness and ensuring that young people who need housing, as well as supportive services like food, clothing, laundry, showers, and other essentials, aren’t afraid or ashamed to seek out all The Door services they need. They’re multi-faceted human beings with dreams and ideas—and they can’t and shouldn’t be reduced to being defined by their most immediate need or current struggle.

Learn more about our supportive housing programs and our supportive services for runaway and homeless youth and young people experiencing housing instability.

To learn more about The Door's CEO Kelsey Louie, check out his bio on our staff leadership page.