Four seniors laughed around a cafeteria table, a mid-day ritual at one of Los Angeles’ few LGBTQ+ centered elder housing facilities. Jo Sun and Luis Zapata and two old friends ate lunch together daily in the bustling dining room of Ariadne Getty Foundation Senior Housing. It’s often quieter, but “hamburger day” had enticed an unusually large group of seniors to come in for the free meal—among hundreds of no-cost elder services offered between the facility and the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Center next door.
Los Angeles became home to the nation’s first affordable rental housing project for LGBTQ+ seniors in 2007, a model that’s now growing in popularity across the U.S. to address the unique challenges of queer elder housing insecurity.
“LGBTQ+ elders came of age at a time that was really specific around violence and fear,” said Sydney Kopp-Richardson, the Director of the National LGBTQ+ Elder Housing Initiative at the advocacy organization SAGE. “Because of this history in terms of both interpersonal and systemic violence, LGBTQ+ elders experience as a group higher levels of social, financial, physical, mental health disparities.”
Advocates hope that housing-based affinity spaces for elders will holistically address the side effects of isolation and health decline commonplace among LGBTQ+ seniors. And as the population of Americans over 50 who identify as LGBTQ+ is expected to double by 2030, demand for these identity-centered senior housing facilities is also on the rise.
Just three years after Getty Housing opened to residents, the strategy appears to be working, as the elder communities within its doors have formed strong networks of “chosen family” and mutual support. […]
Click here to view the full piece. This story was originally published by NLGJA on September 7, 2024.
