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(Handout 2) LGBT Senior Center Article

The document discusses a housing development called Stonewall House in New York that provides affordable housing for LGBTQ seniors. Many residents faced discrimination and housing instability in the past. Stonewall House offers a supportive community for residents and helps address the challenges of aging while also being part of the LGBTQ community.

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20 views

(Handout 2) LGBT Senior Center Article

The document discusses a housing development called Stonewall House in New York that provides affordable housing for LGBTQ seniors. Many residents faced discrimination and housing instability in the past. Stonewall House offers a supportive community for residents and helps address the challenges of aging while also being part of the LGBTQ community.

Uploaded by

andobandofilifando
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Inside a Home for L.G.B.T.Q. Seniors: ‘I Made Friends Here.

’
Shunned when they were younger, older L.G.B.T.Q. adults have found a
community at a senior home create for them by SAGE, a New York advocacy
group.
By Gregory Schmidt and Photographs By Todd HeislerApril 22, 2022

She was a teenager growing up in Queens when her mother kicked her out of the house for having a

girlfriend. It was the 1960s, and being gay was “taboo,” Diedra Nottingham remembered. With nowhere to

turn, she wound up sleeping in parks and hallways.

Over the years, Ms. Nottingham, now 71, struggled to maintain stable housing, sometimes living with friends

or relatives, sometimes in a women’s shelter. Epileptic seizures kept her from holding a steady job,

hampering her ability to pay rent.

She met a social worker who put her in touch with SAGE, a New York advocacy group for L.G.B.T.Q. older

adults. In 2020, Ms. Nottingham settled into a new one-bedroom apartment in the Stonewall House, the

group’s L.G.B.T.Q.-friendly housing development in Fort Greene. “There are people like me in this building,”

she said.

Aging in New York is not easy. Many older residents have little to no savings and a limited budget to pay for

food, health care and shelter. Fears of discrimination can complicate matters for aging L.G.B.T.Q. Americans,

many of whom lived through a time when being open about their orientation could lead to physical violence,

arrest or getting fired from a job. In a 2018 survey of adults age 45 and older who identified as lesbian, gay,

bisexual or transgender, 34 percent said they were worried they would have to hide their identity to gain

access to suitable housing, according to AARP.

SAGE was founded in 1978 to help address those challenges in three ways: support for elders, training for

caregivers and advocacy of public policy. Today, the mission is still the same: “to lift up and honor and

celebrate the elder pioneers of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.”

In recent years, affordable housing has become a priority for the organization, which opened Stonewall

House in December 2019, and Crotona Senior Residences in the Bronx last March. For Ms. Nottingham and

other residents, the timing has proved crucial. After plunging in the pandemic, rents in New York are once

again climbing to new heights, pushing many out of apartments they can no longer afford. Basic necessities

are soaring as inflation hits its fastest pace in more than 40 years.

At Stonewall House and Crotona Senior Residences, roughly a third of the apartments are set aside for

formerly homeless adults, and potential tenants go through a screening process to meet income
requirements, Mr. Adams said. “People are just on the edge and need a little support that comes in the form

of permanent housing,” he said. “A building like this allows people to get on the right side of that margin.”

At Stonewall House, about a 10-minute walk from Downtown Brooklyn, visitors to the community center are

greeted with a bulletin board that displays the history about the Stonewall riots in 1969 in Greenwich

Village, which is considered the start of the gay rights movement in the United States. The center has weekly

movies, field trips and special events: Pink and blue balloons left over from a recent Transgender Day of

Visibility celebration floated listlessly in a corner of one of the multipurpose rooms.

Residents and neighbors start gathering in the center at 10 a.m. for a hot breakfast. “Other centers offer

lunch, but I wanted a different approach,” Ms. Chigewe said. “They stay for fellowship.”

In the cafeteria on a recent morning, Barbara Abrams, a 77-year-old who identifies as L.G.B.T.Q., dined on

pancakes, bacon and apple juice. She walks 20 minutes from her home every weekday for breakfast and

stays at the center until 5 p.m. “This means that much to me.” she said. “I made friends here.”

Howard Grossman, 66, and his husband, Brad Smith, 61, live together in a one-bedroom apartment in the

center.

The couple met on Halloween night in 1982 in Florida. They bought a house in Fort Lauderdale in 1994, and

when same-sex marriage was recognized in Washington, D.C., they drove to the nation’s capital to get

married on Aug. 11, 2014.

But bills and stress were mounting. Mr. Smith worked hourly corporate jobs, sometimes getting laid off

when business slowed. After surgery to repair an aortic dissection in 2016, Mr. Grossman left his job working

in customer service for Wyndham, a hotel and resort company, and they sold their home. They had some

money from the sale of the house and in Mr. Grossman’s 401(k), but they had no concrete plan for

retirement.

“You are on limited income but expenses keep going up,” Mr. Smith said. “You get to a point where you

wonder what you’re going to do.”

On top of health and financial worries, they wanted a safe environment with social programs for gay seniors.

When the lottery for Stonewall House opened up, they applied immediately. After their names were drawn,

they moved in February 2020. SAGE provides not only the housing, but the social services they need.

“This building and this concept has become a nurturing community,” Mr. Grossman said.

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