Territorial Haul: A Saint Paul-Based Alliance Helps Retiring Gay Seniors Get Real

According to one less-than-reliable source, it’s a place where the residents are forced to make lanyards and moccasins, where the residents are fed Seafood Medley-brand cat food for dinner, where the residents are locked into their rooms and forced to pretend to be having fun for brochure photos. This place is the bane of the goldiest Golden Girl’s existence.

This place, of course, is Shady Pines Retirement Home. 

The threat of consignment to an “old folks’ home” can make for a dependable sitcom callback gag, but it can also reveal primal fears that people experience when considering, passingly or not, their twilight years. One might be tempted not to take a chance with such consideration, to ignore it, to languish in the warm safety of Not Now … but another option is within easy reach, taking the redoubtable work of a non-profit organization dedicated to a specific sort of empowerment. 

As stated on their website, “The LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance was launched in June 2020 by leading members of the real estate industry. Influential real estate professionals and allies joined with other members of the LGBTQ+ community to create a new voice in real estate.”

That new voice manifests most resonantly as the Alliance’s LGBTQ+ Real Estate Report. Gleaned from forty sources, one of which is the Alliance’s own annual survey, this year’s version, the document addresses some of the unique difficulties and dilemmas that beleaguer unicorns put out to pasture. In fact, according to the 42-page document, “more than 70% of aging LGBTQ+ Alliance members believe it is harder for an LGBTQ+ person to choose a place to live in retirement than straight people.”

Statistically speaking, an Alliance member is likely to have greater equity than a heterosexual American elder, the report supposes, and many members consider liquidating that equity in order to springboard into their laborless dotage. That springboard might well sproing members to a new state … or even a foreign country. 

These members belong to a single, grey generation, one to whom no small collective debt is owed.

“Baby Boomers are … credited with changing the face of LGBTQ+ life in our nation,” notes the Alliance’s outgoing president Anita Blue in a recent press release. “Baby Boomers suffered, endured, fought for equality, broke barriers, and improved the lives of so many.”

But all society-wide improvements come at a broad and sneaky cost. “Now that so many in our community are aging, we wanted to gain insight into what retirement living might look like for LGBTQ+ people,” Blue concludes. 

The primary function of the Alliance, as its name implies, is bringing community members together for a common cause … and the second resource serves as a means to that laudable end.

“[The LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance] created LGBTQplusHomes.com to connect current and potential LGBTQ+ home buyers and sellers with our more than 4,000 members of the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance, one of the largest LGBTQ+ trade organizations in the nation,” explains incoming Alliance president Justin Ziegler during an exclusive interview with Lavender. “Our members are either part of the LGBTQ+ community or allies who recognize the challenges and concerns our community faces when buying or selling a home.”

One queer-specific challenge of selling is the consideration of where the retiree’s next residence will be. In a nation where half of its states legally allow housing discrimination, this is no small exercise.

“We need to know that LGBTQ+ people are welcomed,” Ziegler insists. “Having an agent who understands these and other concerns is critically important because you will need to be comfortable with, and trust, your real estate agent.”

If that understanding reaches its limit, another understanding might come to the fore.

“Our members are also skilled in recognizing and handling instances of discrimination if it were to occur during the process,” the new president assures. “No matter where you are looking to move, or you simply want to learn about the buying, selling or lending process, our members are available to help.”

That help is available to anyone willing to take a chance on turning Not Now into Now, achieving the happiest twilight home possible, free of extorted lanyards or extracted moccasins or even cat food for dinner. As one Golden Girl told another, “The bottom line is, if you take a chance in life, sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad things happen … but honey, if you don’t take a chance, nothing happens.”

LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance
LGBTQplusHomes.com
READ THE ALLIANCE’S FULL LGBTQ+ REAL ESTATE REPORT HERE:
https://realestatealliance.org/static/2024-lgbtq-real-estate-report.pdf