Breakfast is a special time of day at Stonewall House, an affordable-housing development in Brooklyn, N.Y. The 145 apartments are designed for seniors who are LGBTQ and their allies, as is the senior center in the building, which is operated by SAGE, a nonprofit that provides services to LGBTQ older adults. Each morning, residents and community members gather for scrambled eggs, coffee, and more than a few laughs.
The New York City Department for the Aging funds the $3 meal program at Stonewall House — as it does at other senior centers — and residents asked the department to offer breakfast rather than lunch or dinner. “They wanted to feel community the first thing in the morning,” says David Vincent, chief program officer at SAGE.
It’s an opportunity many residents didn’t have before moving to Stonewall House. LGBTQ people are often more socially isolated that their non-LGBTQ peers, Vincent says, because they’re twice as likely to live alone and four times as likely to have no children.
Keeping residents connected during the height of the pandemic was challenging. Programming at the senior center moved online, but SAGE staff continued working in person. “Our staff went door-to-door in our building to 145 units to make sure the residents had food, had their medications, and made sure that they were doing OK,” Vincent says.
Now programs at the senior center — such as Thai Chi classes and dance parties — are back in person, and residents are planning to celebrate Pride together this month. The celebration is especially sweet for those who live at Stonewall House — a place where elderly LGBTQ people feel safe to gather and be themselves. As Vincent put it, “Every day is Pride at Stonewall House.”
This article originally appeared in Philanthropy.com on June 7, 2022.
