Niche Biz: Gays Senior Programs

Detroit Free Press:

A group of friends and acquaintances, most of them getting up in years, sits around a long table, drinking coffee, eating cookies and chatting.

It could be the scene at any senior center — which is exactly what the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley was going for in May when it opened its gay senior center.

“We knew there was a need,” said Gay Alliance interim Executive Director Anne Wakeman. As the U.S. population ages, “we’ve got senior programs in every town and this huge shift in our population,” she says. “These services are absolutely necessary.”

In May, the White House convened in Miami a first-ever conference on aging in the gay community. New York City-based SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders), an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender older adults, opened the nation’s only full-time gay senior center this year.

Chicago’s gay social service agency Center on Halsted unveiled plans this year to renovate an old police station in Chicago and create an affordable housing complex for older gay adults.

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