On February 10, three Boston experts on LGBT elder issues were invited to attend a National Summit on LGBT Aging at The White House. Lisa Krinsky, Director, and Bob Linscott, Assistant Director of The LGBT Aging Project at The Fenway Institute and Janson Wu, Executive Director of GLAD, were among approximately forty LGBT advocates from across the country participating in the summit, which was co-sponsored by Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) and The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR).
The bulk of the summit was dedicated to five different panel presentations. Lisa Krinsky was a speaker on the first panel entitled Overview of the Housing Needs for LGBT Elders and the Importance of Training Providers. Krinsky spoke about the need for a broad range of housing options and stressed the need to bring cultural competency training to both housing professionals and mainstream elder resident populations to create safe, inclusive housing for LGBT older adults. Janson Wu was on an afternoon panel Educating Consumers on the Legal Landscape Regarding Housing Rights for LGBT Older Adults: How to Find and Advocate for LGBT Friendly Housing in all its Forms. Wu stressed that housing affects so many other aspects of the quality of life including health care and social isolation. He underscored the challenges still ahead of us due to the legal fragility that still surrounds issues like public accommodations, health care decision making, and caregiving. Other panels included LGBT Community Housing Models, Building LGBT Housing, and Government Policies that affect LGBT Elder Housing. The Keynote address was given by Jennifer Ho, Senior Advisor on Housing and Services, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The summit also featured a Listening Session for the White House Conference on Aging, which is held every ten years to create a National Aging Agenda. Bob Linscott testified during the Listening Session, which was chaired by Kathy Greenlee, Assistant Secretary for Aging, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services and Nora Super, Executive Director, White House Conference on Aging. Linscott spoke about the success in Massachusetts of utilizing Title IIIC Funds to make LGBT Friendly Congregate Meal Programs. The first one in the nation was created in Massachusetts in 2004 by Ethos, an Elder Service Agency in Jamaica Plain. Today there are only about 20 LGBT Friendly Meal Programs across the country and 75% of them are in Massachusetts. Several of these meal sites take place in housing facilities in Massachusetts and offer a unique way to transform existing main stream Senior Housing into LGBT Friendly Housing simply through the positive relationships with both parties that are forged through the meal programs.
Secretary Greenlee expressed interest in these programs as she has committed 20 million dollars to innovative programs in Title III C and hopes visit one of our meal sites when she and Super are in Boston in May for the Regional Forum of the White House Conference on Aging.
It was an honor for the Massachusetts leaders to be included in this historic summit. It was also a reminder of the amount of work that needs to be done. There is currently a severe lack of affordable inclusive housing to accommodate our country’s estimated 1.5 million LGBT elders. That number is expected to double by 2030 and the housing demands will rise as well.
Bob Linscott is Assistant Director of The LGBT Aging Project at The Fenway Institute, Fenway Health.
