A friend who is in a nursing home in OK

needs information on GLBT-friendly assisted living facilities. A woman has recently landed in an assisted living facility there and is being shunned (at the least) and feeling vulnerable. My friend is the only person who will sit at the same table with her at the dining hall and worries that the hateful attitude of other residents will escalate. I did an online search and found only one place (in NM) to check into. Can anyone steer me to a clearing house or source for GLBT assisted living facilities? Thanks for your help.

This should help:

Gay, Lesbian Senior Citizen Organization to Hear AARP President at National Conference
SAGE launches new ad campaign: "There’s no expiration date on a full and active life.”

Oct. 7, 2008 – The leading organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender senior citizens kicked off a new advertising campaign in New York yesterday, and today announced the program for the Fourth National Conference on LGBT Aging, which will be sponsored this year by AARP and MetLife.

The meeting will be October 12 - 14, at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge.

The conference - It’s About Time: LGBT Aging in a Changing World – by the organization Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Elders (SAGE), will hear a keynote address by AARP President Jennie Chin Hansen.

<snip>

For more information and to view the ads, visit the SAGE Website – click here. http://www.sageusa.org/specialevents/home.cfm?ID=28

For more information and to register for the conference, visit: www.sageusa.org.

More:
http://www.seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Features/2008/20081007-Gay-Lesbian.htm


About SAGE
(Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Elders)
SAGE is the world's oldest and largest non-profit agency dedicated to serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender seniors. Since its inception, SAGE has pioneered programs and services for seniors in the LGBT community, provided technical assistance and training to expand opportunities for LGBT older people across the country, and provided a national voice on LGBT aging issues.

In 2005 SAGE became the first official LGBT delegate at a White House Conference on Aging. For more information, please visit www.sageusa.org.

I just came from the SAGE website. What a great organization!

resource that would be, though, if there was a list of places like that.

If I can get a list together, I will definitely share.

find a better living situation.

She used to be a Republican and was raised as a Catholic. Then, her son came out when he was in his 50s and she has become a tireless advocate for gay and lesbian issues in the past decade or so (she's 89!). I'm so proud of her! The woman she is trying to help is a newcomer to the retirement center who came there after working most of her life on a ranch. She is only 68 but has degenerative osteoporosis and is stuck in this place with, as my friend puts it, a bunch of prejudiced rednecks! We'd like to spring her and get her to a safer place where she can be loved and cared for without fear.

the catty and cliqueish behavoir that occurs in them when Paulie's mom lives in one.

My friend accuses her fellow seniors of 'not thinking about anything' and 'giving in to their most bigoted impulses." She's such a lady!

It's sad to think that, all the way at the other end of their lives, that people have learned so little from the journey.

Inexcusable, but pathetic. These are people who are waiting to get their reward in Heaven. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet that the only reward they are getting they are presently enjoying from their like-minded, small-minded peers. One of the residents even laid hands on the woman when she outed her to the group. That's why we are trying to find a friendlier place for her.