New Boston housing development aims to meet needs of LGBTQ seniors

A new development in Boston's Hyde Park neighborhood will offer affordable housing to older LGBTQ adults.

The nonprofit behind the project, LGBTQ Senior Housing, says it's the first such development in New England. A groundbreaking is scheduled for June 17, and the first residents are expected to arrive in the fall of 2023.

Gretchen Van Ness, executive director of LGBTQ Senior Housing, joined Radio Boston host Tiziana Dearing to talk about the new building, which will be named "The Pryde."

Below are highlights from their conversation, which have been lightly edited.

On the speed of the development: 

"We're really kind of astonished. This is the first project that LGBTQ Senior Housing is doing in Boston, in all of New England. It's our first explicitly LGBTQ-welcoming senior housing. They tell us that from conception to opening the doors for affordable housing is usually closer to a 10, or 15, or even 20-year process, but this task force that became LGBTQ senior housing was formed about 7 ½ years ago. So we're doing this at lightning speed."

On the need for LGBTQ-welcoming senior housing: 

"We're talking about LGBTQ elders. The generation that grew up before there was a single anti-discrimination law in our country that protected gay people, when every single major religion in our country condemned us, when the psychiatric association said that we were mentally ill. This is the generation that also survived the AIDS crisis."

"We know that there are about 65,000 LGBTQ elders in Massachusetts right now. They're much, much less likely than other older adults to have family, community, church support. So having a place to go that's affordable and welcoming, where they can live their authentic lives, is critical for their safety and health and wellbeing."

On what will make the Pryde welcoming: 

"We are turning the old gym in this high school into a 10,000-square-foot public community center. It's very unusual that affordable housing of any kind has this sort of public space. ... I think a lot of people don't know that there's no LGBTQ community center in all of Boston; despite our progress and despite our leadership in this area over decades, we don't have a place where our community can come together. So we're going to create the de facto LGBTQ community center for Boston."

"Our founders have reached out to every single LGBTQ community organization and institution around Boston and Greater Boston. So the great people in the Boston Gay Men's Chorus know what we're doing. The History Project knows what we're up to. ... LGBTQ+ Elders of Color has been on board since the very beginning. ... And there'll be a full-time program and services director just for the LGBTQ community in the Pryde and for the community generally."

On interest from beyond Boston: 

"We've received phone calls and emails and messages from folks who are trying to survive where there's no community support ... So one of the things we're doing is hopefully raising funds for a state-of-the-art AV and acoustics infrastructure in the building so all of our programming and services will be accessible for people no matter where they are in the world, in the country, and no matter what their abilities are as well."

On being a model for other communities: 

"We've heard from folks in Cambridge, in Somerville. I had the most amazing conversation several months ago with a group in Canada that's also looking at doing the same thing. ... What we're hoping is that we can, from this experience, provide a model for how to create affordable senior housing that's also LGBT-welcoming."