[This column appears in the March/April 2022 issue of Boston Spirit magazine. Subscribe for free today.]
The concerns for losing one’s independence later in life are pretty universal for older adults, but those who are LGBTQ hold even greater worries. At the top of that list is the fear that they would have to go back into the closet or even face harassment and discrimination if they needed to move into a mainstream long-term care residence. Thankfully, Massachusetts is the only state in the nation to require LGBTQ competency training for the majority of state-licensed elder service providers. Unfortunately, that doesn’t cover all providers, nor does it guarantee that LGBTQ seniors will be accepted in these settings by the other residents.
Recently, Bob and Wilbur Kingston-Parrott, who have been a couple for 51 years, had to make that difficult decision regarding their housing. Wilbur had been suffering from multiple health problems and was having problems taking his many medications. They were also finding the typical tasks of daily living were getting overwhelming. Wilbur said, “Just lugging the laundry up and down four flights of stairs was killing me, and there was no way we could stay on top of the cleaning.” But the decision to leave their beautiful, subsidized Kenmore Square apartment (at $205 per month) and move into a rest home was an easy one because they had one thing most people, gay or straight, don’t have. A destination.
For years, the couple had been attending Out4Supper, a monthly supper club for LGBTQ older adults hosted at Mount Pleasant Home in Jamaica Plain. This program, sponsored by Ethos, an elder service provider in Boston, was one of the 24 LGBTQ friendly congregate meal sites across Massachusetts. Bob adds, “One evening after dinner, we had a tour of the building and got to see one of the rooms. We both knew right away that this would be our choice when we could no longer live on our own.” Mount Pleasant Home (MPH) is a rest home, which is a long-term care setting that falls into a category between a nursing home and assisted living. A rest home provides medication administration and personal care attendants, which are not offered in assisted living settings. A nursing home provides a higher level of long-term care with skilled nursing and doctors on site.
Bob and Wilbur, who have always been very social, noted that their friends worried about how they might fit in if they moved into a rest home that was filled with older straight people. Once again, this was not your typical rest home. The executive director of MPH, Kathy Seaman, is a lesbian. The director of admissions, Jennifer Latkins, is also a lesbian, as well as at least three other members of their administrative staff. But the icing on the cake for Bob and Wilbur was that 11 percent of the residents at MPH are LGBTQ.
The group of seven includes Caroline Cutler, Tia Hurley, Ed Jacobsen, John Kelly, Bob and Wilbur Kingston-Parrott and John Reynolds, who is currently in rehab. The group recently gathered in their library to reflect about their experiences living openly gay and lesbian at Mount Pleasant Home. They were all a bit winded since the conversation followed MPH’s monthly happy hour, hosted by Will Smalley, one of the gay members of Kathy’s staff. Before the happy hour was over, Will managed to get most of the group on their feet and dancing in a conga line.
The first question posed to this group was the obvious one. So many people, including their own friends outside, want to know if they all get along with the straight people in the building. Seven smiles broke out across seven faces. Ed said, “Of course. Everyone is family here. We get along with everyone.” John Kelly added, “It is so welcoming here, it’s not just this group, it is all the other people here too. They are just so friendly, and they understand that we are gay, and they accept it.” Bob said, “The hardest thing we had to face when we moved in was who to sit with at mealtime. Everybody wanted us to sit with them.”
In a later interview, Kathy Seaman pointed out that Mount Pleasant Home has been working incredibly hard over the last several decades to become a truly welcoming and inclusive residence. “Currently, a rest home like Mount Pleasant Home isn’t mandated by the state to have any LGBT training, but we have been doing that work on our own for a long time.” That work began with her predecessor, Merlin Southwick, who hired Kathy as an out lesbian to be his director of admissions, and it was also Southwick who gave the greenlight for Out4Supper, the LGBT supper club, to be held at MPH. There were many other hands along the way that contributed to MPH’s current success as an established and safe home for LGBT older adults, including Ethos, The LGBTQIA+ Aging Project at Fenway Health and Boston’s Age Strong Commission. But Kathy attributes a key factor in the overall acceptance from the other residence to the very clear message that every potential applicant receives in their first interview. “We tell everyone who comes in here that MPH has a very diverse community of backgrounds, races, religions and sexual orientations. We tell them about the LGBT Supper Club and that we have a number of openly gay and lesbian residents. We are very clear about telling prospective people that if they have any concerns about this type of community then MPH is not for them.”
When the group was asked how they first learned about MPH, each had a unique story to tell. Caroline first encountered MPH when she was visiting a friend from church who lived here. “I knew right away that there was something special about this place, and I wasn’t even out then. I came out after I had been living here and saw all the wonderful people attending that supper club.”
When Caroline told Kathy she was going to come out at 70, Kathy offered to bring her to her very first Pride parade and to the Aging Project’s Silver Party Pride Dance. At that dance, Tia sat at the table with Kathy and Caroline. Kathy told Tia about MPH, and six months later she moved in!
Ed lived in one of the senior buildings in Jamaica Plain and was a regular participant at Out4Supper. He loved the feelings he had when he was at MPH and couldn’t wait for the next supper. Finally, he realized, “Why don’t I just move there so I can be here all the time?” He has never regretted that decision. John Kelly was in the middle of searching for a place to move to when he scheduled a tour at MPH. “When I arrived, the first thing I noticed was the rainbow sticker on the door, I thought to myself, this is a really good sign.” The others laughed and started counting off all the rainbow flags and posters around the building!
Wilbur added that the straight people love the rainbow theme too. He is an avid crocheter, and his specialty is making rainbow scarfs. “Now everybody here wants one of my rainbow scarfs. Right now, I am making a rainbow bedspread for a straight woman who keeps asking me for one!”
Bob and Wilbur get very excited when they have visitors because they can’t wait to show off their rooms. They could have had a room together, but the couple opted to have separate rooms so they wouldn’t have to share a bathroom. They have designated Bob’s room with their living-room furniture and the 75-inch TV as their primary social space. Wilbur loves to show off his enormous shower and jokes, “You could easily fit seven or eight guys in here!”
Unfortunately, the experiences of this group of LGBTQ seniors at a public rest home isn’t typical of most places, but it does provide hope that more like this will emerge once other residences see how well this has worked socially. For now, when every one of this group of seven close their eyes at night, they are filled with such gratitude for finding their way here. Ed ended the meeting in the library by saying, “I want to tell you, I have never been happier in my whole entire life than I am now living here. I feel so lucky.”
For more information about Mount Pleasant Home, please contact Kathy Seaman, executive director, at (617) 522-7600.
Bob Linscott is assistant director of the LGBTQIA+ Aging Project at The Fenway Institute.
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