I’ve reported recently about the problems some LGBTQ Parkies may face looking for a safe residence in a senior citizen community (click! click! click! click!). Today’s New York Times writes about gay-friendly senior apartments opening up around the country. Now the problem is meeting the demand: sometimes 1000 people apply for a gay-friendly residence that has just a few dozen openings.
The progress is taking place on two fronts. First, residences for everyone (straight and gay alike) are becoming more sensitive to, and accepting of, LGBTQ issues, thanks to organizations like SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment), which provide training for staff and administrators. For example, at the New Jewish Home for senior citizens in the Bronx, a male resident who used to be denied the right to wear fingernail polish now is encouraged to do so – and someone on the staff helps him apply it.
Second, new resident communities targeting LGBTQ folks are opening across the nation. From the article:
The two new Sage buildings — the 145-unit Ingersoll Senior Residences in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and the 82-unit Crotona Senior Residences in the Bronx — were financed under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 10-year housing plan aimed at creating and preserving 200,000 units of affordable housing. Both are expected to open in summer 2019 and to have long waiting lists.
More than 1,000 people have already expressed interest in becoming among the first to move in, Mr. Adams said. A lottery to determine the first batch of residents will open in January 2019.
“We know for sure that the demand for these apartments is going to outstrip the supply,” he said, which seems to be a common problem across the United States.
Similar apartment buildings are opening (or have opened) in Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere. Typically, the residences describe themselves as “gay friendly” not “gay exclusive,” which means that straight people can live there, too. For example, at the John C. Anderson Apartments in Philadelphia, about 15 percent of the residents do not identify as LGBTQ .
To reiterate: the problem going forward will be to meet the demand for this kind of housing, as more and more Gay-be Boomers enter their twilight years.
