A woman sleeping at a Detroit homeless shelter woke when an unexpected visitor entered her room. This visitor was a man who identified as a transgender woman, and according to Dr. Chad Audi, president and CEO of Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, the individual had arrived at the shelter with another transgender-identifying male.
Both had been offered their own accommodations, but neither was satisfied, Audi explained. They wanted to share a room with female residents.
Shelter staff refused to allow it to protect the women under their roof. But later that night, one of the men entered that woman’s bedroom to question why she wouldn’t agree to share her sleeping quarters. The woman didn’t even know him, Audi told IW Features.
“That’s a violation of her own privacy,” Audi said.
The transgender-identified men allegedly challenged the shelter’s handling of the situation, including filing a grievance with an outside agency, Audi said. But he maintains the shelter was on the right side of the law, arguing the transgender-identified men’s demands violated the shelter’s conduct rules for single-sex spaces, which apply to everyone regardless of their “gender identity.”
For Audi, this was just one example of an increasingly complex problem homeless shelters face across the county: how do you accommodate people who identify as transgender without also compromising the privacy and safety of women––many of whom are escaping violence and abuse?
Audi has spent nearly three decades working with Detroit’s homeless population, so he knows these women on a deeper level.
In 1997, he began volunteering with Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries to help prepare the organization for a financial audit while he had another job offer pending. That job promised him substantially more money, but after he heard the testimony of a woman who had achieved a year of sobriety following nearly 25 years of addiction, Audi felt compelled to stay.
“I don’t regret it,” he said. “I believe it was 100% an answer to a calling because I came and I witnessed how God had transformed certain people’s lives.”
First, he joined the ministry’s finance department, then eventually became its chief operating officer, and in 2004 was named president. At the time, Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries operated just two sites on a budget of approximately $4 million. Today, Audi said, the Christian nonprofit operates 22 sites and serves roughly 2,400 people daily through its emergency shelters, transitional housing, addiction treatment, and other programs.
Among those seeking assistance are women fleeing from domestic violence, sex trafficking, and profound economic hardship. Some of these women arrive with their children, and others alone after having experienced years of addiction or homelessness.
No matter why a woman comes into its care, the organization’s domestic violence shelters keep their addresses confidential to prevent abusers from locating victims. Their women’s facilities offer shared bedrooms with bunk beds and communal bathrooms with individual shower stalls.
“So that’s why we keep the women comfortable by not bringing any other gender in,” Audi explained.
But maintaining those sex-segregated accommodations has become tricky as federal and local policies concerning “gender identity” have shifted. Under the Obama Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) adopted a 2016 rule requiring shelters participating in certain HUD-funded programs to provide access consistent with an individual’s “gender identity.” This rule placed new obligations on single-sex shelters––including those with shared sleeping and bathing facilities––and was a troubling change for those standing firm on biological reality.
Audi said his organization experienced an increase in transgender-identifying individuals seeking placement in women’s facilities approximately two years ago, which he attributed to federal housing policies under the Biden Administration.
But rather than automatically rejecting men who arrive seeking shelter, Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries developed a process that could provide emergency assistance while still preserving separate accommodations for female residents.
“When somebody comes in, especially transgender, and we know that they are transgender, we at the beginning, if it’s at night, it’s an emergency, we don’t turn anyone away because we’re low barriers and we want to make sure that everybody’s protected,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean the men and women are integrated.
According to Audi, transgender-identifying men can be provided with a separate room for the night. Staff coordinate access to shared facilities, and the following morning, case managers arrange placement with an organization that offers services specifically for LGBT individuals.
“We would not put them in a room with the women,” Audi said.
But not everyone agrees to the arrangement. Audi recalled several instances involving residents entering others’ private spaces or even requesting sexual favors––conduct he said resulted in their removal under the shelter’s general rules.
Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries has also faced scrutiny from government agencies over its policies affirming biological reality, from the city of Detroit itself to HUD under the Biden Administration.
“But we showed them our rules and we showed them what we stand for, and we showed them that we’re not being discriminatory, we’re being much more protective, and this is a general rule does not violate the federal rules that are in place,” he recalled.
Audi said the organization has been careful to dot its I’s and cross its T’s, revising its intake paperwork, strengthening its policies, and documenting incidents more carefully. They even consulted legal counsel too, and he described these efforts as necessary to protect the organization and the women it serves while continuing to offer assistance to people in need.
The federal policy landscape has since shifted, however. In February 2025, HUD Secretary Scott Turner directed the agency to halt enforcement actions under the aforementioned 2016 Equal Access Rule. Then, in April 2026, HUD proposed further changes replacing “gender identity” provisions with sex-based requirements, including for certain single-sex shelters.
That said, the proposed changes are not a finalized rule.
Audi argued that changes in D.C. don’t ease the challenges faced by shelter operators, especially when local governments maintain their own requirements.
“Even if you get out of your government funding, you’re still subject to the rules of the city requirements because you’re classified as a public service,” he said.
For Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, the debate extends beyond government compliance, as Audi said shelter operators must keep what female residents have experienced before arriving at their doors at the forefront of their minds.
“No law, no people, nobody should be demanding how females should be treated or how they should be comfortable,” Audi said.
He believes the needs of women escaping male violence are often too overlooked when policymakers set up these blanket admissions requirements for shelters.
Audi also expressed his worries about the legal liability shelters assume when residents’ privacy or safety is compromised.
Still, his preference is to find accommodations appropriate to each person’s needs rather than require unwilling women to share their intimate spaces.
“And the women in particular are a very vulnerable population, especially whether they’re single or they have children. We need to protect them, and we can’t just bring somebody into their space,” he added.
Despite controversies surrounding transgender policies, Audi insisted that Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries has no intention of abandoning its commitment to helping homeless people––even if they identify as transgender. It continues to provide emergency accommodations, coordinate referrals, and work with better-suited service providers. Audi believes those options allow Christian shelters like his to serve people as part of their duty, without disregarding the concerns of female residents.
After nearly 30 years at Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, Audi sees this issue through the same faith-based lens that first drew him into the organization. And his goal is still the same: helping people rebuild their lives while treating them with dignity and respect.
“This is a very important and sensitive subject, and a lot of people don’t like to talk about it because it’s a taboo,” he said. “At the end of the day, ‘This is my mother, this is my sister, this is my daughter.’ We need to look around this way.”
