The Official Launch of Our National Housing Initiative
Our new national LGBTQ+ older adult housing initiative is up and running! On February third we welcomed housing leaders from across the country for a panel discussion launching a five-part strategy to alleviate the housing crisis impacting LGBTQ+ older people throughout the U.S. An album of images from the event is online here.
Speakers included marriage equality icon and former SAGE board member Edie Windsor, who recalled working on housing issues as early as the 1980’s, as well as Jennifer Ho, Senior Advisor for Housing and Services at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Ho affirmed HUD’s support for the effort, stating that “the LGBTQ+ community’s needs must be front and center” as HUD expands senior housing across the country.
The panel also included Cheryl Gladstone of Enterprise Community Partners; Melissa Rothstein of the Equal Rights Center; David Cleghorn of HELP USA; Kathleen Sullivan of the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Center and Sherrill Wayland of SAGE Metro St. Louis.
The panel’s geographic diversity mirrored the national scope of the initiative, which offers five key strategies:
- Building LGBTQ+ elder housing and sharing SAGE’s expertise from such projects
- Training existing housing facilities to provide housing in an LGBTQ+-welcoming, non-discriminatory manner
- Changing public policies to clear the way for more LGBTQ+ elder housing and bar housing discrimination against LGBTQ+ older people
- Educating LGBTQ+ older people in how to look for LGBTQ+-friendly housing and how to exercise their rights
- Expanding LGBTQ+-friendly services available in housing sites across the country.
We hope you’ll sign up for updates from SAGE online here and stay in touch as this critical initiative moves forward!
