Four seniors laughed around a cafeteria table, a mid-day ritual at one of Los Angeles’ few LGBTQ+ centered elder housing facilities. Jo Sun and Luis Zapata and two old friends ate lunch together daily in the bustling dining room of Ariadne Getty Foundation Senior Housing. It’s often quieter, but “hamburger day” had enticed an unusually large group of seniors to come in for the free meal—among hundreds of no-cost elder services offered between the facility and the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Center next door.
Los Angeles became home to the nation’s first affordable rental housing project for LGBTQ+ seniors in 2007, a model that’s now growing in popularity across the U.S. to address the unique challenges of queer elder housing insecurity.
“LGBTQ+ elders came of age at a time that was really specific around violence and fear,” said Sydney Kopp-Richardson, the Director of the National LGBT Elder Housing Initiative at the advocacy organization SAGE. “Because of this history in terms of both interpersonal and systemic violence, LGBTQ+ elders experience as a group higher levels of social, financial, physical, mental health disparities.”
Advocates hope that housing-based affinity spaces for elders will holistically address the side effects of isolation and health decline commonplace among LGBTQ+ seniors. And as the population of Americans over 50 who identify as LGBTQ+ is expected to double by 2030, demand for these identity-centered senior housing facilities is also on the rise.
Just three years after Getty Housing opened to residents, the strategy appears to be working, as the elder communities within its doors have formed strong networks of “chosen family” and mutual support.
“The magic that we see amongst LGBTQ elders, to take care of one another when there have been people in their lives that have rejected them or harmed them,” Kopp-Richardson said. “I think it’s something that’s really beautiful in these spaces, no matter what kind. Looking out for each other is a pretty common theme that we see amongst LGBTQ+ elders and in their search for support and supporting one another.”
Jo, a fast-talking social butterfly, was the first of the group to move into Getty Housing in 2021. Her one bedroom apartment is decorated with the homemade jewelry she sells at Christmas time and chosen mantras like “thank you for showing me this issue is already solved” pinned on her front door—a piece of Jo’s daily process of manifesting.
Jo’s neighbor is undergoing cancer treatment, so everyday she feeds his cat. She makes large pots of food and gives out the rest to other residents because she hates to cook for one. Jo doesn’t use a cane, but when an acquaintance gave her eight they’d found while cleaning out a home, she got to work distributing them at the facility—now, she only has two left.
“I tell everybody, ‘hey guys, we’re all here, none of us get out of here alive,’” Jo said. “While we’re here, let’s help each other. We all help each other with our skills and our talents, because we all have skills and talents, man.”
Luis moved into his studio apartment at the Getty facility in 2022. So far, he said, it’s one of the “best places I’ve ever encountered in my life.” When he’s not racing motorcycles or hitting the golf course, he takes portrait photography of subjects throughout Los Angeles, including other Getty residents.
Among the tenants, Luis takes care to organize outings into the city such as weekly trips to jazz night at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. These trips, whether to the beach or to the Hollywood Bowl, stave off the isolation Luis said he sees too often among seniors.
“I’m not the official activity guy, but I’m basically the one that makes things happen,” Luis said. “I try to draw all the seniors out of their apartments, because a lot of them don’t like to come along. But when I see them, I go, ‘Look, we got these activities, right? Let’s go together.”
On Wednesdays, Luis hosts a pool class that draws three non-resident seniors into the facility. They’ve been meeting for about two years now, but Luis still wins just about every round.
Drawing on a life-long love of the game, Luis recommends strategies and analyzes the other players shots throughout their moves.
Connections like this made beyond the gates of the residential facility are a sign of success for the Getty complex supporting its elder tenants.
“That’s important in any kind of affordable housing to be a community space, but particularly for LGBTQ+ elders,’” Kopp-Richardson said. “At times it’s not just LGBTQ+ people, but people are drawn to the programming because there is such camaraderie and kind of community being formed.”
Under the federal Fair Housing Act, housing developments cannot be limited to a single identity group. As a result, a handful of residents at the Getty identify as straight and cis-gendered, and are welcome to receive services at the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Center as well.
“Particularly in these buildings, straight and cis people who might be taken aback by that level of care and this unique approach to living together in housing that is part of the purpose of creating spaces like this” Kopp-Richardson said. “And so in the mission and intention of creating safety for one group of people, you are inherently creating a safer space for everyone that lives there.”
Beyond the residential facility, the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center also offers dozens of services for registered individuals 50 years of age and over.
Howard Shore doesn’t meet the minimum age of 62 to apply for Getty Senior Housing, but he was one of the dozens of locals lining up to receive free produce at the center’s monthly farmer’s market.
He initially came to the center to join the bereavement group after his mother died at the end of July, and now partakes in weekly programming.
Howard commutes from the neighborhood of West Adams where, he said, the lack of a vibrant queer social scene can leave him feeling isolated. Kopp-Richardson said displacement from hubs of queer life is commonplace among older LGBTQ+ adults. Historically-LGBTQ+ neighborhoods, like Chelsea in New York City or West Hollywood in Los Angeles, are no longer affordable for many of the people who would have called it a social center.
“Part of the work is recognizing the impact of displacement and gentrification on places that have historically been communities for many groups, and not just LGBTQ+ people but for Black communities, for Indigenous communities, for many kinds of identities,” Kopp-Richardson said. “But we do see the impact of displacement as meaning that many people are leaving places that were once places of refuge. Places where LGBTQ+ people once flocked to—because they were escaping harm—are now not affordable places to live.”
At the Getty Houses, many tenants receive vouchers or other subsidies to support their rent payments, making the facility drastically more affordable than other homes in the same area of Hollywood. For Luis, who is living on a fixed income like most seniors in the building, living in the neighborhood would otherwise be financially out of reach.
“Housing is something that is super important for older people, because they don’t usually have the means to pay that kind of rent they’re charging here,” Luis said. “Right across the street, they’re charging even from three to five thousand.”
The waitlists for both senior living facilities partnered with the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Center are closed to applicants, but some interested applicants may still join the waitlist for accessible units. The Center offers a 90-minute Pathways to Housing workshop on the first Thursday of every month, which offers attendees the resources necessary to pursue affordable housing in the city. The center also hosts weekly drop-in hours to answer questions about housing on Tuesdays, and application assistance on Wednesdays.
“We’re living in a really unique time where there is a kind of growing recognition of, you know the housing instability and the very existence of LGBTQ+ elders and their housing needs, and there’s growing culture shift in aging care and in senior service kind of arenas, and growing kind of cultural competency trainings.” Kopp-Richardso said. “All that is really positive and wonderful.”
As for Jo and Luis, neither plan to leave Getty Housing anytime soon. They’ll keep eating lunch together, under draping garlands of pride flags, and getting to know their neighbors, old and new.
“If you talk to them and you’re kind and you’re courteous, you can learn really cool stuff,” Jo said. “We all have a story here, and that’s what I like about this building.”