Lake View Patch
August 18, 2012
Lake View will soon be home to an innovative senior community, but officials explain the complications behind planning for the first generation of older gays and lesbians.
From Lake View Patch:
Chicago will soon break ground on one of the first affordable housing centers in America meant for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered seniors, and to some, the adventure is seen as a new frontier.
With construction slated for this winter, the senior housing development at 3600 N. Halsted in Lake View is addressing a booming need for the aging LGBT community.
Brian Richardson is the Director of Public Affairs for the Center on Halsted, a community group in Lake View dedicated to the LGBT community. He says addressing the aging population has been a concern and a challenge for some time.
“This is the first generation that fought at Stonewall,” Richardson said. “They were the first generation that woke up everyone about AIDS. They came out of the closet first and really changed the world for generations behind them. They’re also now the first generation, in large, who are aging.”
Joined by the Heartland Housing, a nonprofit specializing in affordable housing, the Center on Halsted will open a six-story LGBT-friendly senior facility directly next to its community center in the heart of Boystown.
The Chicago Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners voted in favor Sept. 18 of the $21 million project. It will feature almost 80 units for seniors with retail space on the first floor.
And while half of the new housing center will be built on a vacant lot, the other half will renovate and use the more than 100-year-old vacant police station, a move that has deeper meaning than preserving a historical building.
“That is the same building where some of our seniors were once arrested and held for being gay,” Richardson said. “Now they’ll be living in an LGBT home that’s sprouted from that very police station. That is a fantastic metaphor.”
The project is slated to be finished sometime in the spring of 2014, and according to Richardson, everything down to the paintings on the walls will be catered to the gay and lesbian crowd. While the new center won’t discriminate based on gender identity or sexual orientation, it will be clear to seniors that community life at this home will be very different.
The Center on Halsted is currently holding focus groups with LGBT seniors to identify what aspects should be different than a traditional housing facility. Survey results show the generation with long history just wants to feel accepted.
“If you go to most residential communities for seniors, there are pictures of straight families on the walls,” Richardson said. “There are activities like the Sadie Hawkins dance where the girls ask the guys. Those types of memories aren’t always good ones for this generation… So it’s about making a place where you can be trans, gay or a lesbian.”
